Lenov W520 with 2 SSDs in RAID0 - ?The Worlds Fastest Laptop??

I am EXTREMELY happy with my new RAID enabled W520.

I have it configured with 2 240GB Intel 510 SSDs in RAID and it is twice as fast as a W520 HDD system per benchmark ( PCMarkVantage score 19,228 vs 9,900 for a W520 with HDD).

PCMark Vantage is not a "synthetic" test, but tests hardware performance by automating a suite of real-world productivity tasks.

This score makes it faster than any other laptop on the market, including the new 9.8 lbs Alienware M17x (2011) with SSD, which laptopmag.com calls "by far the most powerful notebook we've ever tested" Alienware M17x (2011) Review - Configurations, Software, & Verdict (The m17x "only" gets a PCMarkVantage score of 17,486)

If I were Lenovo, I would offer the W520 with a factory configured option of 2 Intel 510 SSDs in RAID0 and call it “ The Worlds Fastest Laptop”

(PS: Storagereview.com tested a i7-2920 W520 with 2 Intel 510 SSDs and got a PCMarkVantage score of 20,700 Lenovo ThinkPad W520 Review: First Thoughts | StorageReview.com using a 64kb RAID0 "stripe" size. By mistake I set my stripe size to the HDD default of 128k. I will soon test it with the Intel recommended stripe size of 16k and see if I can beat that score

 

how would it do with 2 240GB ocz vertex 3s in raid 0?

 

here's what mine did with one vertex 3

Result

 

I tested it with a single Vertex-3 and got 16,006

With a single Intel 510 the score was 16,302

So I decided to stay with the Intel 510, since Intel has a better reliabilty record http://communities.intel.com/thread/20014?tstart=0 and there is a better chance of Lenovo eventually supporting the Intel 510 SSD

 

Depends on how you see it. While it is a superb machine, the W520 is not a top performer in overall performance. It's perfect for business like it's meant to be.

 

You may find a laptop that runs games at a faster frame rate, but the W520 with SSDs is top in overall performance.

PCMark Vantage is a benchmarks that measures overall real-life performance. It is a sampling of tests in the categories "Memories," "TV and Movies," "Gaming," "Music," "Communications," and "Productivity." The tests are intended to measure performance for everyday tasks, and simulate things such as rendering Web pages, transcoding audio files, and playing HD videos.
Is Your PC Fast Enough? PCMark Vantage Basic Tells You | PCWorld

 

I mean notebook, but does that count desktop replacement? Sager NP7282/Clevo X7200 I'm sure would smash the W520 overall, Core i7 Extreme 990X, dual 485M, offers RAID 5 with Intel SSDs.

 

Clevo X7200 gets a PCMarkvantage score of 19,486
AnandTech - AVADirect Clevo X7200: Six Cores, SSD RAID, and GTX 480M SLI Yields World's Fastest DTR Notebook
or 19,974 AnandTech - AVADirect's Clevo X7200 Redux: AMD 6970M CF Takes the Crown

 

The m17x that laptop mag tested had only a single SATA 2 SSD,you had 2 SATA 3 SSDs in Raid 0, so i dont think this can be the worlds fastest laptop. Also that laptop would have a 2920xm and 2 SATA 3 SSds in Raid 0. And of course then there is the X7200.

 

I'm sure there are several users with laptops faster than this. Then again fastest laptop in the world is a foolish title since technology changes so quickly. Have fun with your benchmarks though.

 

I mean again, benchmarks are a foolish thing to trust entirely. I'm sure it increases your e-peen but for gaming the W520 gets easily gets beaten to a pulp with a stock X7200, so I don't know what you are getting at here..

 

What PCMark Vantage shows is that faster storage does provide a major improvement in real world productivity. However, I have to wonder whether the benchmark over-states the potential gain. Halving a disk read or write time from 10ms to 5ms is going to be less noticeable than a reduction from 20ms to 10ms but each represents a 100% improvement in disk performance.

John

 

PCMark Vantage and PCMark 7 are the best benchmarks I know to test real-world productivity tasks.

It has been extremely useful for me when evaluating which system to buy.

I don't do games, but lots of browsing, e-mail, web development, spreadsheets, photo editing and video editing.

 

Does it have support issues?

 

No issues, except an annoying 40 second delay at warm boot, which Lenovo needs to fix in BIOS. (The BIOS is waiting for the air-bag diagnostic)

In the meanwhile I always do hard reboots.

