"Most reliable/stable" SSD for W520

[djones18]

My Crucial M4 512gb died just before a big conference... good thing I had 1) a backup of the system and 2) a second laptop. Was running one rev back from current and was bought new from Provantage in March '12.

HDD light stays solid through boot, then the BIOS/EFI says that it can't find the boot device. Trying to find time to get the RMA started for this little bugger.

I can empathize with your situation. Not good...but you recovered nicely. The 512 M4 SSD seems to have a higher failure rate, according to SSD forums, than their lower RAM models. This is the sole reason I haven't upgraded from 256GB to 512GB models. My 256GB M4 has been absolutely faultless in 9 months of use. Having said that, I will always have my backup 2.5 inch HDD ready as a standby to pop in. I just don't fully trust the SSD technology for serious business use at this time.

[YW-Slayer]

How is the M4 holding up?

I have a W520 on the way (new) with the OEM Intel 160GB drive. I will probably install a 1TB drive in the UltraBay for a datastore for vmdk and ISO files. I understand the Intel is not the fastest of the bunch, but stability is the number one priority for me. I also have an Intel 80GB in an X61 and it has been rock solid with zero issues so far.

W520 is waiting for Customs right now, but I expect it any day.

Works great with my 256gb m4. I keep the OS and all programs on the Intel 80gb msata drive and re-image every half-hour to an external 500gb drive , plus copy all work files to that AND my old desktop at around the same time, so I'm reasonably safe.

I personally recommend the 256gb m4 but am sorry to see others are having problems with the 512gb version.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 2

[DougDennis]

I have been using a M4 256 for a year with great success!

[kpoman]

I have 2 Samsung 830 SSD's of 256GB each. Bought the ultrabay adapter for the second one and got rid of the dvd drive. Now I do have 512GB of storage on the notebook and it works quite well. I get copy-times of one to the other at more than 400MB/s. The OS boots and open the session in about 30s.

edit: I have an issue though, don't know if it is unrelated but I feel it is related: after installing both disks, and running SSD Magician software from Samsung, it did quite a few tweaks on the operating system, and after that (I cant confirm) I started having some issues with power management, in particular sometimes "sleep function" comes back to ON after 1 minute, which is really annoying because the notebook could overheat if put on a bag.

[tinue]

...running SSD Magician software from Samsung

This software wakes up the laptop, I can see the same thing. I only installed it to check whether it would recognize the OEM Samsung SSD of the T400s (it didn't). I uninstalled it right away, becauee the Thinkpad would not stay asleep anymore.

[kpoman]

This software wakes up the laptop, I can see the same thing. I only installed it to check whether it would recognize the OEM Samsung SSD of the T400s (it didn't). I uninstalled it right away, becauee the Thinkpad would not stay asleep anymore.

I can confirm your post, I uninstalled SSD Magician and the Sleep started working well again. [censored] WTF Samsung ?????

[FrankK-F]

My W500 W7-64, now almost 4 yrs old ... have used SSD's for all of that time ... an OCZ-Vertex [238.5GB SATA-II], a SAMSUNG [256GB MLC/SATA-II] and an Intel 520 [240GB SATA-III]

The INTEL-520 is my current primary SSD, and I use that others as rolling clones. However all have been in my box for extended periods.

I bought these different brands for my own evaluation ... so far no problems observed with these drives. I don't notice the SATA-II -- SATA-III speed difference in everyday use ... or just have not paid attention.

I have however experienced several episodes of failure of my W7-64 [not LENOVO bundled] .. probably triggered by one of my extensive apps ... the failures showed up as gradual malfunctions over days or weeks. The early failures proved costly in time to reinstall everything I run ... which now explains my clone strategy. And, yes, I keep my data [Solid Model, Image, Video, Productivity, Email, Bookmarks, Configuration, Reference] on a separate Raid-I internal drive array ... backed to an external 5-disk RAID-5 SATA-II [actually two of these]

Drives are cheap, can be migrated ... lost files are priceless.

As an aside, my first laptop in 1985 was a ROM-RAM DOS-2 HP PortablePLUS [with a 1 second 3-finger salute and a 10 hour battery Lotus-123, MS-Word-1 a bunch manuals, circa $11k fully dressed] ... my current notebook is a ROM-RAM box [with a 1+ minute reboot, circa $8k fully dressed ... but perhaps 10^6 as powerful in processing and 10^8 in storage].

[u666sa]

I'm pretty sure you already got answered your questions. Here is just my thought and what I have.


For mSATA I have OCZ-NOCTI 60 GB

and for HDD I have 750 GB WD Black 7200 rpm


7200 rpm HDD is the loudest component in my W520, unless I'm running turbo boost, then the loudest becomes processor fan


750 GB HDD is divided into two partitions, one for program files and one for data. All the programs that I don't use often are installed onto HDD, and things I use most often like firefox installed on mSATA.


For me it does not make sense getting mSATA and SSD. mSATA + HDD makes more sense.

[Yusuke]

My Crucial M4 512gb died just before a big conference... good thing I had 1) a backup of the system and 2) a second laptop. Was running one rev back from current and was bought new from Provantage in March '12.

HDD light stays solid through boot, then the BIOS/EFI says that it can't find the boot device. Trying to find time to get the RMA started for this little bugger.

Crucial M4 users should update the firmware to the latest 040H.
It will solve the issue: "•Improved robustness in the event of an unexpected power loss. Significantly reduces the incidence of long reboot times after an unexpected power loss."

For those who are already having the problem, this article may be of help: "Why did my SSD "disappear" from my system?"
http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State ... ta-p/65215

[jedisurfer1]

I'm still running 000F firmware on my m4. It's been working flawlessly and I'm hesitant about upgrading something that has no problems.

[bomgd3]

I've got an Intel 320 in my W520 and it works perfectly. I've owned the SSD for 1.5 years without issues whatsoever. I just ordered a Sandisk 240 gb drive for a new computer so hopefully that works well!