Help with SSD + HDD set up?

Can anyone provide me a step-by-step instruction on how to achieve an SSD + HDD setup on my Thinkpad T420?

I'm fairly new to this type of stuff...so the more detail, the better

I appreciate any help anyone can give!

P.S. Would you recommend SSD + HDD over just an SSD? Why?

 

You're going to need a HDD bay to replace your DVD drive, such as one of these: Amazon.com: Thinkpad Sata HD Bay Adapter 3: Electronics.

Then if you have everything running on the SSD already, you don't need to do much. Format the HDD and it's ready to go. Otherwise, it's probably wise to install the OS and frequently used programs on your SSD, and everything else should go on the HDD.

 

If I were to go the mSATA SSD route...would I still need to give up my optical drive?

 

Nope.

Recommend you check out the Lenovo forum on notebookreview. There are quite a few discussions about thinkpads with intel mSATA SSDs.

Maybe one of the forum moderators will move this thread to the lenovo forum.

 

With the OS on the SSD, you can use the HDD for storage, so you get the best of both worlds. The speed of the ssd will be much greater than the hdd, and the size of the hdd will compliment the ssd. I have this setup in my Sager and my Asus G73. I love the difference it makes, and I don't have to worry about what data I can have on my laptops and what I have to put on (a much slower) external. My external is only for backups. You will absolutely love the speed.

 

SSD + HDD will limit the number of installed programs, does it?
Honestly, do SSD users keep installing and uninstalling games right after they finish it?

 

Not really. when you install a program the installer usually asks you where you'd like to install it, the default is usally program files folder in c drive. But you are free to select another drive if you want.

Most programs allow you to do this, but not all, I think Microsoft office must be installed on c drive, I could be wrong though.

I'm pretty sure most game will let you install on another drive.

Intel msata 310 SSD come in 40 and 80 GB. If your using office, which most people do, I'd recommend going with the 80.

 

Yes I'm aware you can choose to install the games on the mechanical.

I was asking if SSD users keep installing and uninstalling games from their SSD because of the size limitation.

 

No. I install programs and the occasional game on my ssd. I put my music and photos, vids on the hdd, as well as temp files and such. What I want to access speedwise, I put on the ssd. Everything else goes on the hdd. My win7 install is less than 14gb, and with my 510 120gb ssd and Scorpio Black, I have more than enough room. I back up regularly, Don't hibernate (saves around 3gb) and since I an very disciplined, don't need index or search, so I save some room. With 12gb ram, I don't need pagefile, but do keep it at 500mb in case a program requires it. I keep Office on it, a proprietary work program and other stuff, but still am using less than 33gb. I don't install and uninstall anything on it. If I install, I keep it.

In short, I put programs and OS on SSD, save data to hdd, and am at 78.8 GB free on my 120GB SSD. The difference n size is the overprovisioning that comes with the SSD's.

 

I put things on my SSD that I want to have fast access to, within reason. Right now, I'm using my virtual machine a bit more, so I've moved the .vhd to my SSD and WinXP is now more responsive than when it was on my HDD.

Games? I don't put them on my SSD. I've only got 80GB and games just aren't important enough, even though I've got 200GB of them. I've got my smaller games on my 2nd HDD and my bigger games (w/ less replay value) on a partition on my external 2TB. The partition is to keep the games on the outside of the platter for faster access.

p.s. - having had my Intel X25-M for a year now, I'm not obsessed with excessive writes. No matter what I do, I average 10GB/day and my 3.12TB of writes over the past 11mths still has me at 99% on the Intel SSD Toolbox Media Wearout Indicator. So, I keep indexing on my SSD, my page file, and anything else that I want to have fast access to. That is the point, after all, isn't it? Sometimes, I move things around depending on what I'll be using. Eventually, I'll get back into managing my photos. The library is large enough that I want it on the SSD while I'm doing the work. Once, I'm done, I can then relocate it and free up the SSD space for something else.

 

From what I've gathered...this is the process of setting up and MSATA SSD + HDD config.

1) Take out HDD
2) Insert MSATA SSD
3) Boot from recovery disks
4) Install windows 7 on MSATA
5) Set up
6) Re-insert HDD
7) Boot from MSATA
8) Delete/reformat HDD (to clear/empty)

And....is that all there is to it?

Also...what is RAID? Do I need to do that?
What should I do to fully take advantage of this set-up/MSATA?

 

I do believe that's it.

RAID is a way to take multiple drives and treat them as if they were one. So, your OS would write to them at the same time, effectively doubling your speeds or something like that. There are several types of RAID. I think I described RAID 0.

You don't want to do RAID with an SSD/HDD combo. I think it slows to the lowest common denominator, so you'd lose any of the major benefits to SSD's by joining it in RAID w/ your HDD.

 

OK good
Because that was confusing!
Thanks!!

 

My T420 is on the way and I'm going to be buying an mSATA as well. As I do not have my T420 yet and know very little about computers, I'm still not really sure as to the steps. Are all T420's capable of doing this? I don't want to end up buying a $200 SSD and it not work.
Also i thought you didn't have to remove the HDD, I thought you put the SSD in the WWAN slot or something.
Finally, how do you back things up and all that? How do you choose to install programs and windows onto your SSD?

 

You can't just install the mSATA and the computer detects then install Windows onto the SSD?

I hate it when my HDD letters are alphabetically after the the optical drive even partitions.

 

Do you have to change the BIOS setting to ACHI, if it is set to IDE when you upgrade to an SSD?