SSD options for T420s 7mmDrive slot

[jgrjr]

I have a T420s on the way with a standard HD. I am thinking about replacing the 7mm HD with a large capacity SSD. I was considering the dual drive but I want to maintain my WWAN PCI slot.

Could someone suggest some large SSD options for the 7mm slot, 160gb and up?

[ZaZ]

Intel Drives are 7mm once you remove the spacer.

[Q-Ball]

Only the X25-M/V/320 series drives will fit, as will any 1.8" drive (you will need a spacer, I believe).
Don't know why Lenovo insisted on doing this, since the 320 drives are still behind first-gen SandForce drives, and are still more expensive than said drives.

Intel 510's won't fit.
Vertex (2/3) drives won't fit.
2.5" C300's won't fit.

So... yeah. You'll probably need to opt for a 1.8" drive if you want a faster drive than the 320, but on the bright side they are almost the same price for the same capacity. I'd try to get a 1.8" C300 or something SandForce.

[yak]

the 320 drives are still behind first-gen SandForce drives

Remember that performance isn't the only characteristic. Intel is known for reliability. I use a ThinkPad because it is reliable, why would I want an unreliable drive in it? Besides, all these drives are much faster than HDDs. Sacrificing reliability to gain a little speed is questionable.

[Q-Ball]

Well, as long as you don't buy from OCZ, then you have nothing to worry about

Anyways- these drives all have a similar failure rate anyways. If it doesn't die within the first six months it's probably not going to: most of the other drives are pretty reliable as well.
OCZ is a different story (bait-and-switch 25 nm SSDs anyone?), but most of the others, such as Corsair, Crucial, Mushkin and the rest are also known for their don't-die-'ed-ness. OCZ, not so much.

But the thing is that if I'm paying for something fast I want it to be as fast as possible. Intel drives don't give you that, unless you like 4K reads. Remember: fast, cheap, good; pick two. Most of the more reliable drives aren't cheap.

(Oh yeah- and my ThinkPad's been anything but reliable, after a mainboard replacement and a failed exchange (they didn't send me what I asked for and the one in the box was defective too(!)), so, well, there are horror stories for every manufacturer.)

[yak]

Well, as long as you don't buy from OCZ, then you have nothing to worry about

Anyways- these drives all have a similar failure rate anyways. If it doesn't die within the first six months it's probably not going to: most of the other drives are pretty reliable as well.
OCZ is a different story (bait-and-switch 25 nm SSDs anyone?), but most of the others, such as Corsair, Crucial, Mushkin and the rest are also known for their don't-die-'ed-ness. OCZ, not so much.

There was an interesting comparison in AnandTech's Intel 510 review:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4202/the- ... 0-review/3

The failure percentage of Corsair, Crucial, Kingston and OCZ was above 2% with OCZ being almost 3%. Intel's was 0.59%.

Just sayin'...

[kltye]

Only the X25-M/V/320 series drives will fit, as will any 1.8" drive (you will need a spacer, I believe).
Don't know why Lenovo insisted on doing this, since the 320 drives are still behind first-gen SandForce drives, and are still more expensive than said drives.

Intel 510's won't fit.
Vertex (2/3) drives won't fit.
2.5" C300's won't fit.

So... yeah. You'll probably need to opt for a 1.8" drive if you want a faster drive than the 320, but on the bright side they are almost the same price for the same capacity. I'd try to get a 1.8" C300 or something SandForce.

Don't 1.8" drives use micro-SATA power connectors?

[Q-Ball]

Did you read the conclusion of that article?

I'll do a translation:

"Les SSD sont pour leur part mesurés à 2,05%, le composant le plus fiable de la machine"
-> Meaning "SSD's are, for the most part, measured at 2.05%, the most reliable component of the machine (except for the CPU)" (roughly)

So if I have SSDs that fail less than traditional hard drives, isn't that enough for the standard consumer?
Or rather, the standard enthusiast?
As I recall SSDs have at least a couple failure modes that don't involve "One day powered up: dead" just like hard drives do.
If I recall correctly those failures happen more at the beginning of the drive's life cycle than at the end, though they can happen at any time to any piece of equipment (poor ASUS M2N32-SLI board, you worked so hard copying those 300 GB of data only to die at reboot...). That's why you keep what's known as backups.

