X220 ? jump on the bandwagon with Intel 320 SSD or wait?

Hey,

X220 bought from an academic programme reseller is a final bet for my new machine. I have a config ready on my mind and I am only waiting for the official release, until the machines will be physically available and not only in pre-orders.

There is only one thing I am hesitating about.

I would like for my X220 to have an SSD drive eventually. I may jump on the bandwagon and order the machine with Intel's new 320 series SSD drive (which is quite costly, adding 220 euros to the price). Or I might order the machine with 320GB 7200rpm traditional drive and upgrade later by myself.

Would it be wise to wait?

I am mostly thinking about the possibility of more 7mm factor SSDs coming on the market, truly hoping for something being able to use SATA 6gbit/s with transfer rates exceeding 300MB/s. Something like Intel 510 series or OCZ Vertex 3, none of which are (yet?) available in 7mm factor.

What would you do being in my place? Buy it with SSD from the very beginning or wait looking for a possible upgrade later on?


Any advice appreciated

Thank you!
Mateusz

 

I'm not. One of the biggest features of the X220 is the capability of running an msata ssd in combination with a large hdd. Stick a ssd in the 7mm bay and you lose all that of that space.

 

I guess it all depends what do you need and what the price is. 60GB mSATA SSD + few hundred GB HD seems like a great setup for a 12" laptop. I would never buy it directly from Lenovo, tho.

 

Aren't "normal"-sized SSDs faster? Intel declares less than 70MB/s write speed for their 310 mSATA version.

Space is irrelevant for me, it's an ultraportable — I have a workstation at home. Even 80GB of total storage would be enough for my needs.

I am also concerned that sticking a mechanical drive along with an SSD would cripple the battery life, as well as durability — magnetic drives are more prone to failure after all.

 

Random write is what's important for an OS drive. Sequential speeds don't matter much. The 310 did better than the Intel X25-M 160gb in PCMark Vantage. Tested sequential write speed was 85mb/s.

Intel 310 Series 80GB SSD Review – PCMark Vantage and Final Thoughts | The SSD Review

I have a Scorpio Black along with the ssd in the T400. It's set to turn off when on battery, so no battery life impact.

 

Sequential speed matters for large blobs of data. For instance, reading in a virtual hard disk file to open and launch a VM. Or opening a big database file. Or a HD video file.

Depends on how they were written, but don't discount it totally.

 

I see. So it would quite a fun upgrade option to buy a normal drive and then plug in additional mSATA SSD, without swapping drives.

Is it difficult to move the OS to an mSATA SSD, or any disk cloning software should do?

Edit: But sticking an mSATA drive makes it impossibl to have an integrated WWAN, doesn't it? I would benefit from having a 3G built-in, without using external USB devices for that. As said before, 80/160GB SSD storage space-wise would be more than enough for me, so an SSD-only solution is not crippling my work at all.

 

While the "normal-sized" are faster according to some benchmarks, I am not sure whether you would actually notice any difference in real-life usage. Especially, compared to what you would notice HD vs SSD. When I am looking at tests, the only things I pay attention to are actual benchmarks - loading, startup times, etc. I rarely do move big files around - and if I do I am typically bottlenecked by other things: WiFi or LAN speed, USB speed, etc. If I move around big files on my HD I typically use just "move" or "cut" method and it moves pretty much instantly either on HD or SSD. (From what I remember the actual data stays put where it was on the disk, it's just the reference to those files in the filesystem gets changed.)

As for mirroring the partition, I think the best way is to do OS reinstall - because the SSD needs to be "aligned" to achieve best performance. Even though... I hear there is some software that can do the alignment for you afterwards, but I never actually used it.

 

I am just wonder whether I can order both mSata and a harddrive at the same time? When I check the T420 and T420S it say it support mSATA drive but it did not have an option to order it from Lenovo web page? Any body know the answer?

 

I'm sure it'll eventually be available from Lenovo, but like every hdd or ssd upgrade it'll be severely overpriced. Most people get the base ram and hard drive, and order those upgrades from newegg,etc.