 

Try installing some of your most used apps on a ramdrive and see what that'll do. I have some stuff setup like that and it's scary fast. Don't know how much would be reflected in a performance test, but for real world usage, nothing else comes anywhere close.

 

Then your SSD dies and ruh roh you have the world's fastest non working laptop.

 

I'd like to try it. Can you recommend a specific RAM Drive?

 

Try out Dataram RAMDisk which is free for up to 4 GB disk size. Have been using it trouble free for a year or so.

 

How are you doing this? Do you have a ramdrive which mirrors its state on disk for when the laptop is shut down?

 

http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk

I use the Dataram ramdisk listed above. There are many ramdrives available on the web, but dataram was the first one I found. It works quite well, and as mentioned, <=4Gig is free. Started with the freebie, then started using one >4G, which was either free, with some sort of 'registration', or it mighta been pretty cheap; I don't remember for sure. Got it, set it up, don't think about it anymore cuz it just works. I bookmarked and downloaded several other ramdrive utilities for future use, if needed, as one never knows what one will need in the future. No guarantees the Dataram folks will be around forever, either. If you see it on the web, grab it now, cuz you never know kinda mentality...

Note that ramdrives lose any new data loaded on them when the laptop is powered off, unless you save the data or an image of the ramdrive beforehand.

Dataram allows for an image to be created, saved to disk and then loaded whenever you boot up your pc. So, what I did was create the ramdrive, then manually format it and add some folders, such as 'TEMP\', 'TMP\' and a utility folder for my own stuff. Change Windows and/or your app(s) to point to the TEMP/TMP folders. Then, save the image(via Dataram utility) to your hard drive and whenever you boot up, the image will be loaded as your ramdrive, complete with empty TEMP/TMP folders, suitable for new usage. I used to have one specific commercial app actually installed on the ramdrive, and it worked -much- faster than when it was installed on my hard drive(which is a good SSD, btw). I replaced it with something I programmed myself, and no longer need/use this app. So, you can kind of roll your own, depending upon your needs.

For the ramdrive's utility folder, which holds my 'stuff', I didn't save my routines inside the ramdrive image file, as these can change over time. I just setup the folder and inside it is a batch file call 'CopyUtil.bat'. I then run that routine just once at boot up time and it copies current files from my hard drive utility folder to the ramdrive(really fast, btw: >700 files from an SSD to a ramdrive in under 2 secs ). That way, it's always current and up to date. My search order for DOS and other environments is setup to look first in the ramdrive utility folder and then later in the hard drive utility folder. That way, if the routine being searched for -is- on the ramdrive, it runs it from there(quicker, as it's ramdrive I/O). If the routine is not on the ramdrive(cuz it's brand new, not there or I forgot to run 'CopyUtil.bat') it will still be found in the hard drive utility folder. CYA idea here...

To run a ramdrive, you need to carefully think thru your system/apps needs and then do a fair amount of testing to get it all correct. Everything doesn't need to be 'ramdriven'; just the best bang for the buck stuff. In my case, I have a platform built for some very specific needs. It does tremendous amounts of I/O(>50Gig/day in write activity alone in a 6.5 hour timeframe), so there's a LOT of room for performance improvement, if I can direct that I/O thru the ramdrive.

If your system doesn't do a lot of I/O, or it does small chunks of read I/O, you probably won't see tremendous differences between a ramdrive vs. a good SSD, as SSDs handle small chunk read I/O very well. That said, if you're still reading this post, chances are good you have sumpin' going on that might warrant checking out a ramdrive.

Finally, remember that all tuning does is 'change what you wait on'. It's all a matter of juggling cpu, memory and disk I/O. The best tuning tackles I/O first(slowest link in chain), and then follows up to make sure adequate memory is in use, and finally cpu, as there's not much you can do to upgrade cpu resources, other than a physical cpu swap or more efficient programming/apps, etc.

Enjoy

 

Well if your talking about overall performance, its a shame that the T/W 520 series only has an Nvidia NVS 4200 gpu. This is a very crippling card (especially for gamers that is of course) but like others mentioned, it is a business notebook regardless and we buy them because of the thinkpad keyboard and build quality.

With raid 0 setup it is fast nonetheless but why do you want it so fast? From what I know, raid 0 setup in SSDs wont make the games run any faster (will load faster though) with the applications that will launch faster but in my experience (I have a single intel x25-m 80gb G2 in my thinkpad) the apps launches so fast, I wouldnt notice much if it were any faster.

