HDD on X300?

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Foxhills · #1 Post by **Foxhills** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 1:21 pm

Anyone knows if there is going to be a HDD option for the X300 in the near future? W/o any choice of that would be a deal breaker.

aaa · #2 Post by **aaa** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 2:52 pm

If they do, it's going to be 1.8", and those suck. A 1.8" HD was often the dealbreaker for the X40/X41.

beq · #3 Post by **beq** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:08 pm

A new 1.8" HDD could be faster I suppose. But yeah, the 1.8" HDDs on my old X40 and X41 Tablet laptops are sooo slow. My X300 is a pleasant change...

P.S. How reliable is the new 7mm thin DVD burner on the X300? I'm afraid I might snap something if I put too much pressure snapping a disc down into the tray.

#4 Post by **bill bolton** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 7:04 pm

aaa wrote:If they do, it's going to be 1.8", and those suck. A 1.8" HD was often the dealbreaker for the X40/X41.

The technology is current 1.8" HDDs is nothing at all like what was available when the x4x models were in production.

Cheers,

Bill B.

tirant · #5 Post by **tirant** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 8:54 am

1.8'' HD will albays be slower, but newer models now come at 5400rpm. I don't think they could be a problem.

#6 Post by **shfawaz** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 3:39 pm

There has been talk and links posted pointing to a 120Gb 1.8" HDD X300 Thinkpad that was posted on a foreign university order system for students. This is something that has been rumored for a long time, however I'm hearing rumbles that the price for the 120Gb unit isn't much cheaper than the 64Gb SSD. Personally I'd rather pay for capacity than speed.

If my 80Gb HDD MacBook Air is any indication, we've come a long way from the dreadful 1.8" 4200 RPM Hitachi drives that were installed and available on the X40/41 Thinkpads. Painfully slow and constantly churning. Boot Up times on X41's is 3-5 minutes from Power to control. My Macbook air drive is 4200RPM, and obviously slower than the SSD counterpart, but for a $1,000 more and 20Gb less, I'll pass. Although I haven't tried the SSD MBA, I'm satisfied with the speed of the HDD and don't really notice any real system slow-down contributed to the HDD like I do on the X41.

I don't even think that 120Gb should command that much more a premium, and hopefully it wont. But an April announcement seems to be rumored release date for the X300 with this drive. Maybe Tuesday?

madana · #7 Post by **madana** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 11:51 pm

http://sdd.toshiba.com/techdocs/PR2008- ... 0drive.pdf

TOSHIBA INTRODUCES HIGH-PERFORMANCE 5,400 RPM 1.8-INCH HDDS WITH MICRO-SATA CONNECTOR

New 1.8-inch Products Feature High Capacity at 120GB and 80GB and Enhanced Performance for Ultra-Portable PC Solutions
...
Toshiba's 120GB MK1216GSG and 80GB MK8016GSG 1.8-inch HDDs are designed to the latest SATA 2.6 specification and incorporate the new industry-standard micro-SATA connector. Features include native command queuing, staggered spin-up and hot-plug capability. These ultra-slim storage solutions deliver both high performance and power efficiency, providing computing capabilities traditionally found in desktop and notebook PCs - all in a lightweight design at 62 grams. Toshiba's 1.8-inch HDDs feature an 8MB cache to optimize read and write performance and fully utilize the 489 Mbits/sec data transfer rate for a powerful computing experience in thin and light mobile computers.

I wonder if this little thing will fit into X300.

Regards,
Madana

#8 Post by **ryengineer** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 6:12 am

madana wrote:snip....I wonder if this little thing will fit into X300.....snip

It will:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 090#393090

akao · #9 Post by **akao** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 3:01 am

So do the SSD's and the motherboard of the x300 use SATA or a micro-SATA connector?

It seems like it might make sense to buy the X300, and sell the SSD on ebay, and just buy a cheap 1.8" until the SSD's come down in price.

#10 Post by **erik** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 9:51 pm

akao wrote:So do the SSD's and the motherboard of the x300 use SATA or a micro-SATA connector?

micro-SATA

schmaud · #11 Post by **schmaud** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 6:08 am

Foxhills wrote:Anyone knows if there is going to be a HDD option for the X300 in the near future? W/o any choice of that would be a deal breaker.

http://www.studentenrabatt.ch/...0000634D

120GB 5400 rpm

it is page with special offers for swiss students.

mod edit: long link shortened
mod note: please update your email address

akao · #12 Post by **akao** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 1:04 am

I am really impressed with the speed and snapiness of the X300, and I think it is entirely because of the SSD. Just looking at the SSD / HD benchmarks for the Macbook Air, the SSD has application start up times that are half or less of the HDD version. Incredible.