 

Yeah, for example a 2GB stick from Lenovo is $80. It's $25 on Amazon for Crucial, and a lot less if you want to get a no-name from eBay.

When I was ordering through the phone the rep told me that to get the full benefit of 64-bit I should upgrade to 4GB (and flush a bunch of money down the toilet). What a joke. It's the other way around.

 

Why is it a joke? He provided you with correct information. Most of the people who call them are not tech savvy enough to add RAM themselves. It surely is trivial for most people on this board but not everyone is like that. Have you ever helped an average Joe with his laptop? That's what they assume about you when you call them. You'd do the same in their place.

 

What is correct information? You don't need 4GB to "get the most out of 64-bit" You need 64-bit to get the most out of 4GB

 

I believe the rep was talking to you about the 64-bit Windows and that you need 4GB RAM to "get the most out of the 64-bit compatible OS/software".

 

the ta book says there is no msata ssd for any of the x220s. does this mean there's no option to buy an msata ssd or that there is no msata slot?

 

I'd wait simply because SSDs are not very good value right now, having the factory installed option is ridiculously expensive, and their reliability isn't proven. I've heard of a lot of OCZ Indilinx drives dying, and even though they're covered under warranty it's annoying as hell to deal with. Later when the value becomes better, removing the case should be easy. The sticker shouldn't be too hard to keep intact...

 

Hmmm, I thought, In previous versions of tabook, they were listed as optional equipment. Now I don't see it listed. We need to have someone confirm who already has one, and can see if there is at least, a full hight mini pci-e slot in it.

 

I've been using OCZ SSD's for years now... not one has died on me. I have an old APEX thats at least 3 years old that is as fast today as when I got it.

The wonderful thing about SSD's, which people don't seem to know, is that you can secure erase them and essentially reset them to their factory state.

It is an amazing technology and I find them much more reliable than traditional spinners (I just had to replace a 2tb drive in my raid array yesterday).

 

Whew, see:

http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/0a60739.pdf

the page numbered 120, part number 26. I think it takes the place of the wwan card. No biggie for me, since i prefer to use mifi style devices.

 

^this is what i found out after a little research. the wwan slot doubles as msata, which is fine for me as i dont plan on using wwan

 

Would adding the mSATA SSD affect battery life at all if I paired it with a traditional HDD? I'm guessing it would only affect it minimally since the mSATA drive is only going to draw low amounts of power compared with the HDD

 

Any idea where to get the "shorter screws" StorageReview.com mentions to take off the spacer and make the drive 7mm tall?

 

Does anybody know if the x220 or x220t chipset even has 6 Gbps SATA enabled? The chipset supports it, from Intel's website. But still need to make sure Lenovo actually enabled it.

My friend told me that the previous MacBook Pro 13" models didn't enabled 3.0 Gbps SATA, instead only 1.5 Gbps. But the 15" models had it enabled.

So just want to make sure the x220 doesn't have the same problem.

 

It is 6gbps.

 

I also want to know that...

 

Its probably set to 3gbps since the ultrabase (0A33932) and all the drive configuration options are listed as SATA II.

It wouldn't be the first time this kind of thing happened

 

Erik confirmed 6gbps.

 

I'm new here.
Who is Erik, why is he credible and how may I view the confirmation myself?

 

maticom (original poster),
Recommend you check out PCper.com They have some excellent SSD coverage.

Here's a link to the PCper Podcast 149. At 19:17 Allyn Malventano talks at length about intel's 320 SSD. They have a good discussion about why there's not much point in waiting for 6Gb/s SSDs.
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pcper-podcasts.s3.amazonaws.com/podcast149.mp3

Here's their written review
Intel 320 Series 300GB SSD Performance Review | PC Perspective

My opinion. I'm happy with the performance of intel's x-25 SSD in my x61s, and T60. For microsoft office tasks, it's fast enough for me. I do like the encryption of the 320 series though.

 

erik is one of the moderators here and a long-time ThinkPad user.

