SSD in Z61m?

R, A, G and Z series specific matters only
Post Reply
Message
Author
mlemon
Posts: 8
Joined: Sat May 20, 2006 10:55 pm
Location: Michigan

SSD in Z61m?

#1 Post by mlemon » Thu Apr 28, 2011 2:34 pm

I've got a Z61m in like-new condition, thinking about a SSD drive update to give it a couple more years life.

Anyone done this yet? Will the Intel 510 work?

Thanks in advance,

Mark
T520 4GB Win 7

Phidelio
Posts: 41
Joined: Thu Dec 03, 2009 10:01 pm
Location: GBG, Scandinavia

Re: SSD in Z61m?

#2 Post by Phidelio » Mon May 30, 2011 8:21 pm

mlemon wrote:I've got a Z61m in like-new condition, thinking about a SSD drive update to give it a couple more years life.

Anyone done this yet? Will the Intel 510 work?

Thanks in advance,

Mark
Should work. I use an SSD in my t61p and I dont see why the Z61 would be different.
Currently has a silly amount of Thinkpads: 600|600e|T20|R31|R40|R50e|R60e|T40|T40p|T41|X40|X40|X41Tablet|T61p|T61p|T61p wuxga
The best Thinkpad ever made? The T41p - hands down!
(feel free to comment but I dont think it can be argued...)

Tsunade
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue May 31, 2011 12:44 pm
Location: North Potomac, MD

Re: SSD in Z61m?

#3 Post by Tsunade » Tue May 31, 2011 12:47 pm

Intel 510 should work but you will not get the SATA 3 speeds.
Sager NP8170: i7-2670QM|12GB DDR3|Radeon 6990M|500 GB Momentus 7200 rpm|17.3" 1080p LCD|7Ultimate
Dell Latitude E6430 (FDA work laptop): i5-3210M|4GB DDR3|Nvidia Quadro 5200M/Intel HD4000|320GB Scorpio Black|14" 720P|7Enterprise|Lenovo ThinkVision L2251p & D221 WSXGA+

BillMorrow
*Senior* Admin
*Senior* Admin
Posts: 7154
Joined: Tue Apr 13, 2004 9:40 pm
Location: San Francisco -> Florida -> Georgia
Contact:

Re: SSD in Z61m?

#4 Post by BillMorrow » Tue May 31, 2011 1:48 pm

i have several kingston 120GB SSD's (about $135 each on average, i tweeted on these specials in the thinkpas.com twitter project) in several T60 and T61's..
all work just fine BUT i don't see much visual impact on speed..
BUT then i have never done a side by side comparison..
Bill Morrow, kept by parrots :parrot: & cockatoos
Sysop - forum.thinkpads.com

*
She was not what you would call refined,
She was not what you would call unrefined,
She was the type of person who kept a parrot.
~~~Mark Twain~~~

ZaZ
moderator
moderator
Posts: 4460
Joined: Fri May 13, 2005 1:33 pm
Location: Minnesota

Re: SSD in Z61m?

#5 Post by ZaZ » Tue May 31, 2011 2:07 pm

BillMorrow wrote:all work just fine BUT i don't see much visual impact on speed..
SSDs have been over-hyped in my opinion. They are gimped in low power mode, which no reviews I've ever seem to mention this. For a laptop running in low power mode, they aren't much better than a platter based drive. There is a registry tweak that largely fixes the issue, but battery life takes a pretty sizable hit, which is probably why they did it that way. The biggest plus I've seen is because they have no moving parts, they're very quiet. This is nice for X series machine which don't seem to shield much noise, though I will say the Hitachi 7mm drive I've got in my X220i seems pretty quiet.
E7440

AMATX
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 500
Joined: Mon Jan 25, 2010 12:17 pm
Location: SFO/HNL

Re: SSD in Z61m?

#6 Post by AMATX » Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:37 pm

I've been running El Cheapo(Kingspec) SSDs in two Z61p laptops for 1+ years now, and contrary to the above posts, the diff is night & day. HUGE improvement in boot times, app load times and general response. A new lease on life for these old puppies. Really gives you the boost necessary to squeeze a few more years out of 'em. Plus, the laptops run noticeably cooler & quieter, too. Now, if you're running a heavy production load, they won't beat any of the more recent laptops, but for general web + Word + Excel stuff, it's the best bang for the buck I know of.

You can get a 32G-ish SSD for ~$100 or less, which makes for a very cheap way to beef up a Z61x laptop. Just clone the old drive to the SSD, pop it in and boot it up. Now, under XP you'll end up with the SSD alignment issue(search forum for more info), but even with that, it's way faster than what I had in the past. And, after 1+ year, I have yet to notice any real degradation in performance.

I run what is apparently a common config in my laptops: SSD primary drive, with a data conventional HD in the ultrabay slot. Quick + archival = Very Nice :D

Standard stuff applies, in that you should make sure you have adequate backups, etc...other than that, go for it...

Post Reply
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “ThinkPad R, A, G and Z Series”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests