Third party SSD and Windows 7 Enhanced Experience

Hi,

I am considering getting a t510 with a 3rd party Intel X-25M. But I am worried about losing the Enhanced Experience optimization altogether by using 3rd party hardware. On the other hand, hardrive swap doesn't seem a big system change. Does anyone have any experience with this - using 3rd party drive on a Thinkpad with EE certification? Have you lost the optimization?

Plus, is that drive included in the official Lenovo FRU list?

Thanks!

 

It's tricky conceptually but doable. Make an image backup of the disk preferably on DVD. Then transfer it onto the new disk. The licensing software should detect a new disk BUT let it go while rembering that you've changed disks. You wont even notice it. Don't forget the Lenovo partitions though. I hope you have enough disk space.
Renee

 

Is it the same as reloading the new disk with a recovery disk made from the Lenovo recovery partition?

I personally don't prefer the Lenovo partition hanging around there using up disk space, especially with the scarce space on a SSD. The windows & apps there go outdated pretty soon, and it doesn't seem different to just keep a copy of the recovery on a DVD and an image on my backup HDD. Is it what people do?

 

From what I've read about the Lenovo "tweaks," they should differ depending on whether the machine has a HDD or SSD. So if you switch from an HDD to a SSD you might not get appropriate settings for your new drive.

Who knows if this makes much difference, but it's one factor that makes me want to enjoy my T61 awhile longer until Lenovo gets its act together with the 256GB SSD.

 

I have a T500 I received in December with Win 7 EE on a 160GB mechanical HDD. I created the recovery media on DVD, then removed the HDD and replaced it with an 80GB Intel X-25M. I used the recovery DVDs to install Win 7 onto the SSD. This all went off without a hitch.
I run a 7200rpm 250GB spinner in the bay adapter for storage.

Unfortunately, I haven't noticed a mind-blowing improvement using the SSD with Windows 7. It is faster when opening apps and files, but the boot time is still close to a minute from button press to usable desktop.

I used the same SSD in a 2007 Mac Book Pro with Snow Leopard, and the improvement was insane. 9 second boots, 2 second shutdowns, 3 second load of Photoshop.
I wonder if Apple's closed hardware gives them a distinct advantage when writing drivers and startup services.

 

That's really a shame. I have a friend who get a 10s boot with a new MBP and a SSD. I thought it will at least give near that result with a SSD in Win7. Apparently not...

 

Yeah I was disappointed with the Win 7 boot performance. The BIOS boot sequence in the Lenovo can't be improved with the SSD, and it crawls. Oh well.
Once running, apps open near-instantly so all is not lost.

 

I'd like to offer something. I have an SSD and it's much faster booting Windows 7, than the 15k Seagate the SSD replaced. Because of this, I'd suggest that the latencies you are experiencing are from a different source than disk retrieval latencies. What kind of SSD do you have?
Renee

 

"So if you switch from an HDD to a SSD you might not get appropriate settings for your new drive."

He will.

 

I am a little mixed and confused. Will I actually get an optimized setting in EE, and why? Thanks!

 

Windows 7 takes care of the SSD optimizations automatically. The OS detects the type of drive and configures accordingly. Here is an MSDN blog post about it:
http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx

I could be totally wrong, but I am not sure if there is any kind of tweaking Lenovo could do for SSDs specifically. Personally I am not too worried about missing some of the EE magic. It could all be marketing b.s. anyway.

 

"Windows 7 takes care of the SSD optimizations automatically. The OS detects the type of drive and configures accordingly. Here is an MSDN blog post about it:
http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/200...rives-and.aspx

I could be totally wrong, but I am not sure if there is any kind of tweaking Lenovo could do for SSDs specifically. Personally I am not too worried about missing some of the EE magic. It could all be marketing b.s. anyway."

He couldn't be more correct which was my line of thinking when I answered the question.

Renee