 

The W series has a Quadro, of which the 2000M option is a fairly capable GPU. This is one of the major differences between T and W series configurations.

The "why" question I imagine has to do a lot with the coolness factor of being on the bleeding edge of hardware performance. Sure, in day-to-day use there will be minimal benefit to slapping together a rig with this type of performance (unless he is doing some sort of massive database seeking or some other kind of large data set database/scientific sort of work), but part of the thrill is being right on the edge of what hardware will allow. I think its a neat part of the computing hobby even if I don't personally feel like spending the cash necessary to keep up with it.

 

Thanks for clearing up the GPU, I didnt know it was the Quadro. From what I know for scientific reasons or modeling the Quadro cards are usually on par with mid/higher end cards offered by other vendors but with a much better driver that allows such software to be utilized to full extent.

I too was a spec w*hore one time many moons ago but I agree with you, it is the thrill.

 

I don't use it for games. I use it for web page development, with lots (!) of apps and windows open (browsers, microsoft expression web, excel, photoshop, outlook, vegas movie studio, etc. etc. ) and I definitely notice the difference in responsiveness. Very fast workflow - no longer waiting for the computer!

 

With this post I was hoping to give Lenovo marketing department some ideas and to help other users to get the maximum performance out of their W520 by upgrading to an SSD (or two).

I was also hoping to bring the 40 second warm reboot issue to Lenovo's attention.

 

I'm pretty sure they are aware of it, but you wouldn't know it because they won't even acknowledge the status of their testing.

 

I've just purchased a W520 configured for RAID 0 and two Intel 510 250 G SSDs. Has anyone have a step-by-step "here's what to do" list for configuring virgin W520 identical to that of the original poster?

I understand this involves creating a recovery CD, but I'd like more details on the right sequence of things to do including setting the stripe size, installing the Intel SSD drivers, deactivating (to the extent possible) the Lenovo shock protection, etc.

Here's one link I found on setting the stripe size, but not sure if the Acronis True Image Home software is absolutely needed to do this. RAID0 backup/restore on a laptop | Knowledge Base

 

A fresh install is fairly easy. Make a recovery USB stick (since there is no CD drive on a RAID W520), put in the Intel 510s and you are all set.

(I found the 128k and 64k stripe sizes work best for me. It is more of a fine-tuning issue.)

(PS: No, you don't need Acronis to do backup/restore. It's just what I used.)

 

To create RAID volumes, do as follows:
1. Turn on the computer.
2. During the startup, when a prompt to press Ctrl+I to enter the Configuration Utility is displayed on the
screen, press and hold the Ctrl key, and press the I key.
3. The screen for Intel Rapid Storage Technology option ROM is displayed. Select “Create RAID Volume”
and press Enter.
4. Using the up and down arrow keys, Tab keys, and Enter key select the RAID level and fill in other fields.
5. Select “Create Volume” by pressing the Enter key. When the dialog box appears, press the Y key.
Attention: All existing data will be erased while the RAID volume is being created.
6. Exit the Configuration Utility.

 

Thanks, Huberth. That was helpful.

1. In step 4 above, is one of the fields the stripe size? If so, based on your experience, what should I enter?

2. Do i need to install any of the drivers included with the Intel 510 drive?

 

1. Yes. I do not profess to be an expert in this matter. I tried 16k 64k and 128k.
I posted my CrystalDiskmark scores here http://forum.notebookreview.com/len...change-strip-size-re-set-ssd.html#post7588883. Your results may vary.
I am using 64k right now. Storagereview.com used a 64k stripe size and got excellent results.
Lenovo ThinkPad W520 Review | StorageReview.com

2. I don't think so. But put the drivers etc. on a USB stick, just in case you need them.

 

This being an old thread, I'm in the process of buying a W520 with Raid 0.

Which 2 SSDs should I purchase when I receive my laptop?

 

How much money do you have?

 

Depends on what you are looking for? Speed, reliability? Speed, you can consider PM830 Samsung SSDs or the Intel 510/520 series. Reliability? G2/320 series.

 

I don't know yet. I haven't thought about the cost at this moment as it may take up to 3 weeks to get my W520 configured with RAID 0.

I just want have an ideal

 

I don't think you can go wrong with the Intel, Crucial or Samsung drives. The question about the budget had to do with storage capacity.

 

I'll go with intel 520