List of drives that are compatible with the x220

0002 firmware was to address the stuttering problems in ThinkPad laptops, especially when the power options were set to turn off hard disks when idle.

If you want better performance then definitely go for Crucial M4. If you want to risk data loss due to the 8MB bug before Intel releases any firmware update to fix this then go for the Intel 320 Series.

Keep in mind that you'll need shorter screws when modding either into 7mm.

 

Ok, the 0002 firmware completely fixed the issue In fact, the changelog of 0002 explicitly said that the firmware addressed this issue.

 

So what should I be doing to maintain the SSD? Do I enable TRIM or just leave it to garbage collection on the m4?

 

Just leave it alone. M4 recovers really fast!

 

sorry you've really confused me here.
You say it is snug, but can easily pop out.
And you say foam is not needed as the drive will not come out without minimal effort. Double negative, meaning the foam is not needed as the drive will come out with minimal effort.
That totally doesn't make any sense! haha. (to me)

PS. I need some advice on how you transfer the image of your lenovo windows installation from the standard, 320gb HDD, onto an msata. I'd really appreciate some step by step instructions from someone.

 

Based on threads I have read by others performing the same modification; I believe that what he is saying is that although the drive fits 'snug' it is not too difficult to remove it.

As for the foam, you will note from the service videos located HERE (Click on FRU "Removals/Replacements" > "Hard Disc Drive" > "Remove Hard Disc Drive") there is no real mechanism (ie clip or screws) for fastening the drive itself to the body; the poster though has placed a small piece of foam between the drive and the access door as a percautionary measure preventing forward and back movement.


Considering that the original drive, which was obviously thinner, will have had more play or poterntial for movement the foam more than likely is not needed, but, IMHO, it is a nice touch.


Have a Magical Day!

 

ah ok yeah that makes more sense.

I'll post my other question again, no doubt this has been answered a million times:
I need some advice on how you transfer the image of your lenovo windows installation from the standard, 320gb HDD, onto an msata. I'd really appreciate some step by step instructions from someone.

 

Which screws exactly ? Where can I get em ?

I heard M2x3. I found this site selling them:

M2x3mm

But which one ?

 

I would go for ones with the thin heads using Philips screwdriver. Thick heads may cause a hump in the rails and impede easy insertion / removal.

John

 

Easiest for me was to burn discs with original hard drive (recovery disks) per Lenovo with external USB DVD-R. I already had one they are cheap otherwise, and load new drive than image it with recovery disks. Otherwise people have talked and created numerous guides on imaging a new drive with a clean install. One without the lenovo software on it.

 

FWIW, as I have not as of yet performed this task my answers would be extremely limited in details, and perhaps, usefulness. Hopefully those more familiar with the process will pounce on my inaccuracies and set us both straight.

If you have already loaded up the old drive with programs, and don't want to go through the task of reinstalling them, you will want to find the software, possibly the hardware as well, for transferring the data between the two drives. By hardware I mean you may need to locate an adapter card that will convert the mSata card into a conventional SATA card, as well as what you will need to connect it to your old drive; one reviewer I read of performed the transfer by plugging the drives into his desktop.

As for the software, one option I read of is HERE

What I intend to do is have the mStata drive on hand from day one and make the transfer as soon as I am confident the laptop is performing as expected.

From my trolling threads on the subject I have noted that if you have created the restore discs, placing the restoration data on either a flash drive or DVD's/cd's, the process could be as simple as removing the stock HD, installing the mSata drive, performing a system restore using the DVD/cd' or flash drive, boot up the system to make sure all is well, shut down the system and return the old HD to the unit.

Win7 will make the Msata the 'C' drive boot drive and reassign the old HD a new drive letter (actually each partition on the old HD will get its own drive letter).

Thereafter you can either wipe the old drive or leave the partition with the old OS as a emergency back up drive; I guess it depends on how hungry you are for free space.

In regards to the subject of free space; quite a number of folks have decided afterwards to remove from their mSata all but the OS partition, including the restore partition. Considering the costs involved for higher capacity mStata drives this is certainly understandable.

Personally I will not be in that crowd; although I may well seek the means to minimize its size. Functions like System Restore Wizard on my old XP computers has helped me too often in the past to totally disregard it. Granted I could carry some external device with the backup info contained within, but my personal desire for having a ultra portable laptop is to minimize the amount of items & bulk I carry in the first place. YMMV.