What that source article doesn't mention is the failure rates for Corsair, Intel, Crucial, etc. drives 0 to 6 months after installation. It only mentions the OCZ ones: the ones that are known for reliability problems. From that we can infer that the failure rate of every other SSD out there that was polled is less than 1.83%.
That French article only mentions failures within 6 months to 1 year after purchase.
Also, what about the drives that failure after that period? It didn't mention anything about those...


Also, yes, you would need an adapter: but speed does have a bit of a price, I suppose (you'll have to find one that's 7mm high, which is a bit of a tall order, but you can just use a 9.5 mm one with the casing off...)

[Greg Gebhardt]

I have a T420s on the way with a standard HD. I am thinking about replacing the 7mm HD with a large capacity SSD. I was considering the dual drive but I want to maintain my WWAN PCI slot.

Could someone suggest some large SSD options for the 7mm slot, 160gb and up?

My new T420s arrive last week and I installed the IBM 160GB SSD the second it arrived. Just remove the factory installed spacer with four tiny screws and put on the two red plastic side rails that were mounted to the original drive and it slips right it!

The IBM drive gets 7.7 rating on the Windows Experience thing. Boot ups and shut downs are FAST!

[zhenya]

We are waiting for the new 1.8" Intel drives to become available for the fleet of T420s' I have on order. We used the Intel drives in the T410s with great success, and they are the same price as their 2.5" variants. Honestly, I would not worry too much about the speed ratings, because little of what most computers are used for utilizes the huge sequential read/write capabilities these drives have. It's the random access time and small file writes that really cause an SSD to make such an improvement.

I agree about the Intel reliability and was burned with OCZ early on. We have yet to have a single issue with any Intel drive.

[own6volvos]

Only the X25-M/V/320 series drives will fit, as will any 1.8" drive (you will need a spacer, I believe).
Don't know why Lenovo insisted on doing this, since the 320 drives are still behind first-gen SandForce drives, and are still more expensive than said drives.

Intel 510's won't fit.
Vertex (2/3) drives won't fit.
2.5" C300's won't fit.

So... yeah. You'll probably need to opt for a 1.8" drive if you want a faster drive than the 320, but on the bright side they are almost the same price for the same capacity. I'd try to get a 1.8" C300 or something SandForce.

Just wanted to correct you slightly. The 2.5" C300 will fit, just like the Intel X25-M/320, etc will fit. Intel has the spacer on the top, while on the C300 the spacer is the plastic ring between both covers. Doing this on either model voids the warranty though technically.

The 1.8" drives would be tricky, since they need a full port adapter to work. The SATA and power connection are narrower.

Technically speaking, pretty much every SSD will fit, although some might have to be case-less to work

[bdmclacken]

Just wondering if anyone has yet tried taking a drive out of its case to fit it, bare, into the T420s 7mm slot. I hate to just settle for the SATA2 Intel 320 here given that the laptop is ready to go with SATA3 6Gb/s, and I guess I might be onboard with trying to put in a bare SSD, even potentially voiding its warranty, so long as the BIOS didn't block it also... there's only so much hackery I want to do here, before I retreat to the mainstream again. If anyone's done something similar with any other 9.5MM drive, I would love to hear how it went.

Second to that, if there are any options that might drop in easier, coming in the next few months, I'd be interested and might just back off an SSD purchase right away... not sure if there are any 7mm drives with SATA3 in the works. I've tried to look at sites like storagereview and anandtech for more info, but this unfortunately seems to be sort of a strange niche, 7mm.

Thanks.

[kltye]

Just wondering if anyone has yet tried taking a drive out of its case to fit it, bare, into the T420s 7mm slot. I hate to just settle for the SATA2 Intel 320 here given that the laptop is ready to go with SATA3 6Gb/s, and I guess I might be onboard with trying to put in a bare SSD, even potentially voiding its warranty, so long as the BIOS didn't block it also... there's only so much hackery I want to do here, before I retreat to the mainstream again. If anyone's done something similar with any other 9.5MM drive, I would love to hear how it went.

