RAM and SSD for t420

So... I have offically just ordered my t420 which I am totally stoked to receive, but I now have a question for potential aftermarket upgrades. I got the machine with the i2520, 4GB RAM, and 500 7200 RPM HD. I am thinking about upgrading the ram to 8 GB and putting in an SSD. I have about $300 to spend and a 4GB ram stick will be ~$30 (I will certainly do this), so the question is... is a SSD really worth it? for ~$270 I could get something like Newegg.com - OCZ Vertex 3 VTX3-25SAT3-120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) this, or an intel 320 drive (but I have hard rumblings of some problems there). So... my question is is SSD really worth it? I like to think I am technically inclined, but I really am just a noob with this stuff and I have never done anything like this before. Is 120 GB too small? Will I be able to fit everything on there? Is this process to setting all of this up very intense? What about RAID/ TRIM/ or anything else I need to be aware of for this?

Thanks for helping out a lowly rookie.

 

Worth it? Depends what you hope to get out of it I suppose. I opted to save a bit of money and have ordered an 80GB mSATA SSD that I will use for the OS and applications, keeping the 500GB HDD for all my data.

I was thinking of getting a 160GB Intel SSD to replace the HDD but decided 160GB was not really gonna be enough space and the Intel 320-series bug plus various issues I've read about with Sandforce-based SSD drives made me wanna stick with an HDD for my data for now.

The mSATA + HDD is the best of both worlds IMO, but is only an option if you did not get the 3G broadband card (mSATA drive goes in the same PCI slot). Setting up is easy for this config -- create recovery disks from factory HDD, install mSATA and remove HDD, change boot order in bios to optical, run recovery disks, and everything is re-installed on the mSATA SSD and in theory should be aligned correctly.

You could even then install a second HDD using an optical drive bay adapter and then have SSD + RAID setup (three drives total).

 

Worth is highly subjective. From a performance perspective it depends on what you're doing. I'm mostly using my X220 in low power mode, which means the SSD is throttled to save power. It doesn't really offer much of a performance advantage over a conventional drive, but I like it's because it's quiet and I can mess with it without touching my bay drive. Now if you're using it plugged in or in a higher power state, then things will be a bit more peppy, but then heat and noise can become a concern.

As to the memory, I'd see how it goes before you decide to upgrade. Most usage doesn't require more than 4GB of memory.

 

Ok, so mSATA interests me, it would be nice to have the SSD speed + the HDD size. After doing some research and seeing the primer on mSATA, it doesn't seem like too difficult of a setup. I am looking at the this one MyDigitalSSD 64GB 50mm Bulletproof mSATA SSD | My Digital Discount, can anyone speak as to whether that will fulfill my needs or not? Will 64 GB be enough for win7 pro, full ms office suite, and other apps like mozilla, skype, etc? And is there a big risk in using recovery disks for reinstalling the OS?

Thanks

 

I can't comment on the SSD you mentioned (I have an order in for an Intel 310-series SSD), but 64GB should be plenty -- I have Win7, most of the Adobe CS4 suite, most of the MS Office 2007 suite and a handful of other applications and it takes up about 45GB of my C drive.

As for using the recovery disks, assuming everything goes smoothly you will simply get the factory image re-installed on the mSATA drive. There are also places where you can download an ISO of Windows itself (using the key from your laptop to install and activate) if you want a clean install of the OS... someone here should have the link and instructions on how to do that.