SSD Intel vs Lenovo?

Would you get an 80gb Intel SSD or a 128gb Lenovo SSD? Assume they're the same price. I've read that a bigger SSD is better to have (last longer/faster), but then I've also read the Intel ones are better than the Lenovo ones.

 

The Lenovo 128GB SSD option is either (not your choice, it's dependent on parts availability for Lenovo) a Samsung or Toshiba drive that may or may not support TRIM. The Intel 80GB SSD option is the X-25M G2 80GB, which supports TRIM - it will outperform the Samsung/Toshiba options, when compared on an equal footing (ie, both empty).

That said, if you need more space than 80GB, if they're the same price, it may be a better idea for you to go with the 128GB option - although personally, I would question why you can't just use an external hard drive.

 

Lenovo doesn't produce SSD, they use aftermarket SSD too, while some of them use a specific firmware. But aftermarket SSD is okay. Intel SSD apparently is the best.

 

Lenovo do not make SSD's. If they offer a 120GB, it will not be an Intel SSD (which come in 80GB and 160GB). The 80GB Intels are preferable, but only if the space is right. If you need the extra space, the extra 40GB will make far more difference than performance differences. Any of these SSD's blow any HDD away. I have been using a 120GB Samsung-driven SSD for more than a year now, and have loved every second. I would never willingly go back to any HDD - not as primary drive or as a secondary drive (I use HDD's only for backups). I have plenty of space for my needs - but would find 80GB a little constraining...for my space needs (very modest - but I like to have plenty of free space) I would not swap for a 80GB Intel.

 

Jeez, you guys are such sticklers. Fine, I mean the Samsung ones that are sold by Lenovo. Better?

Though now I see midnight says there are two suppliers, so I guess it makes sense to be a stickler. The Lenovo branded Samsung is actually 20 bucks cheaper.

Is the lack of TRIM a huge deal, or is garbage collection enough?

Don't need more than 80gb, but I would be using almost all over it (like 70gb). Does that matter with SSDs? I thought I read somewhere they need to leave a few gb free?

 

If you are going to use 70GB+, definitely go for a Samsung 120GB SSD over an Intel 80GB SSD. The Intel is better than the Samsung, and TRIM is better than no TRIM, but the difference is nowhere near as important as plenty of free space, IMHO.

 

With my old settings, I would be using 60 out of my 80GB. Instead, I'm currently using about 40GB - part of that is offloading my music collection to a 16GB SDHC card that's plugged into my card reader. Unless you really do need all that space for programs, it might be smarter to just consolidate a bit of your hard drive usage and make use of an external hard drive for at-the-desk data storage.

 

Go with the bigger one. I got an 80gb Intel and wish I would have gone bigger.

 

Personally, I'd get an aftermarket Intel drive. They'll blow the Samsung (i.e. "Lenovo") ones out of the water when it comes to real-world performance.

 

I assume you have tested the Samsung and the Intel in your real world? Did you you really notice such a huge difference? Certainly in the "real world" if there is insufficient space you will notice that immediately and no performance difference, however great, can fix that! I have used a Samsung-driven 120GB for more than a year and have been very happy. Operations are almost instantaneous, and that does me quite fine...

 

Buy a small SSD. Build a NAS.

 

I disagree. The latest generation Samsung SSDs will not be "blown out of the water" in real performance by Intel or any other brands for that matter.

 

So let's say I go with the latest iteration of Samsung sold through Lenovo drives. Any software/firmware in particular I should install? Any particular maintenance schedule?

Also, would there be anything wrong with simply using Rescue and Recovery to backup my drive and installing that image on the SSD. I'd be doing this on my T60, which runs Win XP Pro, and while the install is pushing a year old, it's good and stable. I know a clean install is "better," but I rather not.

 

Yes, I have actually.

As a developer, random read/write performance, and performance under heavy load are quite important to me. Builds that touch many thousands of files, heavy VM usage, etc. are all part of a typical day's work.

The two Samsung drives I've used (one a Lenovo-badged one, another a generic PB22-J) simply don't perform as well when it comes to small random reads/writes, and are easily swamped by heavy workloads (such as testing in multiple VMs at once). The X25-Ms that I've tried have not had the same problems.

Are both drives better than a spinning disk? Definitely. But it's pretty clear -- at least in my experience, and according to benchmarks -- which is the better-performing solution.

Well it might not be quite that bad, assuming that Lenovo actually ships the latest generation in their laptops (last I heard they were not).

Is there a (shipping) Samsung SSD newer than the PB22-J? I couldn't find any information on anything newer than that.

