Use SSD to replace the slow 1TB HDD or use mSATA to replace the 16GB Cache SSD on Lenovo y500?

Hi Folks,

I have ordered the Lenovo y500 with 750 SLI and it should be arriving in 7 days.

I plan to do a clean install, but am not sure whether I should replace the 16GB Cache SSD with a crucial 256GB mSATA or replace the 1TB HDD with a 500GB Samsung 840 SSD.

My question would be:

1)Of the 2 options above, which would be easier to setup & install the OS on?

2) Any Pro's or Con's to either decision?

I know that using an SSD would suck less power than the regular HDD if I had to lug it outside to work(Not gaming) for 2-3 hours without being plugged-in. So I guess that would favor replacing the 1TB default HDD. I know I can live with a 500GB ssd as I have been using an intel 160GB SSD for the last 2 years on my current laptop.

I would appreciate any opinions/thoughts on the questions.

Thanks All!

 

Well for either install you have to take the bottom off. And the install should be the same for each. I have been thinking of the same thing. If I had the money I would put in a 500GB SSD, and then use the 16GB caching drive as a secondary hard drive for downloads or something, maybe a small VM.

 

Thanks for your thoughts on this. However, I am not sure if the 16GB caching SSD could work as a secondary drive? As I read in one of the forum threads, the 16GB SSD sole function is to cache from the 1TB HDD, so, I wonder how that would work when I swap out the 1TB HDD with the 512GB SSD? I mean, it does not seem to make sense for the 16GB caching SSD to cache from the 512GB SSD for boot purposes. Or does that still have some benefit somehow?

Until I replace the 16GB caching SSD with a regular mSATA SSD in the future, how would one configure this caching SSD for best use?

 

I ordered a Y400 without the mSATA, so I'm getting a Crucial 256GB and a WD Scorpio Black 750GB (the 1TB HDD is going to my wife's Gigabyte U2442F).

If you're doing a fresh install on the 500GB SSD, the 16GB mSATA can be used as a secondary disk, if you configure it that way. It's just too small to be used as the primary drive on Win7/8.

 

Going to use this thread to share some information.

I have a Y500 i7 with 750M in it (non-SLI, just single). I have a lot of experience with the Lenovo ThinkPad x230 line and and this is my first Ideapad...

I spent about 8 hours trying every variation of booting Linux and Windows 8. I'm using the GRUB2 that comes with Ubuntu 13.04 (final) x64. I put in 16GB of RAM on the system.

Here is what I've found out through trial and error.

1. Setting the BIOS to Legacy boot loading does not damage the Windows 8 that is on the 1TB drive. It still boots up and works perfectly fine.

2. I was able to remove the 1TB drive and put it in the Ultrabay and the Windows 8 boots and works perfectly fine this way too. This way I can keep the mechanical hard drive on the SATA tray ad remove it when I don't need it (and not worry about hard drive crashes due to physical shock). My experience in the "old days' was that Windows XP and such was pretty picky about being moved from one SATA port to another and would not boot... but on this system, I had no such trouble.

3. I have a 64GB mSATA, precisely one I purchased in late 2011 "MyDigitalSSD 64GB 50mm Bullet Proof mSATA (Mini SATA PCI-e) SSD - MDMS-5064" - which I put in. I am able to make this a bootable device with one problem. It seems there is some kind of timing problem making the mSATA a boot device. WORKAROUND: Put the Atheros Ethernet as the first boot device in the system and this seems to make the BIOS work correctly in regard to booting from the mSATA devices. Hopefully Lenovo improves this in a future BIOS release. It adds about 1 or 2 seconds to the boot time for (unconnected, uncabled) Ethernet boot to timeout.

4. With my mSATA as my main boot device, I was able to put Ubuntu 13.04's GRUB2 on that mSATA and have my Linux boot menu come up on system start. All using Legacy BIOS mode at this point (I have not tried GRUB or EFILINUX in UEFI mode yet). Furthermore, I can press F12 and easily choose to boot the unmodified 1TB Window 8 drive... and it does not matter if the 1TB drive is in the Ultrabay or the internal SATA slot, seems to boot and run Windows 8 perfectly fine.

Overall this allows me to put Linux on the system without altering the Windows 8 1TB install that Lenovo did. I can even remove the 1TB drive entirely and just boot off my 64GB mSATA (or I also drop in a 240GB SSD SATA that I have as a second or third drive). or I can remove the mSATA and revert back to the Windows 8 exactly as Lenovo shipped it to me. Best of both worlds.

If Lenovo would tweak the BIOS to not require the "Ethernet Boot" timing workaround I'd be a bit happier, but I am glad it works in any event and 1 or 2 second extra boot time doesn't bother me that much.

I have not yet tried to boot from the SD card slot yet. On the Lenovo Thinkpad x220/x230 this works great, but not sure if the BIOS allows this on the Y500.


P.S. the 750M is so new that Ubuntu 13.04 graphics support from Nvidia isn't so great, I hope that will improve in the coming weeks, months.

P.S.S. Ubuntu 13.04 x64 can easily fit within your 16GB SSD. In fact, I run mine with only a 12GB partition (no swap, I have 16GB of RAM) and I'm only using 7.8GB of that 12GB with many Linux apps installed.

