T500- SSD as primary; HDD as secondary

After an unfortunate series of events, I accidentally reinstalled windows 7 on the data partition of my 120gb stock HDD. The main reason for partitioning the OS and my data was to prevent just that.... the HDD is off to data recovery, though, I doubt I will get much, if any, back.

I digress....

I have taken a step back and have decided I would like to make some upgrades at this time to my T500.

Here is what I am looking to do:

• 1st drive - 80-100GB SSD (Looking at the OCZ Vertex 2)
• 2nd drive - ultrabay HDD 7200 RPM (Looking at WD)

My planned allocation is as follows:

• SSD Drive - Win 7 x64 and Applications
• Ultrabay HDD - All user and application data on 1 partition; music/pics on 2 partition.

Being that the ultrabay HDD will be hotswappable, I would still be able to utilize my DVD drive.

My main question is will I be able to load applications via my DVD drive when windows and app data is being stored on the now removed HDD?

Any feedback or comments on how to best set this up would be great!

PS- make sure to backup your data!!!

 

Well first off I would say to get the Intel X25-M 80GB SSD since it is significantly cheaper than the OCZ (other than having 20GB more). Also the Intel is better quality.

 

Thanks for the feedback! Assuming I can run a second HDD, the 80 GB SSD should suffice for apps and the OS. I didn't look at Intel because of the higher prices but I was shocked to see Amazon's price on the one mentioned.

Has anyone run a second HDD through ultrabay with their user and app data? What was the process of using the DVD drive?

 

I just ordered the X25-M G2 160 GB; should arrive tomorrow. I was concerned about the write speeds but feel overall the Intel trumps the OCZ alternative.

I may just partition this drive similar to my crashed HDD and ditch the second HDD idea.

 

I have a WD 320 GB in the ultrabay and 80 GB X-25M as primary. To switch to DVD, I log-off, swap and log-on.

 

Thanks for the insight! How do you have your data partitioned across these two drives?

 

When you say "all user and application data on 1 partition" what exactly do you mean? Are you saying you're going to move the user account folder, appdata folder, et. al. to the HDD? If so, why would you do this???

I would suggest a small SSD (64-120GB, the 80GB Intel is a good choice) for your OS, user data, applications, etc.

Use a secondary HDD (preferably 5400rpm for reduced noise, vibration, and power consumption) for pictures, music, videos, etc. I don't see any need to partition this drive unless you also plan on running a secondary OS off the HDD.

If you set your system up this way you can exchange your HDD for a DVD withOUT having to shut down, standby, or even log off Windows.

 

I think you need to be careful about what programs you place in the platter drive also. When you use your battery you don't want programs necessitating constant access to your platter drive.

I'm trying to figure out the best setup for my T400 so that the spin up of the ultrabay is very low except the times I want to listen to my albums, watch movies, or view a document.

 

I went with the Intel G2 120 GB.

I created two partitions to allow OS reinstall without having to deal with restoring user data. Obviously, programs and users would need to be setup but the actual data is still easily migrated over.

I may hold off going with the second ultrabay HDD because my initial hope of moving user data to that drive is far fetched and power intensive. Ie. If I were to remove the ultrabay HDD to theoretically install a program on CD, the user data store located on the now removed ultrabay HDD would be inaccessible and thus I assume it would throw install errors.

I hope to get the ultrabay HDD setup at some point for extra storage.

 

Sounds like a decent plan. But I still don't understand why you would want to move user data to the ultrabay HDD. User data tends to be relatively limited in size so I can't see that as a factor. Additionally, this would only serve to reduce performance/battery life and quite probably introduce the type of errors you're worried about if you ever pull the HDD. Care to explain your motivation?

 

I was searching for whether the ultrabay SATA adapter listed on Lenovo's site worked on the T410 and came across this thread.
(ThinkPad Serial Hard Drive Bay Adapter III 43N3412)

There's a funny misconception about SSDs using less power than HDDs which you can read about here:
The SSD Power Consumption Hoax
The article is dated 2008 but I don't think Intel has improved their power consumption algorithms at all over the pass year as the article indicated and most SSD firmware is focused on performance.

 

Even if SSDs don't use as much power, constantly accessing your HDD in addition will end up using more battery life.

 

It also matters if you have a 7200RPM platter drive in the Ultrabay. So far I install all my programs in the SSD. My platter remains set up for storage. I would like to also add a caution to installing user data in the Ultrabay drive. If the drive was taken out for whatever reason it would just be inconvenient to suddenly not be able to get some programs to work correctly.

As for the spin down of the platter drive. Go into the Lenovo Power Management and make your spin down 30 sec. IIRC the default setting is something like 15 mins

I also use the Lenovo's anti-shock protection system for my platter drive. The program will detect the platter and I make my adjustments for sensitivity from there.

Good luck on your project OP!

 

I have an Intel but I sprung for the 160GB. I installed everything except music I don't need, movies, documents I don't need, and general data backups. Those categories of stuff go on the 500 HD I have for an UltraBay. I'd be afraid of breaking program functionality by segregating user data from programs. Not to mention the performance hit jonlumpkin pointed out.

Run EasyEject or Windows eject hardware command to swap them. Though the smaller HD originally in my ThinkPad for some reason refuses to be ejected that way and I have turn off.

 

Just got my intel x25-m 120 gb ssd as my primary HD and using ultrabay SATA III as storage. Lovin' my T500...

T9400 / 6GB Ram / Intel 120GB SSD / 2GB Intel Turbo Memory (Disabled) / ATI 3650 Switchable GPU / Intel 5300 / BT / WWAN / 9-Cell Battery / Win 7 Ultimate 64Bit / Ultrabay SATA III 320GB 7200rpm WD Scorpio Black