List of drives that are compatible with the x220

I just ordered an intel 310 40GB mSata drive to compliment the 250GB 5400rpm drive that the x220 comes with. I should receive them both on tuesday, so I will post results on installing windows 7 and drivers to the solid state.

 

People want thinner machines. This is one part of it. I look at it as a plus. You can get the mSATA drive to use as a boot drive, then a 7mm drive for storage all for a lot less than a similarly sized SSD would cost. The 7mm drives go up to 500GB. It's not like you're losing a ton of space compared to a 9.gmm drive.

 

Are you familiar with the metric system? Do you have any idea how insignificant 2mm is? That 2mm is no way worth the loss of choice and price hike when it comes to these 7mm hard drives. Take a look at the x220 compatible drives list here. It's like a handful, and every single one of them is quite a bit more expensive than their 9.5mm equivalents, especially the SSDs (none of which are true 7mm as well, as they require mods, and in some cases that breaks the warranty).

Lenovo made a really stupid decision by going 7mm only. Maybe they are experimenting and hoping that since there's pratically no choice for the consumer to buy outside of Lenovo, they will choose to pay the 100%+ price premium and buy from Lenovo themselves.

Would I choose to save $50+ (6-10% of laptop price) or have a laptop 2mm smaller that the human eye can't even tell... hmmm, $50/6% please!

 

By the way, OP, please modify and move Intel 320 to modifiable 9.5mm, because it is not 7mm. It comes with a spacer that is removable. According to the sticker on the drive, removing any screws or stickers will void the warranty, and to remove the spacer you have to remove screws (but how Intel will know... I don't think they will)

 

due to reducing the chassis thickness, the drive rail thickness, and moving some parts around, the X220's design was made approximately 3.5mm thinner overall (or 1/8") by using 7mm drives instead of 9.5mm.   that, my friend, is very significant.

the industry is shifting toward 7mm drives in ultraportables.   as SSDs increase in capacity and decrease in cost, you can guarantee that 9.5mm will eventually be phased out just like 12.5mm of yore.   in six months to a year from now all the complaints about 9.5mm's demise will likely be gone.

relax.   it's not the end of humanity.

 

erik, there's really no need to tell people to relax. It's a forum, a place to discuss and argue various merits. People disagree, it's natural. May not be the end of humanity but I'd still choose a 3.5mm thicker laptop (still not significant at all, at least to me) if it means saving me a good chunk of money and having a larger selection of drives to choose from.

My opinion of this seems to offend you. Not sure why you'd tell someone to relax for stating their opinion and disagreeing with someone else, on a public forum =/

 

Probably because you're arguing with two moderators which is seldom a good idea...

 

What does this have to do with moderating a forum? Are you here to keep the rules or try to shun people's opinions?

I was not breaking any rules. Why do you even bring that up?

Perhaps you do not know the meaning of a discussion:

• a conversation or debate about a certain topic

We are debating the size of the laptop and how it affects consumers. Is this against the rules? No? OK then

 

it's one thing to debate merits of a design change but it's another to argue ZaZ's knowledge of how to use a metric ruler.   state how something impacts your opinion without dragging others down.   that's called common courtesy.

to address your concern, i'm not offended offended one bit.   i'm glad the X220 is thinner and don't plan to waste one second worrying about any of this.   technology and design evolve with time.   if you don't like a feature on a new product then there's nothing keeping you from buying last year's model if it suits you better.   i have an SXGA+ X61T for that very reason.

so, yeah... relax.

 

I've been hearing great things about the 61 series. I'd love to buy one if I could find one brand new and would have probably bought it instead of the x220 assuming it was ~30-40% cheaper. Also there's an appropriate time to evolve the design. For example it would have been a better idea to introduce a thinner laptop when there was a good selection of hard drives that its compatible with. At the same time it's also a good thing that Lenovo tries to be ahead of the curve here and there's nothing stopping people from holding off and buying it when the selection grows.

 

well, the only great thing about the X61 is the display on the high-res tablet.   the X200/X201/X220 are all built markedly better, run cooler/quieter, and are easier to service.   i enjoy my X61T thoroughly but expect to get more use out of the X220.

but, that's beside the point.   this thread needs to focus on 7mm and mSATA drives for the X220.

 

Probably because you make comments like the following:

Here's the deal. I have zero interest in your opinions. I do have an interest in how you express them. Be nice.

 

Looks like three to me, gets the hat trick.

I don't really care about the thickness/thinness of the drive, but some do. You're only loosing a couple hundred GBs compared to a 9.5mm drive. I think most people would call that a pretty good trade off.

The best part for me is the dual drive set up. I had a SSD for my X200t, but having all my stuff on the external could be annoying at times. If I get a 500GB 7mm drive then I won't have to use my external near as much.

 

Intel have verified that the removal of the spacer does not void the warranty. 7mm support is official.

 

I posted this to the msata thread, but you might want to update the list of drives to include the MyDigitalSSD mSata drives as well. They're generic mSata's with the speeds of the Renice drives.

64GB = $140
128GB = $280

Speeds are 270mbps/200mbps, and the site even includes the benchmarks for them. I'm thinking about picking up the 64GB version for the x220 I've got ordered.

