Would this SDD be fine for T430?

I am looking for an SSD for my T430 that will be coming. Does anybody know if this will work? Is it a good one?

Samsung 256GB 830 Series SSD with Internal Laptop MZ-7PC256N/AM

 

It's an excellent one. And, with 7mm height, it will fit in the primary bay.

 

Is that a good price? Oh I was trying to look for the height but I couldn't find it lol.

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It is a very good SSD, and that is a good price, but the problem is you may buy it now and then a better deal shows up. I'm going to wait a month or two before I commit to buying an SSD

 

It's a good price. I would take it. Click on the Specifications tab (below the picture) and you'll see various technical info, including the height.

 

I found it thanks! I purchased it. Where would be the best place for it. Where the original HDD or where the cd drive is (ultra drive?). I also want to keep the HDD inside.


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That is a very good price. I bought the same SSD about a month or so ago for $247 USD so that is a steal in my opinion.

 

You can keep the HDD in the primary bay where it currently is. Get an UltraBay caddy adapter (l ike this) can put the SSD there. You can boot from either drive: just change the boot order in BIOS.

Both SATA ports (primary and UltraBay) operate at 6 Gbit/s.

 

Ok thanks for your help! I will be doing a clean install of windows on the SSD. After that would I format the HDD to delete windows from its?
Also would this be the same as the caddy you posted above?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2nd-HDD-Caddy-F-IBM-Lenovo-Thinkpad-T420-W520-T520-DV16-/290603057903?pt=US_Drive_Bay_Caddies&hash=item43a94ac2ef


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Yes. (You may want to check Hearst guide or Lenovo guide.)

Copy the C:\SWTOOLS folder to a USB flash drive, then remove your stock HDD before you install Windows 7 on the new SDD. After Windows has been installed, go down the list in Device Drivers, for each device that needs Lenovo-supplied driver: point to the SWTOOLS folder on the flash drive and tell Windows to search its subdirectory for the right driver.

You can buy this one, just as well.

Once the system boots and operates properly from SSD, turn it off, remove both battery and power adapter, then replace the optical drive with the UltraBay caddy adapter with the stock HDD in it. Reboot. Now, you can format the HDD.

If you want to keep the optical drive for occasional uses as an external device, consider this. It comes with a pouch.

 

Alright thanks.... one more question. Will it matter if I put the SDD in the primary bay or the ultra bay? Will it make a difference?

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No. They both operate at SATA 6Gbit/s. (But remove the stock HDD when you work on the SSD initially. Edit the BIOS to change the boot order. Put it back in only after the SSD becomes your boot drive and Windows works properly.)

 

I am actually in a very similar situation myself, only my laptop is a T520. I purchased a T520 with a 500 GB HDD last year for college. Now I have decided I want to add an SSD to my computer in place of my optical drive. I've already purchased a 128 GB Crucial M4 and an ultrabay adapter, so the only thing I have left to do is actually install it. This is where I need advice. I would like to use the SSD for boot and my often used programs such as Lightroom, Photoshop, and Chrome while keeping my HDD in the primary bay for storage. I've done a lot of googling but haven't found anything specific to my needs and was wondering if one of you could link me to a guide on how to set up my SSD along with my HDD. I'm completely new to this, so I have some questions like: I'd rather not do a clean install of the OS since I don't want to have to go through and download all the software on my computer again, is there anyway to avoid this if I want to use my SSD for boot? etc.

I would be very grateful if you guys could help me out.

 

Well it would be best if you do a fresh and clean install on your SDD. There are two guides that kaso posted like 4 posts before this on how to do this. I am not sure if the T520 has the same speeds in the primary bay and the ultra bay like the T430 so I am not sure where you should keep it. Hope I helped a bit I'm sure someone will help you out more.


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Did you buy the retail kit version of the Crucial m4 (i.e. with the data transfer cable and software)? If yes, then it would have come with a CD with EZ Gig software and a data transfer cable that will allow you to clone. If you did, then post here or PM me and I will walk you though cloning. It works. I have tried it on three machines now without any issues.

 

I didn't buy the kit, just the drive. To ysuleman, the T520 does support Sata III in the primary and optical bays and supports Sata II in the mSata slot.

Why is a clean install so preferred? Just to make sure no software screws up the setup of the drive?

 

Primary & Ultrabay are SATA III; mSATA is SATA II. Yes, that is one good reason for a clean install. Another is to free up space on the SSD by getting rid of the Lenovo Recovery Partition. A third is to have a minimal and bloatware free install. Whichever method you adopt--clean install or clone--it is recommended that you burn a set of factory recovery disks.

Since you did not get the retail kit, there are other alternatives. Some people have used a software called Macrium Reflect Free for cloning disks and have had good results with it. The software is fairly easy to use. Alternately, you can use Macrium without installing it by downloading a bootable WinPE image from here: https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=475A0A48CA6D4035!1812 and read about the contents of the Macrium CD here: Imaging with free Macrium - Windows 7 Forums. After downloading the iso file, burn it to a blank CD. It will let you boot into a minimal version of Win 7 64bit and run various features of Macrium w/out having to put anything on your hard drive.


A step by step guide to cloning with Macrium is here: Cloning a disk using Macrium Reflect v5 - YouTube

You can also look at this thread from the SSD forum: http://forum.notebookreview.com/solid-state-drives-ssds-flash-storage/677797-help-cloning-hd.html. The OP successfully cloned a fairly large HDD with multiple partitions to an SSD using Macrium. As long the cumulative amount of data on the old drive does not exceed the capacity of the target disk, you should be fine.

 

I have also used Easeus Partition Master and To-Do Backup to clone HDDs to SSDs with success.

 

I really appreciate the help guys, thanks again. I've seen others suggest to just set the OS boot to the SSD in BIOS. I take it I can't just set my desired applications (Lightoom etc.) to it in BIOS as well? I just don't know if cloning my HDD to my SSD would be redundant since I'm keeping my HDD installed.

 

You have to change the boot drive order in BIOS: move the SSD to the top of the list (after cloning).

The BIOS knows nothing about your programs. You need to clone the current boot HDD (which contains Windows and your programs) onto the SSD. You have to do this whether or not you want to keep your HDD (which will become a storage drive, holding your personal files only).

Read my detailed reply on the other thread.