W520 with mSata as boot drive?

In Keith Combs's review of the W520, he mentioned there are confirmation from Lenovo that it is possible to place a mSata SSD ( Intel Series 310 SSD for example) in the PCI-E WWAN card slot and use it as an OS bootdrive.

Lenovo ThinkPad W520 - mini review - Keith Combs' Blahg - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

Is this very true? cuz I am getting the W520, and would like to go this path. Just wanna make sure before i order the mSata SSD from newegg (out of stock, but i can wait)

Newegg.com - Intel 310 Series (Soda Creek) SSDMAEMC080G2C1 mSATA 80GB mSATA (mini PCIe form factor) MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - SSD

My working drive will be the 500GB 7200 which comes with the W520. Will only consider to replace this drive with SSD when price drops further.

My main use of the W520 is video editing so I will need the DVD burner.

 

The problem with newegg.com is the return policy on those drives. If it doesn't work you are screwed. I would wait for confirmation before ordering.

 

Yup, I understand. So far all reviews from newegg on this drive were from DELL users.

 

You can always sell it on eBay or CL.

 

In the detailed datasheet, there is mentioned of the mSATA

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/ww/pdf/w520_datasheet.pdf

Extract from that webpage (bottom of page 3) -
80GB mSATA SSD is in addition to other Hard Drives and fits in the WWAN slot. As a result, it is not available with WWAN

Looks very promising

 

You can't trust DELL users.

 

After Intel's press release this week regarding the new 320 series SSDs, I wonder if one of them will be a PCI-E model? The 320 series are supposed to be faster and *less expensive* (I'll believe that when I see it) than the 310 series.

I'll probably go this route too, once my laptop gets here from China

 

You could try it out by buying it from Amazon, they have great return policy. Another possible way to try it out is Best Buy. With their current return policy it would be a fast non-risky way to check out the 310(if they had it in stock in your local store). I don't think the 320 would come in pci flavor.

 

Someone have a link to the 80GB Intel Series 310 in Amazon? I don't see it.

 

I just check amazon, guess they haven't got it in stock

Amazon.com: Intel Solid-State Drives 310 series - Solid state drive - 80 GB - internal - PCI Express Mini Card: Computer & Accessories

I wonder if Amazon ever going to put it in stock

 

I do think the mSATA Intel 310 80 Gb on the PCIe card is what works.

At least what I have seen and didn't Keith Combs say he had tried it in his W520?

Perry

 

Nope. He has only tested the W520 with the Gen 2 Intel 160GB SATA II SSD drives, and the 500GB 7200rpm drive that came with the system. According to his last comment he has the mSATA on order.

 

Which China site did you order your's from? They do international shipping?

 

I ordered through the normal Lenovo site like anyone else. I was just making reference to where the laptop is made and where it will probably ship from. I ordered a docking station with the laptop and on the UPS tracking info, it says:

Hong Kong 03/30/2011 10:18 A.M. Order Processed: Ready for UPS


I also see that the Intel 310 series is the only one that offers the mSATA drive, the new 320 series does not (according to Intel's web site.)

 

I just bought a W520 with the 500GB 7200rpm HDD. I thinking running the OS on an Intel 310 msata 80GB SSD...but I am not exactly sure how to go about doing that? What stuff do I put on ssd and what do I put on the hdd?

Are there specific instructions on doing this?

I am also wondering if 80GB is enough to run Windows and Ubuntu (plus my applications)?

Thanks!

 

Why do you want a 310 in the W520 when you can use 9.5m ssd's and also have a ultrabay.

 

When I try to configure a W520 on Lenovo site, there is one step about micro sata drive. Now it's not available. Does anyone know whether it would become available? and when? I am not a pro, so I want to avoid the hassle of buying and installing it myself.

Thanks in advance.

 

I'd like the msata ssd because I'd like to keep the dvd player and i need a lot of hard drive space and large ssd's are too expensive. So a good compromise is msata ssd for the OS and a large HDD with the dvd drive.

 

This is really going to depend on the number of applications you install, restore points, etc. If all of your user data is on the 500GB HDD, the 80GB drive will probably be enough for Windows 7 and your apps. I am not sure about Ubuntu.

Don't forget, you can install some of your infrequently used apps to the big drive. There's no requirement to put them on the OS drive, especially for the infrequent ones where speed isn't really that important.