The last option I have read about is ignoring the backup discs and just doing a clean install of windows and the relevant drivers; I have disregarded this option for my purposes so I would not be qualified to go over it.


Have a Magical Day!

 

Corsair drives?

 

Corsair's FLY



Have a Magical Day!

 

Thanks for the post. USB sounds easy.
So i presume if you havn't wiped the standard HDD drive yet, and you've just inserted your new msata ssd, you would need to start up BIOS, select restore, choose the usb to restore, and somewhere in the settings you get the option of choosing the HDD or the msata SSD to restore to (i.e. make the bootable drive). this sound right? actually you could probably even do this in windows, and not through BIOS?

 

As I have not yet performed this operation I do not want to take the chance of steering you in the wrong direction.

I am not sure what the restore process is for your laptop; I would guess as well that you can do it from windows, and it would be just as if you were replacing a conventional hard drive.

If the only drive in the laptop is the mSata drive then you should not have to make any choice which drive the restore will be going to; you will though, I believe, after you have performed the restore process, have to go into the bios and select the mSata as the boot drive; unless you have wiped the original HDD both drives will be bootable.

Have you read through this thread?


Have a Magical Day!

 

Phew, what a long thread. I admit I only read the first 6-7 pages, (there should be a FAQ) section for those who get 'brain strain' after a few pages, or who are unable to sit still for longer than 5 minutes .

Guys and Girls, I am about to pull the trigger on a Crucial C300, I am aware of the modification for the X220, however other than celephane, what is an appropriate material to place over the circuit board as not to come to contact with the reduced height of the cover.

Cheers Tony

 

I used some insulation for a window -- really cheap and works great.

 

I used electrical tape on an M4 drive, then since the screws didn't fit i just used regular tape and wrapped it around once. works without a hiccup with the new firmware.

 

It looks like my 500GB Hitachi Z5k500 finally shipped today. Hopefully, it'll be here by the end of the week and I'll throw up some benchmarks. It looks like Bottom Line Telecom, where I got mine, has 57 in stock if anyone's interest in getting one.

 

Costcentral has them too:

Hitachi Travelstar Z5K500 HTS545050A7E380 (0J11285) - Internal Hard Drives

 

It will be interesting to compare the performance with the 2-platter 1TB drives reviewed here.

John

 

Storagereview already reviewed the drive. It's one of the slowest hdd's in the world, but that's not a huge deal if you're only using it for storage.

Hitachi Travelstar Z5K500 Review (HTS545050A7E380) | StorageReview.com

 

My thought too. I thought about the 1TB too, but don't want to take apart my X220i to make it fit. Plus I'd be more concerned with noise on a dual platter drive.

 

Any feedback for this Runcore mSATA SSD.. Does the mSATA x220 port support SATA III?

 

As promised here's the bench for the Z5k500:



Looks plenty fine for storage. The drive is a bit more noisy than the 320GB it replaces, which is a bit annoying. I bought the drive from Bottom Line Telecom. It arrived a few days early, but came in a padded envelope, which I was unhappy about, but the drive seems to be working if a bit noisy.

 

I still don't see that the M4 is moddable ... which it is :

Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 128GB in x220 – modded to 7mm | Vivi The Mage

 

I have had a Runcore drive for 4+ years and it's rock solid. I still get ~25MB 4K reads from it in a laptop that only supports SATA I.

 

Okay. But does anybody know if the x220 mSATA port suports SATA III speed sothat it can take full advantage of this drives speed wich is close to a ocz vertex 3?

 

I believe it does not.

 

Anyone heard of OCZ mSATA SSD:s? They look faster than the Intel ones and are availible in 30/60/120GB.

Quote from the specs of the 30GB Nocti model:

• Max Read - up to 280 MB/s
• Max Write - up to 255 MB/s
• 4KB Random Read - 6,000 IOPS (20MB/s)
• 4KB Random Write - 12,500 IOPS (20 MB/s)

