List of drives that are compatible with the x220

Newegg already stock some variants of the Samsung 830 andthe ones they don't, they should have the full range in stock by the end of Oct. Hurry up though, they're gonna sell like hot cakes
Newegg.com - Computer Hardware, Hard Drives, SSD, Internal SSD, SAMSUNG

 

Thanks!

Unfortunately, it looks like I have to wait for it to come to Newegg .ca

 

Does anybody know if the Crucial M4 CT512M4SSD2 will fit the X220 with the spacer taken off? Will opening void the warranty? I looked up newegg.ca and it seems like it's on sale right now... The intel 320 600GB is just over my budget right now... even through it comes as 7mm variant.

I need something to replace the 250gb platter I have now and if I have to mod it, it can't be difficult... I don't want to have to cut screws, shave metal etc etc to fit it into my X220

 

Yes it will. There is no warranty sticker on mine, you will need shorter screws (2x3) to reassemble and beware: Opening does void the warranty according to Crucial.

 

Has anybody tried to RMA a defective m4 after putting into their x220. It would be a waste to spend over 800 bones to find out that Crucial won't touch it because you've opened it up to remove the spacer?

 

On your's it's the 128gb model, does it have chips on both sides or just one side. I've been told that the chips will touch the metal casing after you put it back together without the spacer and thus creating a short, which could fry your SSD.

 

Hey guys, I am in a bit of dilemma and would like to seek advice. I have a x220 (i5 and 250GB 5400 rpm HDD) and would like to install an SSD. I was considering these two options -
1) Intel 310 mSATA SSD 80 GB + my old HDD (250 GB) = More data space but slower speed that samsung 830.

2) Samsung 830 128 GB SSD + 32 GB Class 10 SDHC card = 160 Gb space

The price diference between Intel 310 and Samsung 830 isn't significant ($40). Which option is better? Can SDHC card handle HD video playback well if I store most of my videos on it? I am leaning towards samsung 830 due to it's speed and ease of installation.

 

Considering the Samsung is a SATA III SSD drive and the Intel is a SATA II speed drive, I think you are going to see better performance out of the Samsung. There's just one problem. It's 128GB.

 

I have read somithing similar on another forum. To be honest, first time I put the SSD back together without the spacer Windows did not recognize the drive.. After I took it out and loosened the screws a bit Windows installed without a problem.

Other people used tape to keep the chip from touching the metal top plate, see this blog.

About the warranty, it was an official Crucial reply to a direct question I emailed them that said 'modding' the drive will void warranty.

Some people say that Crucial won't notice if you put the spacer back before sending it in.. I do not agree, they will be able to see that the screws have been tampered with. Whether this will be enough reason for them to really void the warranty someone has to find out the hard way..

 

Why doesn't Crucial just engineer the case so that it has a material on the inside of the lid that would prevent a short?

Seems like a prudent thing to do and would provide a case that could be used in 7mm or 9.5mm application.

I would not put the electrical tape on the chips. I would put it on the lid. Then if you need to send the drive in for warranty repair, any needed cleanup would be easy.

 

Speaking of shorted out C4's, I just dropped my X220 fitted with a modded 128GB C4 and I believe it has shorted out, as stock HD works fine, but I get a missing HDD error when starting up with C4 in. Instead of buying shorter screws I actually clipped mine almost in half to get them to the right size. I am thinking of what I would need to do to get it ready to send back for a "warranty" repair, perhaps I can buy some of the same screws off of ebay, does anyone have the spec?

Also was there a warranty sticker on it? Can't even remember, never thought I'd have to send it in. I have the spacer laying around but what else do I need to dress it up with before sending it in? Not expecting much but want to give it a try rather than spending another $200. Any help is much appreciated.

 

Again, I'm just wondering if it's worth the risk. It's a damn good price right now at $749.99 for the 512GB. I run VMWARE so using the mechanical drive takes a long time to boot into a VM. And the 256GB model is a little too small to store all my VM images.

 

So my new x220 is hopefully being shipped today. I intend to swap out the HDD with a new SSD, eventually maybe two.

So which should i start with first? Should I get a good mSATA SSD to install W7 etc. on and wait for lets say the Samsung 830 to drop in price and become more widely available or is that a bad idea and the opposite of what I should be doing? Im completely green and I dont have any prior experience with MSATA drives.

Any drives you reccomend in particular? Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

I have a OCZ vertex left over from my old system, but it sounds like that is a no-go.

 

Edit: No longer need screws. For educational purposes I will tell you why.

