160 GB SSD in Thinkpad 410/410s?

[buzzlight]

Hi folks,

I've read in several places, and also noted on the Lenovo website itself, that the 410/510 series should have an option for a 160 GB SSD. Yet when I go in deeper and configure an actual system, it is not an option - the largest capacity SSD is at 128 GB. Am I missing something on the Lenovo site somehow? If not - does anyone know if there will be a 160 GB SSD option soon?

[famman]

I spoke with a sales rep this afternoon and he said that the 160GB SSD "didn't work well" and so they have pulled it from all of their systems.

[buzzlight]

Bummer! But thanks for the inside information - very helpful. I guess the bright side is, they actually test this stuff...so the 128 GB SSD should be speedy...

Well, they should update their website...some of the specs for the T-series still say "Up to 510GB 7200rpm HDD or 160GB SSD" (I cut and pasted it just to make sure I wasn't imagining it!)

Thanks again.

[ljwobker]

I'm a tiny bit suspicous of this... the 160GB SSD that they're using is just a density-increased version of the Intel 80GB SSD... does this imply that there is something wrong with the Intel 160GB part?

The 410s uses the smaller form-factor Intel part (the 1.8" version rather than the 2.5" version) ... but the 2.5" version works almost flawlessly... ;-(

[khtse]

The 160GB one is the Intel one, and the 128GB one is the Samsung one.

The 160GB one is selling from $470 to well over $500, depending on where you are buying it from ($489 on newegg). Given that manufacturer like Lenovo and Dell typically charge a premium for their upgrade option, this could end up as a $600 upgrade option for the T410.

Most reviews showed that the Intel SSD is the fastest (except sequential write speed) MLC and the most reliable MLC SSD on the market (except when generation 2 was first released, there was a firmware problem, which was fixed soon after). It is definitely faster than the Samsung one, although no one ever claimed that the Intel one is more reliable than the Samsung one. If there was any compatibility problem Lenovo had found with the Intel 160GB SSD, the same problem would have also affected the 80GB version and Lenovo would have pulled both.

I guess the reason why Lenovo does not offer the 160GB SSD has to do with its price. Although the Intel SSD has been proven to be faster than the Samsung SSD by quite a large margin, in benchmark, an average user can't really tell the speed difference. Thus, it would be hard to justify the price difference between the two ($600 versus $350, say, for 32GB difference). And for those users who can tell the difference between the two, those are users who know how to replace hard disks and who know they can get it cheaper from somewhere else.

(I've just checked, the 80GB SSD is not available for the T series, but available for the X series.)

[Volker]

The second-generation X18-M is the best drive except for one flaw: no availability. With a lot of searching you might be able to find a single one, but they are definitely not available in the quantities necessary for Levono.

It would have been nice if the sales rep would have told the truth instead of lying to push the samsung model...

[khtse]

The second-generation X18-M is the best drive except for one flaw: no availability. With a lot of searching you might be able to find a single one, but they are definitely not available in the quantities necessary for Levono.

It would have been nice if the sales rep would have told the truth instead of lying to push the samsung model...

I guess most sales rep don't really know much about these things (otherwise they probably wouldn't be working as sales rep anyway), and just try to come up with some answers that sound reasonably, to them. Perhaps the same sale rep would even give you a different answer to the same question if you ask him/her at another day.

[blackomegax]

128 GB Solid State Drive, Serial ATA [add $238.00]

cheaper than newegg's 128GB MLC corsair.

[khtse]

128 GB Solid State Drive, Serial ATA [add $238.00]

cheaper than newegg's 128GB MLC corsair.

Both of them should be the same Samsung drive (Corsair P128), except that the firmware on the one coming with T410 is probably newer.