 

Does anyone know if Lenovo is going to offer 320 series SSD in CTO models? I was thinking of mSATA drives but now I'm not sure if 80GB is enough for me.

Another question, does anyone know which Samsung SSD series is shipped in latest Lenovo X laptops/tablets? Thanks for the info.

 

The point of the mSATA drive is you have an 80GB boot drive for Windows and a few programs that you use a lot, and a large spinning hard drive in the standard 2.5" slot for the rest of your data.

 

erik is a jerk and doesn't know anything.   don't listen to that guy.

eventually, yes.   320 series drives were late getting qualified and might be slightly delayed.

 

ROFL. Motion seconded.

 

Can the X220 have both mSATA PCIe SSD drive with another hard drive too?

 

Yes, that's what's been discussed so far.

You can have the following:
intel 80GB SSD mSATA (fits in mini pcie slot instead of WAN) + 2.5" 7mm height HDD or SSD (such as intel x25-m)


I pre-ordered x220t, and I'll just replace the HDD with my x25-m 80gb. I'm going to wait for cheaper and faster mSATA SSD to add on.
If I didn't own a x25-m, then I would have bought the 80gb intel mSATA ssd from newegg to add on the x220t.

 

Originally when I first read this, I was like.. this poster isn't very smart to be bashing a moderator like that.. and then I realized it was erik himself posting. hehe...

 

If I get my x220 now plus aftermarket Intel 320, will I end up with the same functionality as if I waited for 320 to be available CTO? For example, would I get the same enhanced experience / rapid boot stuff or is there likely to be some custom firmware/software that would only come with the factory installed 320?

Thanks a lot!

Charlie

 

When I check with the Thinkpad x220 Hardware Maintenance Manual, the mSATA port is under the palm rest (need to take the keyboard out and then take the palme rest out) and the diagram showing it a lot smaller than the T420S mSATA port, so I question whether the X220 be able to support the Intel Sries 310 drive ! Can you confirm that Please?

 

It was confirmed a month ago.

 

People don't seem to know how to use the search function

 

Asking over and over is easier but eventually they stop getting answers.

WIKI?

 

What is the best way to transfer the Win 7 OS from the HDD to the mSata SSD ? Do we need to change to BIOS so that X220 know the new mSATA ssd drive is C drive?

 

In all fairness, the search function doesn't work at all in this forum.

Others have said the best way to make the transfer is make recovery disks of the factory image and use that to migrate the OS to the ssd.

 

I think it would be the best to image the whole hdd with whatever software (hiren's boot cd + ghost, or paragon hdd manager), then restore that to ssd. Then do another factory state recovery from the new ssd. This way, you know that OS is being reinstalled for the ssd.

Using the created recovery disc didn't really work for my x61t in the past. When I had a brand new hdd, I wasn't able to recover the hidden partition and it kept asking me for the OS recovery disc. I had to use the discs that lenovo sent me later on after an hour long phone conversation.

 

Well, another issue that must be dealt with is having whatever image correctly aligned on the ssd. I'm pretty sure Intel has a migration tool so maybe use that to actually move the OS and make restore disks to have a copy of the restore partition.

 

Any reason why a fresh install using my own W7 discs wouldn't work? Obviously I would need to update with Lenovo drivers, but I assume those are on the web somewhere?

 

That's what I was considering before. Now I simply want to remove a power hungry and noisy mechanical drive and use a full size SSD instead.

I was hoping to get 320 sooner, so it leaves an aftermarket SSD then. It is however encouraging to see that there is a real quality control process in place and engineers actually abide by it. It shows that it's worth spending money on these machines.

 

It'll work, but the reason why we want to keep the original from lenovo is because their Enhanced Experience 2.0 thingy.

A clean install on my x61t boots up in about 38 seconds (x25-m g2). With EE2.0, it's supposed to even shave more time off of that.

 

Also, can anyone confirm that we'll need #1-72 @ 3/16" Length screws to secure the intel 310 in the slot?

A reviewer on newegg for the 80gb, 310, mentioned that they needed these screws, and that they didnt come with the drive.