I dropped my X220 laptop last night which had a spacer-modded M4 in it. Wasn't booting up, so I tried OEM hard drive, and it booted up fine. Figured M4 was totally dead. I take off the case completely, so it's only the SSD chip, use a USB SATA connector to connect the M4 to another computer, and 'lo and behold it shows up in My Computer. I now try it in my X220, screwed to only the bottom half of the case, and it's working beautifully. $180 no longer down the drain.

 

So the whole top part of you SSD case off even when you have it in your X220? So a topless SSD? and it works fine...

 

I used sandpaper to shorten the screws from my Gen 2 Intel x25m, it worked really well.

 

Top off...saw one or two posts of people having done it, didn't have much to lose. Screwed in two screws diag from each other to hold it steady (not tight), put rubber rails on the side and pushed her in. Started up like nothing ever happened.

 

Is the C4 the same as a m4? C4 is the realSSD made by Micron correct? and the m4 is the same but branded as Crucial? I'm confused as to which one to get because retailers only sell Crucial.

 

I'm just writing here to say that an old kingston SNVP325-s2 256GB is compatible, just remove the allen screws and then the top of the drive, after that put the old drive enclosure in the oposite direction (botton on front) to protect the circuit from static.

 

Last night I decided to purchase a ssd drive along with some other things, but today I remembered reading something about not all ssd drives fit in the x220.

With that said I wanted to ask if the drive listed below will work, if it is a perfect fit or if it can be modified.

Corsair SSD Force Series 3, 60GB

I would also like to know, if this drive will not work, what drive is currently the fastest at a reasonable price (150 euro or less). I dont really need more than 40-60gb.

Seemes all the drivers I´ve looked at have about half the read/write of the one I bought, but if it doesnt fit than oh well=/

 

I can confirm that the OCZ Vertex II works. Kinda wish I thought of testing it before I shelled out for a new Samsung 830. I can always send it back, though I suspect my vertex might be having some issues.

It's not greatest fit though. Still some wiggleroom on the sides, but it definitely works.

 

I just bought a Crucial M4, and I can say, it will definitely NOT fit the x220. The tabs at the top of the drive bay prevent it from fitting in. The only thing I think I can do is open up the X220. I guess that would be the only way to get it in.

One word of caution... The Crucial M4 I bought has a sticker over one screw, that says warranty void if removed. I believe they caught on that people were purposely taking off the spacer to make it fit in their laptops.

 

The OCZ Vertex II works, however I will never use it again.. It's incredibly fast at writing files, but slow read performance and a high price heavily detract from it..

 

I'm not saying you are making it up but I absolutely cannot push the m4 ssd into the drive slot without damaging it. There's enough height in the drive bay but the tabs at the entrance is preventing the m4 from going in. I have the 256gb model and the specs say it's exactly 9.5mm height. The ocz that another poster mentioned is 9.3mm high. That extra .2mm may be enough space to get the ssd in. If you have any pictures of the drive halfway in, pls show me, because my x220 will not let me fit the sucker in.

 

W
Just noticed that you have an x220t... Mine is the regular x220... That would explain why it would fit in yours.

 

Drive bay and cages for the x220 models are the same, I've put in msata and swapped 2.5" drives in both types.

Taking off the keyboard + palmrest is easy and would likely solve the minor tab clearance issue. Once you put a drive in there, its likely to stay quite a while or forever barring upgrades.

 

Well, I'm going to try this tonight. I have opened the x220 before to put in a msata drive, so it shouldn't be too hard. My worry is that the SSD won't even fit the drive bay. Then I'm back to square one, I will have no other option than to put it in a USB 3.0 enclosure rather than void the warranty.

 

I tried to put in the m4 and have concluded 2 things.

1. It is possible to take the keyboard + palmrest and wedge the SSD into place BUT it will be next to impossible to take it out without damaging the system board / plastic or the drive connector of either the x220 or the drive itself. Once you put it in consider it permanent.
2. The only way to put the m4 into the x220 (non tablet version) without the frustration is to take the spacer off it, thereby voiding the warranty (in my case it has the warranty sticker on one of the screws).

Without grinding the four tabs flush, there is no possible way to slide the SSD in. And even if you do it's an extremely tight fit. I do not have a tool to do that nor do i know if that will void the warranty from Lenovo.

I would not recommend either of these 2 mod unless you have nothing to lose...

 

Why isnt the Samsung 830 on this list?

It's also supports 7mm.

 

Good point. I haven't checked the first post in a while so I just assumed it had been added.

I'm putting one in my X220 (as soon as I can find one! )

 

Does anyone know if the SanDisk 120 GB Solid State Drive (SDSSDH-120G-G25) will fit the X220?

 

If it's a 9.5mm drive, which it looks like, it won't work without modification.

 

Is this compatible with X220 (the nontablet version)?

