List of drives that are compatible with the x220

Thank You! Love to hear that! So now you have a System SSD in the mPCIe slot and a normal HDD as well? Speedy? Does the normal HDD run permanently?

 

Has anyone ordered the Z5K500 yet? Where are they available? I've only seen them at Provantage, but it's a special order part there. I'm moving at the end of May, and I'm iffy on whether it'd get to me by then since it says "could take up to two to three weeks to ship"

 

Newegg.com

 

Actually I couldn't wait and just put it in w/o the screws

The rubber sleeves actually hold the cover in place and there's no room for anything to move once you install the drive anyways.

 

Provantage is the cheapest I found.

 

Thanks, so it sounds like Newegg or Provantage. Are the 7mm "AK" models not out yet?

Also, does the M4 have a spacer? The original post to this thread says that only the C400 has the spacer. The provantage price seems good for the M4, but I'm not sure if it has the spacer.

 

This is new. It wasn't available anywhere in the US just a couple weeks ago. I'm now debating whether to get the Z7K320 instead. Do i really need the extra space because it is nice to have the speed when opening large files.

 

Yes you can clearly see the spacer :

 

got the crucial m4/c400. no warranty sticker. has a spacer, easy to remove. swapped in screws taken from the x220's stock 5400rpm hard drive. easy mod.

 

sweet, this sounds like the best ssd available for the x220. I'd love to have the vertex 3, but oh well!

 

For those of you ordering the x220 with a hard drive and adding a SSD yourselves, are you putting the original HDD rubber rails around the SSD when installing it? I've noticed that Lenovo uses rails (04W1716) for HDDs and spacers (04W1717) for SSDs. I'm just wondering if it's ok to use rubber rails for SSDs.

 

I can't see why not. Maybe the plastic spacers are slightly cheaper to manufacture. Rubber provides some vibration isolation which the SSDs don't need but there would be no harm and using them.

John

 

Same product, just like it was with the G2.

The metal casing is 7mm thick. Some come with a few ounces of extra plastic and longer screws, thats it.

I can confirm this with several "9.5mm" G2s and a brand new "9.5mm" 320 waiting for a tablet to live in. You can further confirm this with the 50000 reviews out there that include close up pictures

 

I just got my Z7K320, Don't have the x220 yet but the Z7K320 seems like a great drive, I tried it on my other system. Very quiet, and fairly quick. I would suggest it over the ZK500, just my opinion though.

 

mSATA price considerations:

Code:

Renice X3 1.8" Micro SATA SSD 120GB	$258.50 120GB	$2.15 per GB
MyDigitalSSD 128GB 50mm mSATA SSD	$279.99 128GB	$2.19 per GB
Intel 310 mSata SSD 80GB		$189.00  80GB	$2.36 per GB
Renice X3 1.8" Micro SATA SSD 240GB	$579.00 240GB	$2.41 per GB
Intel 310 mSata SSD 40GB		$99.00 	 40GB	$2.48 per GB
MyDigitalSSD 32GB 50mm mSATA SSD	$79.99   32GB 	$2.50 per GB
Renice X3 1.8" Micro SATA SSD 60GB	$157.95  60GB	$2.63 per GB

 

Anyone know anything about the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G, namely (of course), does it come as 7mm or can be modded?

 

in case you guys were wondering what the intel 80gb 320 ssd looked inside. i also removed the black spacer so that it would fit in my x220. the screws i ordered were size M2x3. you can find them on ebay for a couple of bucks.

 

sp00n, was the bottom of your 320 dirty and looked like it has been used by chance? It did on mine :O Bought OEM from Newegg.

 

they all look like that.   it's from the cases moving through the build process.   a quick check with the intel SSD toolbox upon opening your drive would confirm that it has 0 power-on hours, host writes, or host reads.

 

Can you some photos please? I ordered mine too, but I'm living outside the US and need to wait for all materials (x220 and the SSD) to come. So I could prepare the things that are needed. Thanks

 

Do the 320s outperform the 510s in real-world performance?

 

the 510 is sata 3 while the 320 is sata 2. the 510 should be at least equal if not faster than the 320 in every benchmark.

 

Yeh it trounces it in sequential read/write which I guess is a good thing if you transfer a lot of to and from another drive that can equal those speeds, but if I read the spec sheets correctly the 510 has completely rubbish 4K random IOPS compared to the 320 and especially compared to other SATA3 drives.

 

Will I have so called "alignment" problem when I install Win7 Pro (recovery) to the new SSD from the recovery disc from my X220? I ordered the 250GB 5400RPM HDD. Sorry for asking too much question. Will also TRIM will be automatically enabled?

