SSD on Thinkpad X200

I've been thinking about giving my X200 a performance boost by putting an SSD in it. Is it pretty straight forward, or are there any cautions I need to make (certain disks not supported or something)? I've been looking at the OCZ Vertex 2 disks - are they worth it, or do the X200 have any bottlenecks making slower disks perform just as well?

Thanks for any tips!

 

Getting an SSD is one the best upgrades you can get for your X200. The OCZ Vertex 2 is a great drive, you can't go wrong there. Just follow the steps in this post:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...g-ssd-tips-tricks-benchmarks.html#post6127614

and you should be set. Make sure you do a fresh install of Windows 7 and let the install format and partition your drive. I love the way the ssds perform on my Thinkpads, and I think you'll be very happy if you get one for yours!

 

I'd wait for a couple of months to see the new Intel SSDs (3rd gen). They'll provide some serious capacity (up to 600 GB! ) and realiability compared to current generation SSDs. And even if they turn out to be very expensive, you will always be able to get one of the current ones for much lower.

 

Thanks!! I'll check out that thread.

So I assume my X200 has SATAII? Can't find anything about it on any spec sheet.

There are always reasons to wait, but I feel like I have waited 2 years for the price to be right, and it's on a reasonable level now

 

I believe it's Montevina-based, like the X201, so yes, it does support SATA II 3GBs.

Still, I will insist: if you are not in a hurry (meaning, you HD is failing), wait for a couple of months!

 

X200 fully supports SATAII, the X61 with Middleton's Bios can support SATAII too.

 

Sweet! It does run on Montevina, yes.

Thanks all!

 

I replaced the stock 7200rpm hard drive in my x200s with a 2nd generation Intel x25m 160gig drive.

Boot/sleep/resume/shutdown times are now excellent. Many other tasks like compiling with Visual Studio, email with Outlook 2010, etc. are all a bit faster but not the night & day difference I was expecting. If you have the money to spare, an SSD is a nice upgrade. Personally, I don't think it was worth the $400 I spent given that for $1400 I could have replaced my whole laptop with a new X201.

As other posters mentioned, at this point, you might consider waiting for the 3rd gen Intel SSD or even one of the 2nd gen SandForce-based drives. Both should be out towards the end of 2010 or early next year. AnandTech has some previews of what to expect for these upcoming drives. Of course, Intel is known for announcing new drives but then taking months to have sufficient supply so regular people can get them :-(

 

If I were to buy an SSD right now, I would go with Crucial's RealSSD C300 - one of the fastest (they have also resolved some bugs with recent FW). And fully supports SATA III 6GB so you can also use it in your next pc.

Edit: even though it has a Marvell Controller...

 

Yes, it works awesome. I am very pleased and will be getting another one for secondary drive on m17x (60GB this time). OCZ Vertex 2 are the fastest SSDs at the moment, if I'm not mistaken. Crucial is good too (slower at write tho), and little more expensive than what I paid for mine ($210). The speed boost is insane with any app I am running, since pretty much anything I am doing involving using the hard drive. In fact, when not gaming m17x now does seem kind of slow (hence getting another drive).

Installing the hard drive on X200 literally requires unscrewing 1 screw below Enter key, getting the drive caddy out and then just mounting the new one with 4 screws. Lenovo support page is excellent if you need further guidance.

If you want to wait, I suggest then never buying anything - there will ALWAYS be something new coming up. That's how computer industry works/progresses. It will happen even when new drives come out... (also recall the SSD prices when they first came out)

 

Thanks for the inputs. I agree with unreal, you can't really wait for the best to be available at a good price, and expect that to be it. I am looking at either the 60GB or 90GB version, which either way would be less than $200. I don't think I've ever spent that little money on such a performance improvement, so waiting for a price drop is not really that interesting.

 

You welcome. What I use as a storage drive is the other drive that X200 came with. It's a 160GB HD that I put in a $12 Rosewill Enclosure. Pretty light and small to carry around so works well for me.

What's also neat if you use Ultrabase dock, you can just put another HD in there. I have also thought about Seagate Momentus XT (HD/SSD Hybrid) but found out it's too expensive as a 2nd HD + the regular HD works just fine as a storage media for movies, music and such.

 

I was also looking to get that as a primary prive since it theoretically combines the best from both worlds (capacity and enough speed), but I often read some really nasty problems from users (including from TP owners) that turned me off.

 

I do have an Ultrabase, but not one that holds another drive. And yea, I intend to buy a cheap enclosure so I can use the existing drive - already have one that I use that way.

Agree on the regular drives as storage - I only need SSD to get a performance upgrade in daily use.

 

What do you mean? All ultrabases can hold an HD by using the SATA caddy. You mean you have an optical drive instead that you use so frequently?

 

I was looking at SAMSUNG 470 Series, 128GB. I hope upcoming holidays will make them even more affordable....

 

Given that Anandtech was able to kill their review unit in a week, I'd avoid them like the plague...

... but then again I tend to be conservative in my hardware/software choices. Given the choice between a slower, more mature product and a newer, but less-tested one, I'll take the performance hit any day.

 

Recently? Or after the firmware fixes came out? I was under the impression the C300 problems were ancient history.

 

me too...