 

I made a similar post in a similar thread ( link) The short answer from that thread is:

Popular configurations are:

• Get Crucial M4 256GB SSD mSATA. Put OS / apps / games on that. Use your Seagate 1TB 5400rpm 2.5" HDD as bulk media storage (music, videos, pr0n). If you do this, install Windows 7/8 with the 2.5" 1TB drive REMOVED, and then pop it in later after Windows is fully installed.
• Get a small mSATA (16GB - 64GB) drive, and use it as an Intel RST caching drive in front of a large 1TB mechanical drive (5400rpm or 7200rpm). If you do this, install Windows 7/8 with the 16GB - 64GB mSATA SSD REMOVED, and the pop it in later after Windows is fully installed (and Intel RST drivers).
• Get a large 2.5" SSD (256GB or 512GB), and forego using the mSATA slot altogether.

For you, I think it would entirely depend on how much storage space you need for OS / apps / games, and how much you need for bulk media storage (music, videos, pr0n).

In my particular case, I went with a Samsung 840 500GB SSD, because I needed more than 256GB of storage for the OS / apps / games that I intend to put on this laptop. And I want all of that to be on fast SSD storage. It gives me less storage capacity for bulk media (music, videos, pr0n), but that is a tradeoff I am willing to make so that all of my OS / apps / games can sit on SSD storage.

P.S. The thread I mentioned above also has some instructions / steps that I went through to do my SSD swap + clean Windows 8 install + drivers. That might save you a bit of time from doing your own research, if you intend to do the same.

Yes. The 16GB SSD can be configured as just a plain storage device. You configure it through the Intel RST (Rapid Storage Technology) settings application in Windows.

For you the 16GB mSATA SSD is almost pointless. You're either going to replace it with a Crucial 256GB mSATA SSD. Or you will go with a Samsung 840 500GB SSD. A 16GB mSATA SSD will not give you any performance advantage as a caching drive if your primary 2.5" drive is already an SSD, and the capacity is too small to do anything useful with it. If I were you, I'd just sell it on eBay for the $25 you'd get for it.

 

Thanks ALL. Great informative replies .

OK, I think I am going this route. Would love your opinion on it.

I will remove the 1TB HDD, and replace it with the 512GB Samsung SSD and install Win 8 fresh on it. BUT, if I just unplug the 16GB mSATA caching SSD, can I just leave that connector without any mSATA attached? Do I need to do any specific steps in the system bios to allow me to remove the 16GB Caching SSD and leave it with nothing connected?

In future, when I decide to add a second larger mSATA SDD, can I just simply plug it into the mSATA connector and see it as a second hard drive?


SO, these are the steps I plan to do in sequence:

1) Upon receiving the laptop, I will turn it over , and remove BOTH the 16GB mSATA and 1TB HDD.

2) I will somehow find and download a copy of win 8.iso onto a USB stick.(What size USB stick should I be looking to get for this purpose? Can I just use an external harddrive connected via USB?)

3)I will install the 500GB Samsung, BUT leave the mSATA connector with no mSATA SSD attached.(Will the laptop just forget about the mSATA SSD and boot nicely?)

4)I will power on the laptop with the USB stick with the Win8 iso stuck into any of the USB ports.

5)Instantly upon pressing the power button, I should somehow press a certain key to get into the Bios so that I can configure the laptop to boot from the USB.(What key am I looking to press here?)

6) I assume, I will see the laptop boot into the USB windows 8 setup process?

7) The windows 8 should be automatically activated as the license key is already 'burned' into the system bios?

7) In future, when I decide to add a 'second' hard drive, I will purchase the Crucial mSATA and simply plug it into the empty mSATA connector.(ANy other special steps involved to make this work?)


AM I missing any steps? Thanks very much for all your help!

 

I think that once you open your laptop, you''ll find the answer to your question. There is no "connector". The mSATA port is a slot, just like a RAM slot.

Yup. Plug it in, create a partition and format it in Windows, and it will appear as a storage device on your machine.

In general, looks good. Some comments below.

8GB min size stick. And yes to external HD.

Do not hit the standard laptop power button for this. There is a button on your laptop (called the Novo button) that is located on the left side of the laptop, near the power connector. It is a tiny button that looks like it has an "Undo" arrow icon on it. When you power on the laptop using the Novo button, it will boot you into a special menu that lets you enter BIOS settings, and/or choose boot devices.

Remember to read through the thread I linked (in my previous post) about the different settings with Secure Boot an

Correct. No action needed on your part at all. You don't even need to type in a license key at any point.

 

Thanks kent1146. Much appreciated!

Just had a quick question regarding the bios configuration you documented. In it, one of the steps was to disable the secure booting. Do you know what secure boot does? By disabling it, are we having less security? Also, do we set the settings back to orginal default after successfully installing the clean windows OS, or will these settings remain to be permanent?

 

Secure Boot pretty much prevents you from booting into any other Operating System (or any other boot method) than pre-authorized and validated OS'es (locked down by an encryption key) or boot methods.

If you ask Microsoft or Lenovo, they will tell you that it is there as a security measure, to ensure that you are only booting into validated and secured operating systems.

If you ask any hardware geek, they will tell you that it is essentially DRM (Digital Rights Manangement, or copy protection) that prevents you from doing anything with your laptop except using it in its factory condition. You cannot boot off of a USB drive, you cannot reinstall Windows or another OS, and you cannot load Linux.

Short answer: Your computer is no less secure than what it was 2 years ago, before Secure Boot was ever a thing. It's essentially DRM, where the laptop manufacturers and Microsoft have agreed to sell you laptops that can ONLY be used to run Windows 8. For a power user like yourself, you want to disable it, and keep it disabled permanently.

 

I'm interested in if you actually found the Windows 8 standard ISO.