• NAND Components 2Xnm Multi-Level Cell (MLC)
• Interface SATA II / 3Gbps
• Form Factor mSATA
• Controller SandForce 2141/2181
• Dimensions (L x W) 30 x 50mm
• Seek Time 0.1 ms
• Weight 6g
• Power Consumption Idle: 0.3 W Active: 1.5 W
• Operating Temperature 0°C ~ 70°C
• Ambient Temperature 0°C ~ 55°C
• Storage Temperature -45°C ~ 85°C
• Shock Resistance 20G
• Certifications RoHS, CE, FCC
• MTBF 2 million hours
• Product Health Monitoring Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.)
• Operating System Windows XP 32-Bit and 64-Bit; Windows Vista 32-Bit & 64 Bit; Windows 7 32-Bit and 64-Bit
• Power Requirements Standard mSATA Port
• Performance Optimization TRIM (requires OS support)
• Service & Support 3-Year Warranty, Toll-Free Tech Support, 24 Hour Forum Support

 

the new samsung 830 ssd wil be 7mm thick, hurray
AnandTech - The Samsung SSD 830 Review

 

yay looks like im buying this one !!!

 

so i just bought the x220.
am just about to buy these two drives for it, is this a good combo and pricing?
Samsung 1tb M8 $90 (obviously requires a slight mod to the x220)
Newegg.com - SAMSUNG Spinpoint M8 HN-M101MBB 1TB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Intel 310 80bg mSata $200
Newegg.com - Intel 310 Series 80GB mSATA mSATA (mini PCIe form factor) MLC Enterprise Solid State Disk SSDMAEMC080G2C1 - Enterprise SSD

 

NOT compatible:
-Intel 510 SSD series

The Intel 510 128GB works deshelled

Just use the HDD holder from Lenovo, then it looks like this:

 

One review said that it is even less than 7mm in height by their measurement. Hope this drive can fit in the rubber holder of X220.

 

The OCZ Nocti mSATA is compatible with the x220, see my review here: OCZ Nocti mSATA 120GB Unboxing + Benchmarks

 

Me too. I hope there is no compatibility/fit issue.

 

Samsung PM810 MZ7 series ssd should be also put into the compatible list, it is 7mm in height:
http://www.samsung.com/global/busin...s/SSD/downloads/ds_pm810_25_sata_ii_rev10.pdf

NEW 2011 Samsung 470 2.5 256GB SSD Win7 Trim 3.0Gbps for Windows or Mac | eBay

 

I just ordered a x220 2 days ago and I found this forum today.

Sorry I don't have the time to read all 69 pages, this is the drive that I want to use, can anyone please confirm if it can be simply modded to fit to x200?
thanks
Newegg.com - Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

 

Yes no problem. I just did it with a friend's X220 and M4 -- I sanded off the tabs on the X220 with a dremel tool -- go slow and easy and you'll be fine. Slides in like a charm you need to remove palm rest and keyboard, but it is easy. Less than 60 minutes from dremel to fully assembled again.

 

gosh, I thought all you need to do is to remove the 2.5mm protector, No?
I don't own a dremel yet...

 

My two-penneth:

I took the spacer off the M4 and decided to leave the top off too, it seemed like the less dangerous option. It shouldn't touch anything with the spacers. Another option I considered was putting it in the caddy upside down and then putting the caddy in the machine upside down.

I considered the OCZ Nocti mSATA but decided that I didn't need the extra storage and the M4 was faster and a bit cheaper.

I read earlier in this thread someone recommending wrapping a de-shelled SSD in anti-static material. Not sure why you would want to do this as the whole point of anti-static material iiuc is that it conducts electricity(!)

 

iiuc mSATA never supports SATA III, it's a SATA II standard.

 

Sure?
What about this one?

 

An interesting find to be sure.

Personally, I'll stick with a ~200GB SSD (when I find one I like). I found that there's quite a performance hit when combining a boot SSD with a storage HDD (I have this configuration in my desktop).

The benefit of the SSD is all but eliminated for many operations (my HDDs are Western Digital Caviar Blacks, BTW).

 

The Samsung 830 SSD (7mm) is now available in Europe, its arguably the fastest non-sandforce SSD. I've ordered mine from here:
Samsung 830 Series 256GB - Solid State Drives (SSD) - computeruniverse

 

Please also add Crucial M4 to the list, mine is working fine after removing the spacer.
256GB M4-CT256M4SSD2

 

I can't believe this thread is still going.

 

I'm 24 hours into a 256GB M4 in my X220tablet, and so far it's been nothin but blazing fast everything. Still slightly concerned about the drive failing though, since I had to remove the spacer (voiding the warranty) to make it fit.

 

I want that exact drive as well! Still can't find it in North America though, despite Samsung saying it's available for sale.

The performance is above average and the reliability reported to be excellent. Plus, you don't have to screw around with mods and void your warranty!