 

Thanks for fascinating and helpful feedback. I wonder, though, whether your needs that made the Intel so vital are necessarily the same as marlinspike's solution - if they are an "average" user. A "power"- user such as yourself would obviously notice the difference, and your point is well-taken - though I would think a power user would never buy any SSD from Lenovo, but rather from a third-party, whether they be Intel, OCZ or others - and would never buy a 80GB SSD, but get something like an a 160GB Intel SSD (and another in the ultrabay) or else a latest-generation 256GB SSD (and another in the ultrabay). And not even consider an SSD without TRIM.

To go back to the original query - if the choice for an average use is a Lenovo-provided 80GB Intel or a 120GB Samsung I still don't think the Intel's performance features make it a winner over the alternative.

If third-party options were on the table, I would think the 160GB TRIM-enabled Intel SSD (at a reasonable price), for 90% of people could be best way to go - solves space issue as well as gives best all-round performance. - or if Lenovo-only, maybe consider 2 Intel 80GB SSD's, with one in the ultrabay (if available) - giving 160GB total, plus better performance (smile).

 

Generally, for cost per GB and power consumption, Samsung wins. For pure performance, Intel wins. While the performance is better than the Samsung, the difference between the two is very little to the average user and both are significantly faster than any current HDDs.

 

That has not been my experience at all. While there's a few things that seem a bit faster on my Intel SSD, most things seem about the same as a platter based drive. The thing I like about mine is it's quiet since my X200 doesn't seem to shield much noise.

 

I am always mystified when I read experiences like this! It flies in the face of both synthetic tests, as well as my experience. But it must be true for the people who report "little change" moving from a HDD to an SSD. Something must be wrong for the experience to be so at odds with others, with the same hardware... Perhaps it is a software thing? There are a lot of things that can be done to maximize SSD performance perhaps that's it? Perhaps not!? I find it sort of extraordinary. I have compared a 7200rpm HDD with a Samsung-driven SSD, with utterly identical software (I use the same image) - and the difference is light and day.... There is a puzzle here....oh yes, and it IS VERY QUIET!! Whatever, I could not bear going back to any HDD after using a SSD for a year....For me, HDD's are only suited for secondary storage, and backups.

 

Could you clarify a bit? Which type of operations are you comparing? SSD access time in itself will make the difference like night and day in favor of the SSD.

Just try opening several applications (which have not been cached) at the same time and the difference in speed will be significant.

For that matter, just open one application like i.e. Photoshop (again uncached) on both HDD and SSD and witness the huge difference in loading speed.

Try transferring let say a few GB of files from one folder to another, while at the same time opening a few apps and the difference in response time should be hugely in favor of the SSD.

 

Opening Photoshop or iTunes does seem a bit faster, but not hugely so. I don't know, perhaps I've not set it up correctly. I'm not really a guru in these matters. I'm running Vista. From I've read I shouldn't need to do anything when running Vista or Windows 7.

 

Agreeing with Antskip, this is not the experience of the norm ssd user. EVERYTHING improves with a typical ssd from a hard drive starting with startup and shutdown times to application load and normal operation if they are running to your normal system programs which absolutely fly.

I can relate that I have assisted far too many people who had simply cloned their drives only to find that the ssd didnt provide much of an improvement. In the end, a bit of an education on the ssd as well as a clean install made them the happiest they could be.

 

Help me too then, because I was planning to clone my drive lol. I mean, my Windows install is still good, if I were going to another spinning disk drive I would definitely just clone it.

 

Check out the excellent "Win7 SSD Performance Optimization Guide" Les links to below their post. It is better to clean install, I am sure, but I did just clone, and then tweaked it along the lines in the SSD Optimization Guide. PS I also turned off automated daily system scans by anti-virus and anti-spyware programs; also turned off system restore (I rely on my own periodic clones, plus Synctoy. .

 

Does it matter that I'll be doing XP not Win7?

 

XP was created in a HDD-only world, so it installs as though the SSD is a HDD. Win7 is "familiar" with SSD's as well as HDD's, and automatically optimizes several important settings for an SSD/ XP doesn't. maybe check out Guide Guide for Win Xp installation with Diskpar (alignment), nLite, Ramdrive, Page file Tweaks, Browser Tweaks, My Doc folder move and Print Spooler on Vertex.
I personally think it a much better idea to use Win7 with an SSD.

 

Well then let me ask, how is Win7 on a T60? Because Vista on a T60 sucks.

