The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    T420 ultrabay drive, slow performance?

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by Towlieee, Dec 25, 2013.

  1. Towlieee

    Towlieee Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    80
    Likes Received:
    13
    Trophy Points:
    16
    I got a ultrabay and a 1tB drive for Christmas

    First thing I noticed, bios boot times are abnormally slow, I'm talking 2-3 times as long to get past bios loading with two drives vs when I had one drive. Is that normal?

    I'm going to switch to EFI now and re-install, well, and I'm also reinstalling to my 320gB 7200rpm WD, as my new 5400 rpm toshiba is slower in all tests I've done. I figured it might be quicker due to bigger platters, thought the WD would only win in seek time, but the WD is a lot quicker in write tests, and marginally quicker in read tests..

    Just the whole boot thing is way slow, and I just wonder if something is wrong? Also is there any difference between running your OS drive in the ultra bay vs the stock HD location?
    My new TB drive runs 10c hotter, so I'm going to put it into the ultra bay now, since it seems to have more "air space" around it... But, does the stock drive location, have 'air flow' and the cd rom not? I can't tell from the outside of the laptop if it receives airflow to the drive...
     
    Towlieee, Dec 25, 2013
    #1
  2. Towlieee

    Towlieee Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    80
    Likes Received:
    13
    Trophy Points:
    16
    Towlieee, Dec 25, 2013
    #2
  3. PatchySan

    PatchySan Om Noms Kit Kat

    Reputations:
    3,971
    Messages:
    2,248
    Likes Received:
    221
    Trophy Points:
    81
    I don't think the long boot times you're experiencing are normal, I have 2 drives in my T420 (SSD + 1TB HDD in Ultrabay) and it just flies through. Check the boot settings and set the WD drive as the primary boot drive if haven't done so. You could try updating the BIOS too as Lenovo provides fixes on certain startup issues so it could be worth trying out.
     
    PatchySan, Dec 26, 2013
    #3
  4. Towlieee

    Towlieee Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    80
    Likes Received:
    13
    Trophy Points:
    16
    I have the latest bios and stuff, I went ahead and set the WD as my boot drive, and disabled the other one from even being on boot priority. I didn't test "just" that to see if that was the issue, I also switched to EFI, but now it boots better then ever (well, obviously, since I'm now using EFI)

    I think this Toshiba drive is just dog slow, I'm not sure how that would affect my bios load times, especially since its read speeds aren't bad just its write speeds. I wish I wouldn't have went for the cheapest drive I could find, I have an external 1.5tB usb 3.0 Toshiba drive and I thought its performance was good

    All is well now I suppose, as long as this Toshiba doesn't take a poo on me (read tons of bad reviews ugh) lol
     
    Towlieee, Dec 26, 2013
    #4