Corsair Memory 120GB Force Series 3 SATA 6Gb/s 2.5" Solid State Drive (Read 550MB/s, Write 510MB/s) (CSSD-F120GB3-BK) - dabs.com

 

Hey guys, after I got my X220 I immediately tried to install my old SSD that's lying around with a simple removal of screws and it worked. It's a 9.5mm Kingston SSD NOW V series ( http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/10/16/kingston-ssd-now-v-series-64gb-ssd-review/1). Basically, just remove the four torx screws, remove the top part and leave the bottom part on, place it inside the original HDD caddy holder, and you're done. Nothing else needed, no tape, nada. Fits perfectly, removes perfectly. In the future I'll upgrade it to another 9.5mm SSD or 1TB HDD.

 

From the photos (none of the specs mention the thickness) it looks like a 9.5mm thick drive. It will therefore require modification to make it fit. Read through this thread for details of possible modifications.

John

 

what would you remove from an HDD without exposing the platter? or are you talking about removing something from inside the laptop itself? the main thing that stopped me from getting an x220 was the single platter hdd only issue, i need at least 1tb.

 

Do you know if this kingston model (9.5 mm) is compatible?

Thank you very much!

 

Do you know if I can install a 9.5 mm thick drive in a ThinkPad X220 TABLET 4299 ?

Thank you in advance!

 

Please note that you can edit your posts - there's no need to make another post.

There are many examples in this thread of 9.5mm thick drives being modified to fit into the X220. However, this may invalidate your SSD warranty. Are you willing to do that?

John

 

Sorry for not editing the post.

I'm confused because in this post they say that you can install a 9mm disk with no problem.

And I'm afraid that Kingston doesn't have a plastic to take off and make it thinner. Do you know if in X220 tablet model you can install a 9mm SSD?

Thx!

 

If you read through this thread you will find that people have made 9.5mm thick SSDs fit into their X220s using methods such as leaving off the rubber / plastic rails and grinding down metal protruberances with a Dremel.

John

 

Why don't you just get the Samsung 830, which is a 7mm drive and compatible with the bay? I doubt there's much of a performance difference between the drives. Better yet, pick up a mSATA drive, then you can keep you platter drive in the main bay for more storage.

 

Okay question.. what does it mean to install Windows by UEFI? It sounds like you have to pick which way to install windows via UEFI or not? Why can't one just install windows as normal from a clean install? I've done that plenty of times on other machines, just wondering what might be different for the x220.

Say can I Just do a clean install and download the drivers from Lenovo and go from there? Do I even have to worry about UEFI if I'm doing this?

Thanks guys.

 

You can read about UEFI here. Then forget about it for now and just carry on. It is currently an option but I'm waiting until the next generation of hardware when it should be fully debugged.

John

 

I decided to switch to UEFI for X220 (for both the mSATA SSD and Intel SSD). First step was converting to GPT partitions. It was all a lot more hassle than it's worth as I couldn't restore from any backups AND I couldn't boot from my bootable Win 7 x64 Pro USB flash drive --- all because they were all based on the legacy MBR. It took a LOT of unnecessary time and effort to switch. If I was starting with a clean Windows 7 install and had a CD to install, I would say go UEFI though.

Anyway, I didn't give up and everything appears to be working just fine. As Lenovo said, you won't see improvements with UEFI yet (due to maintaining backward compatibility to 2014) but my BIOS is ready for a UEFI update that offers some improvements...

 

^ yes I will be starting from scratch... hmm I think I'll just go whichever route I'm used to. I'll be making a recovery image to a USB flash drive and reinstalling the recovery windows from there onto a new 160GB Intel SSD. If I go this route, you mentioned being unable to boot from your USB flash drive? How would I prep a new USB flash drive for UEFI based Win7 install? I don't get my machine until early next week so I'm preparing myself.

 

Good question. I don't think the problem is so much the UEFI boot but rather the GPT disk partition that the UEFI boot requires. The legacy disk partition, using MBR, is the common, legacy disk layout. Here's one of many articles.

I need to create a bootable USB flash drive from my X220 now and see if that has the GPT partition and if I can boot from that.

 

Hmm I see, so if I put the USB drive into my GF's macbook and use disk utility I know that gives the option of making it MBR or GPT. So if I start it out as GPT and then the normal steps of making it bootable with bootsect, active partition you think this will work fine?

http://jake.io/b/2011/installing-windows-7-with-uefi-boot-on-an-x220-from-usb/

I'll have to read that as I just found it. Maybe that will help. =)

 

It appears that Crucial is releasing a 7mm version of the M4 (Google reveals other hits for 7mm M4). However, the Crucial website doesn't know about it yet.

John