 

Suppose I have a Intel X25-M 80GB 2.5" drive, and I want to make a recovery disk from the original HDD to a USB stick to my SSD. Is this possible?

 

Why is the Crucial M4 still excluded? The Crucial site clearly states the following about the 128GB Crucial m4 2.5-inch SATA 6GB/s:

'Guaranteed-compatible with the Lenovo Thinkpad X220 Tablet'

Even pictures of it seem to indicate it has a removable spacer much like the Crucial C300.

 

will ALL x25-m drives fit 7mm? in other words, are there x25-m drives without the spacer that are 9mm?? Just wanna know if I buy a used one without the spacers..

I know on the c300 drives have the warranty sticker on them though.. When I e-mailed and called them they told me that removal of the spacer voids the warranty even if I can keep the sticker in tact so I dunno. They said that if the sticker looks like it has been tampered with then warranty is void ;(


I tried the crucial site and it says this also when choosing thinkpad x220:

This part CT128M4SSD2 is not compatible.
View compatible parts for the Thinkpad X220.

 

There seems to be two confirmed posts saying that they received their M4 without the pesky warranty stickers on the side, and the poster in post 159 confirms that the spacer can be easily removed. Here, the poster confirms that even the boxed version has no pesky stickers.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/7449851-post133.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/7458531-post159.html

 

That is weird, the Crucial memory configurator clearly seems to think there is a substancial difference between the X220 and X220 tablet.

X220: 'The Crucial compatibility Lab hasn’t yet confirmed that your computer is compatible with our Solid-State Drives'
X220 tablet: all C300 and M4 models 'Guaranteed-compatible with the Lenovo Thinkpad X220 Tablet'

Guess they yet have to make a connection between X220 and compatible drives

 

I'm giving up on this thread. I can't keep track of all of this.

Sorry

 

No worries, you did your fair share already, I am sure a lot of people (including me) found this topic extremely useful. Just say the word, I'd say there are plenty of people willing to take over(again, including me although I do not own a X220 yet)

Thanks for keeping all the 'will this one fit my X220' topics to a minimum.

My suggestion to any one taking over would be to include compatible RAM due to the supposed 'whitelisting' Lenovo does in BIOS.

(Not sure if 'edit rights' can be transferred to some one else? Doesn't really matter, we can always start a new topic)

 

I don't mind someone taking over. The easiest solution is to start a new thread and copy/paste/edit what I have in the first post. I'll create a link to the new thread in my post.

 

Everyone here is so much help. Just wanted to say thanks! Does anyone know if theres a ram thread going on? Kinda curious of Amazon.com: Corsair 8 GB DDR3 Laptop Memory Kit CMSO8GX3M2A1333C9: Electronics is compatible. The search function is really wonky for me, and its not giving me any results..... Also on the topic of HDs , I think I've kept up with most if it, so if you guys want I can start a new thread.

 

Yeah, the search here isn't the best. I'd suggest Google.

 

That RAM should be fine. The keywords to check for are "DDR3" "1333MHz" "Unbuffered" and "SODIMM". Occasionally people encounter RAM compatibility problems but the last one I had was about 4 years ago (on a notebook with an ATI chipset).

John

 

I called Crucial UK to try to get to the bottom of why they think the M4 SSD is compatible with the x220t, but not the x220 (according to the crucial website, at least). The nice chap on the phone said his system was telling him the m4 was compatible with both the x220t and the x220.

He even gave me the specific part number of the compatible drive: CT1913281. I told him this part number didn't come up in a search of their website, which he thought was just because the website wasn't updated.

I then asked him to confirm the dimensions of this drive and, as we all know, he said it was a 9.5mm drive. I suggested he check with the relevant people internally as to whether this drive was in fact compatible with either the x220 or x220t, as both had 7mm drive height restrictions. He said he would do so asap and email me back with results. Very odd. They don't sell Micron drives in the UK, sadly - so no 7mm model existed ostensibly on his system... the mystery of compatibility continues.

He did note that Crucial had a 45 day return policy anyway...

Petrov.

 

What is actually the difference between the Crucial M4 and the Crucial C300? Warranty sticker placement aside...

 

M4 is faster than C300 (according to newegg)

 

Is the M4 compatible or not?

A bit too much misleading information on this thread. First post says it's not compatible, then a user gets the drive and finds out all he has to do is remove the spacer. A page back a few users asked why the misinformation still persists. Still no definite answers?

 

Probably because this isn't an official support channel. Do you really expect everything you read here to be perfectly accurate?