 

I don't have a T60, but a W500, but can tell you that Win7 is considerably more responsive than Vista on the same hardware (though plenty of ram - 2-3GB, preferably - is more important with Vista and Win7 than XP), with HDD or SDD. It looks very similar in use (with some tidying up), but its speed is more like XP (which I still have on 2 other laptops) - but degrades in use far less than XP (which really needs an annual re-install to be at its peak), and has much better drivers. I found Vista sluggish (though excellent Microsoft updates made it less so), and rate Win7 as well as XP above it. Win7 is like a major optimization of Vista. Win7 is an ideal match to an SSD.

 

Yeah, I have Win 7 on my X201, and quite frankly, I need no convincing that it's great, I'm just worried about hardware incompatability.
My T60 is fairly speced out (T7400 cpu, v5200 gpu, 4gb of ram - of course only 3 recognizable, just wanted the matched ram), but it takes over 3 minutes to boot Vista (and like 1min 50 to boot XP Pro). I have a second HDD with Vista on it that I periodically install, update, and try out, and it still is awful even with the latest updates as of last week.

 

I'm curious, could someone with an SSD try loading up the ThinkVantage Toolbox (v6.0.5514.50)?

After rebooting fresh into Win7, it takes my X201 with regular Seagate HDD 55 sec to completely load where all the category groups have finished updating with the green checkmark.

Thanks in advance.

 

BriS2k, have you updated to the latest version of the Toolbox? It's substantially faster than the one before it.
Also, do you drive an S2000?

 

Actually I do have the latest version of ThinkVantage Toolbox 6.0.5514. 60 (typo in my prev post)

Its only on the first time it's run that it takes 55 sec. On subsequent loads, its pretty quick. But a SSD would seem to resolve this sort of 'read' delay.

Yes, an AP2 '05

 

Nice on the AP2. I'll check my X201 next time I'm on it. I have the 7200rpm HDD, but I don't recall it taking so long. Then again, I never wait for everything to finish loading.

 

Well, I've seen several brands of good SSDs and I can tell you my experience has not been the same as yours. I've cloned and done clean installs, they all seem about the same to me. If there's something I've missed, please enlighten me

 

I would check to see if your hard drive is heavily fragmented or if some background process is slowing you down. My X201 only takes ~25 seconds to finish pulling up the toolbox and I have a 7200rpm disk.

 

It takes my x200s with Intel 80GB SSD seven seconds to fully load the toolbox, and have green checkboxes on each catagory. Not sure how you're possibly getting 55sec.

 

Well, I've got the samsung SSD for evaluation at the moment. I simply used R&R to clone the drive over. It's faster (boot went from 1min 55 to 1min), but I wonder if I'm really getting all that I can get.

Obviously, by being on WinXP Pro instead of 7 I'm somewhat limited, as I am by using it in a T60, but what I mean is I want to get all I can get on a T60 running Win XP.

So, how can I ensure that garbage collection is running?

I already tried the lenovo firmware updater and it said I have the latest firmware. Is there any better 3rd party firmware I should look into?

 

I'm with ZaZ. The SSD benchmarks way faster, and in my T60 with WinXP it did cut the boot time in half, but in my X201 it barely made a difference, a few seconds. As far as in actual use once booted, on either computer it made a small difference, but not much. I'd pay $30 to upgrade when configuring a computer, but that's about it.

 

Hopefully, boot time is not what you judge the speed of a storage medium - after all, much of the boot time is taken up by whatever software is loading itself at startup. If that includes Thinkvantage programs that is a huge amount of time. If boot time is the obsession, get rid of them (I have tried it - boot speed is then amazing - then I boot once a day, in the morning - it is not important to me)- but then you have got rid of a lot of useful (hopefully programs that once loaded, make little difference to real-time speed. It's the speed in operation that you should be concerned with.

 

It's not really that I'm only concerned with boot time, but that boot time was pretty much the only benefit that was noticeable. Everything else probably improved by a large percentage, but it's all quick enough already that I didn't really notice.

 

That's interesting. Like so many others, I find the difference "like night and day". I will never use a HDD as my primary storage medium again, by choice.

 

I guess part of it is when it comes down to it you're only accessing your hard drive so much. I mean, you open a program and now it takes .5 seconds instead of 1 second, ok...over the course of the next 3 hours that's all the time it saves me.

 

Does anyone know about TRIM support for the 120SSD on W510?

 

Anyone running the Crucial M4 126GB SSD with their W510?

I got strange shutdown/reboot problems when running WEI in Win7x64.

Would be nice to know if anyone experienced the same thing?