 

yea, I'm pretty sure the bad stuff happened right when they came out. Fixed. Tom's Hardware has a more recent review at Tom's Hardware's Summer Guide: 17 SSDs Rounded Up : Tom?s Hardware Mainstream SSD Shootout

 

How is Samsung SSD nowadays? I still have the 64GB Samsung SSD that came with my X200 but I feel the need for a bigger storage.

 

Black Friday is around the corner, I'll look into one then. Anything under 80GB is still too small for me, regardless of what other external media I have.

 

For the most part, the average user will not be able to see any difference in the performance from one SSD to the next as the mos visible difference is created through seek times, the ssd being some 90x quicker there.

 

Maybe... but after having experienced a complete controller failure on a barely two month-old Agility 2, I'm a bit leery of any SSDs for which the manufacturer has fumbled on early revisions only to later say "it's all better now, trust us."

With some categories of component I'm willing to take a gamble on stuff with a spotty history. Storage isn't one of those categories.

 

You make a very good point you know. After all the grand champion of firmware updates and problems is that oem by a stretch. Maybe that ties into the fact that they have a favorable relationship with SandForce and are able to get their firmware before its quite ready.

 

I tend to agree. The technology is expensive and they act they don't want to warranty it.

Right now I am only using Intel drives.

 

Oh, look at that! Didn't know I could expand that! Steep price though...$60 for a HDD caddy, when I can get an external one for $5. See unoriginal ones for $13 on Ebay though.

Thanks for the info!

 

You can probably even use the caddy filler that came with Ultrabase and some sticky tape... But, $12 on eBay sounds reasonable imo. It's just a mechanical support that holds the drive in one place.. it doesn't have to be from Lenovo.

 

That's what I figured as well - would be surprised if the Chinese didn't make a cheap fake one when they charge that much for the original. Already have enough external drives, so I'll probably pick one up.

Now I just need to find a good deal on the Vertex 2...Newegg has a sweet coupon right now.

 

I can't wait to drop an SSD into my x200. Even after upgrading the ram to 4GB, it just feels like the HD is acting as a bottleneck for the P8600.

... now what size to get!

 

Which HDD so you have in your laptop now? I'm not using a SSD and my x200t is still quick as bee! I do agree with you, I want a 80GB SSD myself!

 

kobe - thanks for asking because I swore this x200 had an upgraded hard drive, but when I checked to respond to your post I found it has the:

Hitachi HTS543216L9SA00, 5400rpm HD...

With a P8600 and 4gb of ram, I can't be coming close to the machine's limits. That HD has to be a bit of a bottleneck.

 

Holy Cow! No wonder!

 

I have a 7200RPM Hitachi myself, and it is absolutely the bottleneck of my system. I'm mainly in it for the increased bootup speed and battery life though. Other than that I only surf and download things on a daily basis, so as soon as it's booted I probably won't notice a lot of difference. Well, faster loading of Office and stuff, I guess.

 

There's a solution for that: Newegg.com - Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2MH160G2R5 2.5" 160GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Once you go SSD, you never go back. You were warned.

 

$400 is waaay too much for me, and I don't need 160GB. I'm looking at 90GB OCZ Vertex 2 for $179 at Newegg.

 

I might do the new K series of the X25-V drive. Less than a hundred bucks, and might works well for the x200.

 

I just ordered a 90GB Vertex 2, so pretty excited about getting all that up an going!

 

"60GB OCZ 2.5" SATA II Agility 2 Solid State Drive (SSD) $100 after $20 MIR + Free Shipping"...

60GB OCZ 2.5" SATA II Agility 2 Solid State Drive (SSD) - Slickdeals.net

 

Congrats.

Please let us know how your migration went.

 

I'd totally jump on this, but based on the comments the deal is dead. Guess it's back to waiting for the alleged Intel 120GB SSD release Nov. 2nd.

 

This one just showed up...

"60GB G.SKILL Phoenix Pro Series 2.5" SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) $60 + Free Shipping"

60GB G.SKILL Phoenix Pro Series 2.5" SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - Slickdeals.net

 

Jeez sold out already.

 

OMG!

I want 80gb plus, but that would have been a deal too good to pass up on! Please keep us updated with more outstanding deals!?

 

I can say, having done it several times to both X201 and the (aaaaaaarrrrrrgghgghghghghghghg) Sony SZ recently, that the X201 is the least stressful of the replacements I've done to date.

 

Just got and installed Win 7 in the OCZ Vertex 2, and it is for sure a performance boost. However, when I run Crystalmark benchmark, I get 150 as the top read speed (on the default settings). Anything I should do to make sure all settings are correct for SSD? I have done the steps in the SSD-thread (deactivated superfetch, defrag etc.)

 

Just don't say something for the fact of saying something.

With day to day activities, what kind of performance boost are you referring to?

 

Shorter start up time is a big one, as well as faster installing of programs, faster launch of heavier programs such as Photoshop, etc. It's also way more quiet (silent, in fact), and I suspect a longer battery life. So, all the resons why I bought it, really

But since my benchmark could be better, I'm wondering if there are any Windows or BIOS-settings I should look into?

 

Get'em while they're hot!

Newegg.com - G.SKILL Phoenix Pro Series FM-25S2S-120GBP2 2.5" 120GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

 

Already did!

It also has 60 days return & price match policy.

Thanks, although had this URL in my clipboard ready to be pasted )