Second to that, if there are any options that might drop in easier, coming in the next few months, I'd be interested and might just back off an SSD purchase right away... not sure if there are any 7mm drives with SATA3 in the works. I've tried to look at sites like storagereview and anandtech for more info, but this unfortunately seems to be sort of a strange niche, 7mm.

Thanks.

I have the SSD 320 in my T420s without the top, black spacer. Unfortunately, the screws are too long without it, and defeats the purpose of removing it in the first place. This means that the top cover is just sitting loose on top of the entire assembly (since you can't screw it in). However, the rubber "rails" that is provided with the drive cage mitigates this, and actually forms a tight cover over the top plate, so there isn't any rattling inside of the notebook once fully installed.

As far as performance goes, I'm slightly disappointed with it. That's not to say it isn't fast, but the 1.8" Samsung SSD inside my (ex) T410s seemed to be just as quick.

[own6volvos]

Just wondering if anyone has yet tried taking a drive out of its case to fit it, bare, into the T420s 7mm slot. I hate to just settle for the SATA2 Intel 320 here given that the laptop is ready to go with SATA3 6Gb/s, and I guess I might be onboard with trying to put in a bare SSD, even potentially voiding its warranty, so long as the BIOS didn't block it also... there's only so much hackery I want to do here, before I retreat to the mainstream again. If anyone's done something similar with any other 9.5MM drive, I would love to hear how it went.

Second to that, if there are any options that might drop in easier, coming in the next few months, I'd be interested and might just back off an SSD purchase right away... not sure if there are any 7mm drives with SATA3 in the works. I've tried to look at sites like storagereview and anandtech for more info, but this unfortunately seems to be sort of a strange niche, 7mm.

Thanks.

I have tried quite a few drives in the X220 (same 7mm setup as the T420s) and lots of drives work once the top covers are removed. With the rails in place it keeps the electronics from touching the inside of the case and all is golden. If you wanted any particular drives tested individually, let me know. I have a pile about 2 feet tall sitting in my office at work (perk when you review drives).

I have the SSD 320 in my T420s without the top, black spacer. Unfortunately, the screws are too long without it, and defeats the purpose of removing it in the first place. This means that the top cover is just sitting loose on top of the entire assembly (since you can't screw it in). However, the rubber "rails" that is provided with the drive cage mitigates this, and actually forms a tight cover over the top plate, so there isn't any rattling inside of the notebook once fully installed.

As far as performance goes, I'm slightly disappointed with it. That's not to say it isn't fast, but the 1.8" Samsung SSD inside my (ex) T410s seemed to be just as quick.

When you remove the spacer, you also need to get the shorter screws for it all to work. I can grab the measurements with a micrometer if you would like

[bdmclacken]

Thanks for the feedback own6volvos, I was leaning towards the Intel 510 (250GB). The Vertex 3 speed obviously looks attractive, and if you're gonna throw $600+ at a single component, you want a little extra spark, but I don't quite trust OCZ at this point.

From pics, it looks like the 510 has sort of a strangely shaped case and figured if I was going to go for that, it might be an awkward fit with one half of the case off. Maybe not though?

[own6volvos]

Thanks for the feedback own6volvos, I was leaning towards the Intel 510 (250GB). The Vertex 3 speed obviously looks attractive, and if you're gonna throw $600+ at a single component, you want a little extra spark, but I don't quite trust OCZ at this point.

From pics, it looks like the 510 has sort of a strangely shaped case and figured if I was going to go for that, it might be an awkward fit with one half of the case off. Maybe not though?

Give me a couple of hours and I will get some photos of a 510 split in half inside the X220.

[own6volvos]

Trip Report on Intel SSD 510:

Quick and dirty shot.

http://www.storagereview.com/images/photo%20(2).JPG

Works although the method isn't without its flaws. The Intel 510 uses the force of the two halves pressing against each other to hold the PCB in place. With the top cover removed you lose the section of the case with the screw threads and the PCB just sits loose on the inside. If I were looking for a long-term solution I would just stick a thin piece of plastic on the top of the drive to shield the electronics from the internal of the chassis and provide some benefits as a spacer to take up space. With the rails in place, drive inserted fully, and the back cover on it won't have any chance of really moving anywhere besides 1-2mm up or down.