 

Also, there is no such thing as a Crucial C400. There is the Micron C400 and the Crucial M4, which are identical drives (and, from reviews, have a removable spacer). Micron is Crucial's parent, and the Micron drives are intended for OEMs whereas the Crucial for consumers.

 

so how do we get a SSD with Sata3 with almost no complain? I looked at other brand's reviews in newegg there is always a story of the SSD not functioning ...

 

Just look for the ones with the better reviews. You will not get a SSD without someone's being faulty. It's just the nature of the hardware.

 

Updated OP again. This is getting really confusing.

 

So both the C and M series have a removable spacer?

 

According to Lenovo, the speed is bottlenecked by the card interface when installed in the mSATA slot. Are you sure those tests aren't done with a 2.5 adapter, or in a desktop?

 

I know for a fact the M series does, but the C400 comes in a 7mm variant, although it's not readily available at this point.

 

is crucial actually a good brand? How is it comparing with the Intel's SSDs

 

Here's an article stating that the M4 and the C400 are identical: Crucial/Micron C400 Series SSDs Are Now Available for Purchase - Softpedia

 

The benchmarks show those as being installed msata speeds. The interface is a pci-e x1 slot so it has more than enough bandwidth (how else could wireless cards achieve 450mbps if it didn't ). Trust me, the slot has the bandwidth.im updating via my phone, but Google pci-1 x1 to get speeds. Its quite a bit more than the 270mbps max read on that ssd

 

Fyi: I ordered the 250gb 5400rpm hdd in anticipation of the Z5K500. The drive I got was the Seagate.

 

Should mine work?

Kingston + Series SNVP325-S2B. There is no brackets or anything like that. 9.5mm high.

Newegg.com - Kingston SSDNow V+ Series SNVP325-S2B/128GB 2.5" 128GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Thanks.

 

As supplied it is a 9.5mm thick module with no removable spacer (at least that's the situation with my 2010 SNVP325). It will only work in a 7mm bay if you can get it out of the case and the resulting board plus connector fits within the 7mm bay height (first wrap the board in some anti-static plastic).

John

 

has anyone confirmed that removing the spacer on the c400 void's the warranty with crucial? I know there were reports of a sticker existing on the c300 but I haven't seen close pictures of the c400 showing the same.

 

Wouldn't Micron make the "M" series and Crucial make the "C" series?

 

Does anyone know if this drive is 7mm or 9.5mm?

Newegg.com - Intel 320 Series SSDSA2CW160G310 2.5" 160GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - SSD

 

It is 9.5mm, remove the spacer and it is 7mm.

 

Great news!!!!!!

Just got my crucial m4 256GB SSD (boxed). And there is no warranty sticker on any side!
You can do the modding without being caught~~

 

Wow best news in a while!

 

Are you putting this in an X220? Let us know how the install goes.

 

I only ask because on Intel's website they have this technical specs doc that indicates they make both a 7mm and a 9.5mm version now.

http://download.intel.com/design/flash/nand/325152.pdf

See page 11 & 12. They describe a 2.5" 7mm version and a 2.5" 9.5mm version. Would they just be referring to the height if you remove the spacer or are these really two different products?

 

Define:
Recursion

See "Recursion".

 

Post some photos please after you mod the m4 .... Thanks

 

@Blue_Alien AND any others who bought an Intel 310 SSD:

Please tell us if it perfektly fits (only need to push it in I think?), if the system recognizes it, if win7 installs properly on it, how's the feeling and so on!

I'm sooo looking forward to this!

 

Could anyone confirm the difference of speed using SSD Sata2 and Sata3?

 

Why are the Intel 510 series not compatible? Is it that they don't have a spacer that can be removed to make them 7mm?

 

The 510 do not come with a spacer, they are 9.5mm in height.

 

I just ordered mine, can you post of your installtion here? Thanks. Hopefully it fits ..

 

I installed the Intel 310. Fits perfectly. Installed Win 7 ultimate 64 bit. No problems whatsoever.

 

the x220 has a sata 3 channel which was confirmed by lenovo.

as long as you have a sata 3 ssd capable of sata 3 speeds, you will get sata 3 speeds performance.

 

where did you guys order the m4/c400 from?

 

If I may get anyone's comments/thoughts -

1. I've got Win7 Pro OEM clean installed on a 100GB drive (primary partition); 70% essential and light apps are installed there. It currently has 33GB free.
If mSata (Intel 310) comes only in 40 or 80GB capacities, I'm wondering how you guys manage this? Is there a setting somewhere that I can remove all the caches/bloat?

2. In terms of price and performance, wouldn't it seem cheaper to just get Intel 320 300GB instead of mSata + HDD?

Thanks!

 

Turn off system restore and if you're not using rescue and recovery, dump that too. Both of those are known to take up a rather large chunk of space. I have the 80 mSATA drive too. My clean install is usually in the 15-17GB range.

 

For those of you who installed your own intel ssd, where did you guys find the shorter screws to hold the ssd together after removing the spacer?

 

just grind down the original screws .. small angle grinder and it will take 2 mins total.

quicker than searching the web for replacement screws.