SSD alternatives

Well I'll be purchasing the lenovo y50 soon and to my utter disgust there's only one 2.5" slot for the already equipped drive. Lenovo chat(crappy) has apparently told users that removing/upgrading the drive will void warranty. This blows because I'm buying the base model. So I was thinking to myself hurr durr why don't I just buy mahself a class 6 card/fast usb3.0? Just like an ssd w/out all the instillation, right? Explain to me why I'm wrong(I know I am) and what is the best possible storage solution next without breaking open my machine.

 

Changing the drive shouldn't void your warranty, as that is typically considered a user-replaceable part. What they probably meant is that Lenovo will not warranty the new drive, should you upgrade from the OEM-supplied drive (which makes sense; the SSD/HDD company you buy from will warranty the drive though).

I'd just go ahead and buy a replacement 2.5" SSD to replace the stock HDD with, and I'd recommend something from Crucial, Plextor, Samsung, or Intel due to somewhat higher reliability than other drives.

 

Even if it did void the warranty (which it shouldn't), you can always put in the original HDD before taking it in for warranty repairs. I mean how exactly are they going to tell that you've switched out the storage? "But sir, these screws appear to be just ever so slightly stripped, so I'm afraid we're going to have to void your warranty." Gimme a break

(right after I typed that up I realized they could track the power on count and hours reported by SMART, but that would still just be circumstantial evidence)

 

That's just a good idea to put back in the stock hardware when sending back for depot repairs, period. Wouldn't want to risk some tech stealing your shiny SSD or RAM, you know?

 

OR your data...

 

I've never owned a Lenovo that was not a ThinkPad, but...

When one is sending the laptop to be repaired - presuming depot level service here - they are NOT required to send it with the hard drive.

 

As others have already provided advice (which I fully agree with, by the way), I'll just answer your original question:

There are only a tiny handful of very expensive USB sticks that provide anywhere near the performance of an SSD. Out of those, the Sandisk Extreme is the most widely available (and therefore the most widely benchmarked), and its performance would put it at the very bottom of any SSD performance chart.

SD cards are even worse. Since they're tuned for use in cameras and cellphones, their random read/write performance is often worse than that of a spinning hard drive.

Finally, only Windows 8/8.1 Enterprise can be installed to removable media. So unless if you have an MSDN account or something, this simply won't work, not even theoretically.