[bdmclacken]

Thanks for the pics, own6, it's really helpful. I ordered an Intel 510 and I'm now just waiting on the T420s to ship (in May) and the drive to arrive so I can put it all together. In general, I'm just glad of that fact that the 7mm size slot doesn't entirely inhibit 9.5mm drives from working. More choice is a good thing.

[jvarszegi]

I hate to just settle for the SATA2 Intel 320 here given that the laptop is ready to go with SATA3 6Gb/s

Is the Intel 320 bottlenecked by 3 GB/s throughput? If so, what sort of extreme load are you contemplating for your T420s, that you'd notice that? I'm curious.

[bdmclacken]

In all honesty, I don't think I would have been bottlenecked on a day to day basis for my work. I'd be hosting a few VMs and one would be hosting an app that is fairly disk IO intensive, and otherwise just cloning those machines on a regular basis might show some of the benefit of the drive speed. I'm also a db person and would be doing some more performance testing in the dbs in those VMs.

I think my concern was that I'd probably run the machine from this drive for at least a year and just wanted to start from the fastest available now and not need to worry about it again until later.

[zhenya]

Is the Intel 320 bottlenecked by 3 GB/s throughput? If so, what sort of extreme load are you contemplating for your T420s, that you'd notice that? I'm curious.

In sequential file transfers, from or to another very fast device, the 320 will be bottle-necked by SATA2. For most people those situations are extremely rare though - and it's the access speed that really makes a SSD fast for day to day use. I agree I'd also want everything the drive was capable of, though.

[bdmclacken]

Just to followup here-

I ended up getting the new T420s delivered finally last week and then the Intel 510 250GB SSD arrived the following day. The SSD (retail package) came with a tool to duplicate the factory drive to the new 510, which is Acronis but labeled for Intel. I had ordered the HDD drive adapter for the DVD drive slot, so I moved the original HDD drive from the system to the side tray and put the 510 in the main slot, though I think there was a USB cable supplied too (I wrapped that all back up so I forget now). In order to fit the 510 into the main slot, I unscrewed the case and removed the top portion of the case- the SSD had no sort of warranty sticker or anything around the sides or screws to inhibit doing this. I left the SSD card inside the bottom of the case, and then I screwed the shim that comes from the original HDD onto that remaining portion of the SSD case, and I used it as sort of a replacement top- the shim has one of those anti-static films in it which is now presses up against the drive card. I then put the rubber side rails back on over this 'enclosure'. Altogether, it all came together very well, it felt pretty solid... it really didn't feel loose or insecure. I slid it back into the slot for the main drive and duplicated the drive with the imaging software, and there is no sort of play there, it fits well.

I'm very satisfied with the fit, and the performance of the drive is great. Thanks to all for the info provided in the post.

[visionviper]

And as a side note, I don't think anyone provides drives that use as little power as the Intel drives do. All other SSDs seem to use around 1-2W when active, as opposed to Intel using only .15W.

[bill bolton]

2.5" C300's won't fit.

The Crucial M4/C400 will if you remove the spacer. The M4 has faster random writes, and is a tad slower on random reads than the C300.

Cheers,

Bill

[kltye]

The Crucial M4/C400 will if you remove the spacer. The M4 has faster random writes, and is a tad slower on random reads than the C300.

Cheers,

Bill

Has anyone used the C300/C400 for a relatively long period of time? I hear the controller delays garbage collection for a little too long, and causes pausing and stuttering when it's time to GC.

[kmin]

I have tried quite a few drives in the X220 (same 7mm setup as the T420s) and lots of drives work once the top covers are removed. With the rails in place it keeps the electronics from touching the inside of the case and all is golden. If you wanted any particular drives tested individually, let me know. I have a pile about 2 feet tall sitting in my office at work (perk when you review drives).

Hi,

I know this isn't fresh thread but it's about exact info I'm looking for.

