Lenovo EE 2.0 vs. Clean install with alignment?

I am not an expert on this topic, simply intermediate, that's why I'm posting this for a brainstorming discussion. I know that many folks don't want to pay the Lenovo premium of upgrading to an SSD but rather to buy it cheaper (and/or larger capacity and/or faster SATA III 6Gbps) from another vendor. So then the question becomes: Do you try to maintain the Lenovo Enhanced Experience 2.0 optimizations (by using the Recovery Discs or imaging to the SSD) for a speedier system but possibly hindered with too much bloatware and "things" running or do you do a fresh and clean Windows 7 install with alignment to guarantee no bloatware or unnecessary "things"?

Ps. Can someone plainly and/or technically describe what "alignment" means? Is it something like this? The SSD Optimization Guide | The SSD Review

 

See, the thing about EE 2.0 is that there is no real-life comparison to base the "overall experience" off of. That being said, by using what people have said about using your own SSD, I was able to use recovery materials, and by copying the SWTOOLS folder, I was able to basically replicate what was on my original HDD onto my SSD with no problems whatsoever. The boot time was extremely fast (under 15 seconds) and the WEI was fine too. This EE 2.0, at least I feel, doesn't mean much of anything unless I have something to compare it to.

Don't let that stop you from getting a SSD on your own, and doing what most people do--install a fresh copy of Windows 7--copy the SWtools folder and install your drivers. Once you get the Thinkvantage toolbox (which includes the all-important Thinkvantage Update utility), you're set, because that is the best updater, and with every driver there--I think you'll see the EE 2.0 "experience."

 

I actually did a clean install from a Win 7 DVD to an SSD I put in the X220. Then I installed the Lenovo System Update tool and updated to all the EE 2.0 items I wanted. System runs great and boots from completely off to the desktop, connected to wifi and network drives in 25-30 seconds.

It actually boots faster from a cold start than it does from hibernation mode. I have since disabled hibernation.

 

I have use the recovery disks to restore the factory image onto an SSD without any alignment problems and the system ran great.

I also just recently did a clean install due to some bad bluetooth drivers and have noticed a slight speed increase but it's not huge. I also installed Lenovo's Rapidboot software which I believe is their EE 2.0 "secret sauce." However, since I'm operating off a clean install, I haven't noticed much of a performance boost with Rapidboot installed as I think Rapidboot just delays the loading of certain drivers at startup.

 

For those of you who did clean installs, how is your battery life? There were some mixed reports early on that battery life dropped off quite a bit with clean installs, but I haven't seen much about that more recently.

 

I have the 9-cell and I'm getting 10-11 hours of solid battery life.

 

So far so good but it's only been a day. On typical usage, i was getting about 6 - 7.5 hrs with the factory image and it seems that my battery is getting drained at a similar rate now but I can't say for sure as I just recently went the clean install route. While this may vary from different models, I don't recall this being mentioned on the w520 thread as a problem.

 

On my T420, just doing casual forum browsing reports an estimated battery life of 12 hours on my 9 cell. I did a clean install on my system and I think that's pretty good in my books.

 

Awesome, thanks for the responses guys. Another question for clean install people: did any of you use UEFI for your clean installs, or did you all use legacy BIOS?

 

I went legacy but the only reason is because I am using RAID and I couldn't get UEFI to recognize my RAID array.

 

Good discussion. 1) So just what is "alignment", is that Windows 7 tweaks to optimize when it's on an SSD? Doesn't Windows automatically recognize an SSD and adjust many of these settings? 2) I also seemed to read something about "make sure you load the AHCI driver before/during a fresh Windows 7 install." Is that for real and how do you do that instead of just loading the AHCI driver with Lenovo System Update after Windows 7 is installed?

 

I used UEFI.

Note that there are fingerprint reader issues if you use UEFI-only. I don't have a FP reader on my T420, so no issues there. I have had no problems.

Windows 7 has an AHCI driver, no need to load it first. You would be advised to update to the latest version after the install, though.

 

I've been searching about this too since I just ordered a T420s. From what I read here, there are issues with UEFI. The post I linked to references a Lenovo employee who says:

"Even though the BIOS option exists for UEFI boot, there are still several kinks that need to be worked out, and fingerprint support is just one of them. We are actively working on these things, and UEFI preloads and recovery disks should be coming later this year."

So if you don't want to find yourself encountering one of these "several kinks" down the road, it's best to stay away from UEFI until Lenovo fixes their UEFI problems.

 

For the record, I've had my T420 for a month now, and use it every day, with UEFI-only, BIOS 1.23. No kinks.

Note also upon checking that there is a new T420 BIOS today, 1.26. It is possible that other ThinkPads have a similar release.

Lenovo Support - BIOS Update Utility for Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit), XP - ThinkPad