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3226&p=15
(They used the same MBA, but switched the HD).

To me this says the market needs to push harder on reducing hard drive latencies, and not on other things like quad core 3Ghz processors or 1Ghz FSB's.

Aroc · #13 Post by **Aroc** » Thu May 29, 2008 1:10 pm

Although not a Lenovo Thinkpad, I have a Dell Latitude D430 in which I swapped the stock 80GB 1.8 inch 4200 rpm drive for the 120GB 1.8 inch 5400 rpm drive. The performance difference is noticable (though, surprisingly the 4200 rpm drive wasn't all that bad). The technology has gotten better.

#14 Post by **shfawaz** » Thu May 29, 2008 7:56 pm

Aroc wrote:Although not a Lenovo Thinkpad, I have a Dell Latitude D430 in which I swapped the stock 80GB 1.8 inch 4200 rpm drive for the 120GB 1.8 inch 5400 rpm drive. The performance difference is noticable (though, surprisingly the 4200 rpm drive wasn't all that bad). The technology has gotten better.

Just curious where you bought the drive and how much it was.

Aroc · #15 Post by **Aroc** » Fri May 30, 2008 6:35 am

shfawaz wrote:Just curious where you bought the drive and how much it was.

It was part number 341-5732. I bought it directly from Dell on Apr 2, 2008 for $166.59USD plus shipping and tax. It came with the ZIF connector and the corresponding mylar/rubber slipover "caddy." (I'm not 100% positive the slipover was made of mylar and rubber, that's just was it felt like on first glance).

#16 Post by **shfawaz** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 9:11 am

Aroc wrote:
shfawaz wrote:Just curious where you bought the drive and how much it was.
It was part number 341-5732. I bought it directly from Dell on Apr 2, 2008 for $166.59USD plus shipping and tax. It came with the ZIF connector and the corresponding mylar/rubber slipover "caddy." (I'm not 100% positive the slipover was made of mylar and rubber, that's just was it felt like on first glance).

Does anyone know if a micro-sata interface can be added or purchased for this drive to work with the X300?

#17 Post by **gator** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 3:33 pm

http://www.techpowerup.com/61978/Comput ... ptops.html

#18 Post by **shfawaz** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 7:58 pm

Toshiba just announced a 5400RPM 1.8" 160Gb drive today. Supposedly available in August. Appears to have a micro-SATA interface which means they should work in the X300 given they are 8mm thin.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stori ... 170&EDATE=

#19 Post by **erik** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 10:15 pm

just think, you could use a handful of them and make the world's smallest RAID array.

kyokurider · #20 Post by **kyokurider** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 5:38 am

Hi everyone,

Well after debating with myself, i am not keen in paying the amount of money it is asked for the X300, not in these days where now hw is [censored] cheap (talking about reasonable hw of course, not the cheapest).
The only contenders now are the macbook, the X300 and the Dell XPS1330.

I have a PB 15" which i am pretty happy with but is a PPC and my job is urgently requiring an intel powered machine.

The X300 looks really good but the price tag is so high, i would like to know if theres any news in case theres an updrade comin soon, if prices will vary or not, in case somebody has any info, cause otherways is gonna fall from my list, as the price here in Spain is ridiculously expensive.

So any news would be helpful, thanks all of you.

Regards,

morgandog · #21 Post by **morgandog** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 5:40 am

Has anyone heard any rumors about whether Lenovo will offer an option for a larger SSD (maybe 128gb)? I need a new laptop and want an x300 (or t400 if they materialize), but I cannot deal with a 64gb drive. An SSD sounds like a nice option, but only if they start offering something bigger. If no larger SSD, then any new rumors about a HDD option? Thanks.

FYI - I also posted the following in a new thread, but those wanting a HDD option should take note of the new article on Tom's Hardware:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd ... ,1955.html

where they find that SSDs actually use significantly more battery life than traditional HDDs, so any argument from Lenovo or others that the SSD is part of the reason that they get good battery life is probably just wrong (I love their concluding statement that manufacturers appear to have never actually tested SSDs in real systems to see if they really do get better battery life!).

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