I consider buying X220 or T420s but main obstacle holding me back is the 7mm hdd case (despite bad screen resolution at X220 ).
Do you think Vertex 3 will fit into it? Maybe SSD case removal from will help.

What other drive would you recommend to use SATA 3 bandwidth well?

Is there possibility that X220 will be offered with higher res than 1366x768?

Cheers!

[ZaZ]

What other drive would you recommend to use SATA 3 bandwidth well?

It's not sata III, but the Intel msata drive is worth a look if you don't need wwan. It slots into mini-pci slot on the motherboard, but gives you the option of keeping platter drive in the main bay. You'll get a SSD as a boot drive for speed and a platter drive will offer lots storage at a more wallet price. The Hitachi 7mm 500GB z5k500 is now starting to become available on-line in the $60 range. I can't imagine a sata III drive would make much of a difference unless you're sending larger amounts of data through the sata controller. Typical notebook usage does not do this. Plus you don't need speed for storage.

I'd guess no on the WXGA+ option for the X220. The pixel density is nearing 150, which is too high for most users, but there are some who like it. Personally, I like WXGA. The stick is very easy to scroll on, which mitigates the loss of pixels in my opinion.

[kmin]

It's not sata III, but the Intel msata drive is worth a look if you don't need wwan. It slots into mini-pci slot on the motherboard, but gives you the option of keeping platter drive in the main bay. You'll get a SSD as a boot drive for speed and a platter drive will offer lots storage at a more wallet price. The Hitachi 7mm 500GB z5k500 is now starting to become available on-line in the $60 range. I can't imagine a sata III drive would make much of a difference unless you're sending larger amounts of data through the sata controller. Typical notebook usage does not do this. Plus you don't need speed for storage.

Thanks for the tip. The msata drive is interesting option and I will consider it.
+ more storage (always welcome, but for this I rather use desktop or NAS)
+ less modifications (no warranty violation of expensive stuff)
- less battery life (not something which really bothers me)
- heat/noise/vibration from mechanic hdd (those I would like to avoid)
- lost wwan option (I was about to use it from time to time with some prepaid SIM)

Still I would be glad to know the answer about Vertex 3 fit.
I need some serious rig for work. Well maybe 6 GBPS drive transfers aren't crucial in my case but I'm a hardware geek too

I'd guess no on the WXGA+ option for the X220. The pixel density is nearing 150, which is too high for most users, but there are some who like it. Personally, I like WXGA. The stick is very easy to scroll on, which mitigates the loss of pixels in my opinion.

Tell this to Sony which offers with their new VAIO Z choice of 1600x900 or Full HD 1920x1080.
BTW. I consider this one too but with the "lower" res

What I really don't like is 16:9 screen ratio which is just totally inadequate for most laptop usage. So why there are only those on the market? Now I'm on 16:10 1280x800 which is still a bit not enough in vertical. I have already faced the fact that there is nothing on the market except MacBook Pro with 16:10 (not to mention old good 4:3)
However I just won't go any less in vertical then mentioned 800, no matter what. No stupid trend nor marketing crap about "wide screens", which in fact are short screens, will force me to decrease vertical workspace.
One can go to shop and will see a lot of "different" notebooks. However on a 2nd look will realize that choice is superficial and almost all models are the same. I don't mean only screen ratio but this is the best example what I'm talking about.
I'm deeply concerned and disappointed that there are barely no options to choose on the so called "free market", even for the higher price

[big.bud99]

Hi guys. I just want to inform you about Corsair Force 3 120GB. It's a 6gb/s 9,5mm drive. I fit it in my t420s by taking off the case. The problem is that the BIOS doesn't recognize it and there is an hard-disk error when I try to boot the system. Now I'm looking again for a fast SSD drive. Are there some news?

[visionviper]

Hi guys. I just want to inform you about Corsair Force 3 120GB. It's a 6gb/s 9,5mm drive. I fit it in my t420s by taking off the case. The problem is that the BIOS doesn't recognize it and there is an hard-disk error when I try to boot the system. Now I'm looking again for a fast SSD drive. Are there some news?

Not really anything too new. Same stuff as before. See the link in my signature if you want to have a look at the SSDs available in 7mm format.