People are trying to do their best to help and the guy that started this thread can really only edit the first page with the list. The Crucial/Micron C400 is listed as compatible in that page.

Expecting him to respond to every reply or statement is unreasonable.

 

Based on the information that:
- A user has successfully installed it (after removing the spacer)
- Both tech specs and pictures of it clearly show a (removable) spacer
- Crucial guarantees its compatible with the X220 tablet

I would say it will fit perfectly after removing the spacer. I will get it if I receive confirmation from Crucial that 'modding' the spacer will not void warranty.

EDIT: Answer from Crucial about removing the spacer on any 9,5mm SSD:

"If any moderations or changes are made to our drives then the warranty becomes invalid so I have forwarded this to our webteam to remove" (remove all Crucial drives from the X220 compatible list )

 

Will do and I will report back with install pics once my X220 arrives. If it does not fit I will return it.

 

About the Crucial 2,5" 9,5mm SSD's

Just got an answer from Crucial stating:

"Thank you for your email. I am very sorry but we will need to remove the SSD link for this system as our drives will not fit"

"If any moderations or changes are made to our drives then the warranty becomes invalid so I have forwarded this to our webteam to remove"

My original email:

"I have a question regarding the:

- 128GB Crucial RealSSD C300 2.5-inch SATA 6GB/s (Part Number: CT1913317)

The Crucial website states that it is "Guaranteed-compatible with the Lenovo Thinkpad X220 Tablet"

The X220 tablet however takes a 2,5" 7mm SSD where the Crucial C300 is a 2,5" 9,5mm SSD. So installing is possible but requires removing the 2,5mm spacer.

Will this removing the spacer(modding) affect warranty in any way?"

... So it seems the 9,5mm Crucial SSD's will physically fit (after removing the spacer) but doing so will instantly void any warranty. Unlike the Intel's where removing the spacer will not void warranty.

 

This notebook just appeared on my radar today, and was disappointed to find out about this 7mm drive situation. I had visions of dropping my 750GB drive in to it, in conjunction with the mSATA drive. Just how far off is the HDD bay from accommodating a standard 9.5mm drive? Can't some fudging be done without permanently modifying the chassis? (possibly slimming the spacers or caddy, or whatnot...)

 

Thanks. I just heard that lenovo has a whitelist of RAM so i got worried thats all. You helped a lot!

 

I can confirm my M4 arrived without pesky warranty stickers at the sides, so I could easily remove the spacer and fit in into my T420s (also 7mm). Didn't have the right screws though, so I kept the SSD cover in place using the rubber rails that comes with the laptop.

I experienced occasionally freeze-ups after a clean install of windows 7 enterprise. It was a problem that affected the C300 series and looks like my M4 suffers from the same problem. I followed this guide to disable Intel LPM and this appears to have solved the freezing problem, which gets really really really annoying (system freezes occasionally for like a minute or so, hdd light comes on, mouse moves but you can't click or access anything).

 

I know this is a stupid question but I need to ask, is this problem occurs when you are using the X220?

 

Take a look at Anandtech.com SSD charts and you'll see the M400 / C400 is a successor to the C300 with better sequential speed but it actually has poorer random access speeds so as a operating system hard drive the C300 would make more sense than the M400 / C400 if it wasn't for the sluggish Crucial firmware making it freeze occasionally as a operating system disk.


From what's currently being available I would rate the different SSD's reviewed by Anandtech in this order if it's going to be used for your operating system:

#1: OCZ Vertex 3 (not compatible with the X220)
#2: Intel SSD 510 (not compatible with the X220)
#3: Crucial C300 (compatible after removing the spacer, but got reports about sluggish firmware so be aware!)
#4: Intel X25-M Gen2 and Intel SSD 320 (both compatible after removing spacer, the 320 model being Gen3 with different NAND flash compared to the previous generation X-25-M Gen2. These are featuring perhaps the most stable firmware of all SSD's to date)
#5: Crucial M4(00) and Micron C400 (Same drivers with different branding, both compatible after remove the spacer.)
#6: OCZ Vertex 2 and Corsair F120 (Neither compatible)


You wont notice a huge difference between the bunch as they are all blazing fast anyway, but reading whatever sequential read / write numbers Newegg and other sites put up are simply foolish as and operating system these numbers would be the last thing noticeable as random read / write and IOPS is what matters when using a hard drive for operating systems and not the sequential speeds.

 

Just wonder, those drives you list as not compatible are they also not compatible with my old X201 Tablet?

 

From what I can gather the X201 Tablet supports up to 9.5mm 2.5" drives in other words you can use all of those I listed.