Thinkpad Virgin Here! (W500 HDD: SATA or SATA II ?)

[izszm]

Well hello everyone! New user here which just ordered his very first W500. Primarily bought this beast for audio production, movie viewing / visualizers, browsing, word/excel/visual studio/photoshop/illustrator.. etc. Not really into gaming; though I was definitely addicted to diablo2 and counterstrike 1.6 (back in day).

Well I decided not to upgrade my HDD during configuration because I wanted to go with the 320gb 7200rpm Scorpio WD HDD. I'm a little confused though, 1.5 GB/S or 3.0 GB/S ? I was pretty sure 3.0 GB/S was SATA II, but from browsing the tech sheet, I did not see any definitions for SATA II under the W500.. I read "1.5 GB/S" Will I have any issues with the Scorpio (since it's listed under 3.0 GB/S SATA) Will it be utilized to it's maximum performance?

Also to my understanding, the DVD (ultra?)bay is removable and can be replaced with an additional SATA device? (Like a SATA SDD?, etc)

I don't think I have any other concerns at the moment.. I'm just peeing my pants over here waiting for my new baby.

I'm upgrading this:
Gateway Laptop - MX6446 - about 2.5 years old
CPU - AMD Turion 64 MK-36 (single core 1.99gHz)
Ram - 2GB (upgraded)
HDD - 100GB 7200rpm (upgraded) ultra-ata (lol sad)
GPU - ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 (integrated) shared 128 mb
OS - XP Pro 32bit SP3


To this!!!!:
THINKPAD W500
INT.CORE2DUO T9600
MS WIN VISTA BUSSINESS 64
XP PROFES. US ENG RDVD
15.4 WSXGA+
ATI MBLITYFGL 512mb V5700
DDR3 4GBPC3-8500 1067MHZ 2DIMM
INTEGRATED CAMERA
320 GB HDDRIVE, 5400RPM
TURBOMEMORY1.6 2GB
WIFI LINK5300
9 CELL LI-ION BATTERY
THKPLUS TP 3YR PICKUP DEPOT Warranty
BELKIN SLEEVE BLACK/RED

Order Date: 4/17/09
Est. Ship: 5/5/09

[izszm]

bump ... no replies?

[Greg Gebhardt]

I installed the Samsung 256gb SSD Sata2 drive in my W500 and it works great! Fastest notebook I have ever had.

[SmoothRunnings]

I believe the W500 still only uses the hard drive in SATA I mode not SATA II. It's a setting that Lenovo sets hard codes in the bios.

SSD is still pretty slow and expensive for most people to run and invest it in...you have to more money than brains to really be using SSD today.

All hard drives fall back into SATA I mode.

Andrew

[izszm]

Thanks for the insight. I didn't realize my new SATA II WD Scorpio drive was 'fallen' back to SATA I.. Still pretty quick though.
SSD's will be for the future. At least until they mature.