Questions about X220

I'm looking to buy an x220/i and upgrade it myself.

I'm looking to put a 60-80 GB SSD in it and backing it up to an external hard drive bay, what should I look for in a drive? is space an issue?

What RAM should I be looking for?

Do I need an i5 processor to support usb 3.0?

Is the premium display option the IPS version (I'm using the Canadian lenovo website to configure)?

Edit: Not totally on topic, but I wan't to sell my desktop and take the hard drives from it and create a backup system with them. What's going to be an affordable way to do this given the e sata and usb 3.0 ports?

 

You cannot find the answers to any of these questions in the 2.423.116 previous X220 topics?

1. Yes, space is an issue (an so is price, availability, reliability) Bottom line, it's personal. I use a 40GB drive in my X40, some people need a 750GB drive in their notebook..
2. Any PC3-10600 (DDR3-1333) 204pin SODIMM will do
3. No, you will need an i7
4. Yes, premium == IPS

 

Can't one use the expressport to add a couple usb3 ports? Not sure what the transfer cap is on the expresscart, but it should be a useful substitute.

 

Yes, that is a possible, with something like this(expresscard USB3 adapter)

Theoretical speeds of 500 MB/s are possible with expresscard/USB3

More info can be found at www.expresscard.org

 

Thanks, ThiPax40! For Q1, I meant to ask about physical size, but google answered that one!

I think I'll go core i3, seems like enough power, and usb 3.0 isn't that big a deal to me.

 

I take it you learned that there is a physical size limitation to the HDD/SDD you can put in the X220 bay, that it's 7.5MM max vs. 9MM, the 2.5" "standard." I don't recall the specifics, but there are only a few options, though there is also the option of removing the outer casing on a 9MM drive and protecting the exposed chips with electrical tape. Of course, this voids the wtty on the SSD, but consider that their Mean Time Between Failure is 2 million hours! Finally, what hasn't been discussed is the use of the pcie slot for an "mSATA" SSD. There are only two made to fit that, both are 80GB I believe, one by Intel and I forget the maker of the other one - not a well known SSD maker. I also don't recall how much they cost, but using one enables you to leave the base HDD in place for large files and the 80 GB will be enough for you now and to grow on.

One last thing: the pricing on these units is all over the map, but as much of a bargain as the base model 220i is, you can usually use the same promotion to get the i5-2410/2520 for less than $100 more and it affords you some "future proofing" in both it's clock speed and turbo boost that the i3 lack, and it is not likely to materially change the battery life either. Finally, it will more than pay for itself in resale whenever you decide to make a change. I don't know what the pricing is like in Canada, but I got my i5-2520, 320GB, 2GB, IPS, 9 cell batt, webcam, BT, for $735 pre-tax. Even if you could get a similar configuration in a 220i for $650 - and I doubt you could with all the "extras," I think it would be a well spent extra $100 or so.

Finally, before you do make investments in aftermarket add-ons, use it long enough to make sure you don't have problems with "ghosting/backlight bleed" with your screen, constant high speed fan noise and throttling of the cpu (the latter usually only occurs with the i7 cpu, I believe). I have faith that Lenovo will get things like screen quality worked out and fix other issues with BIOS and/or driver updates, but there have been more documented problems with the X220 than any ThinkkPad in memory and virtually any recently released popular/well regarded notebook PC. Can't rest on its laurels, though, and you don't want to be caught holding a defective one after the 21 day period for returns has elapsed nor having purchased costly add-ons for a computer you're not going to want to keep.

I think it will all work out fine in the end, but I have given it all a good deal of thought, and have read many of those 21,000 pages the other poster referred to, and I do urge caution under these circumstances.

Good luck. PM me if you need help that you don't think is necessarily useful for a public thread.