X220 SSD 7mm Mod (Crucial C300)

Just thought I'd share since it worked out so good. The Crucial C300 is easily modded to remove the spacer and make it 7mm. Its one of the few Sata3 (6Gbs) drives that would work perfect for the X220. Hit up the link for pics.

Photo Album - Imgur

Edit: Shorter screws were stolen from an old 2.5" Hitachi IDE thinkpad hard drive. To those who commented - the warranty sticker does look slightly tampered with, but the residue left on the opposite side of the spacer would fill it up and it would definitely look acceptable.

 

Where does one get the shorter screws?

 

maybe laptopscrews.com?

 

Check your local hardware store. My hardware store (local, don't even remember the name) has a whole wall full of screws, nuts, etc.

Think I read here the specific screw is M2-3? Or M2-M3

 

Fantastic! Thanks for sharing.

 

From the looks of it, that obviously tampered looking warranty sticker won't get you any warranty support.

 

Thanks for sharing.
I wish this came a bit sooner. I ended up buying the 320 for my T420s. I liked the C300 better for the price.

 

Oh you weren't kidding.. I thought that was a sarcastic comment..

 

Hahahahah You made my day!

 

lol .... but i cannot take the credit for it .. i read it in another thread with someone doing the 320 reduction to 7mm.

 

I thought you were here trying to be some smartass.. Where do you find shorter laptop screws? Why obviously laptopscrews.com... >.>

Edit: Actually I suppose it would be shorterlaptopscrews.com

 

did the sticker cover the spacer?

how was the fit? did you have to use cellophane to keep the sdd from moving around too much?

i wish you could do the same mod to the 510

 

Hmm would it be easier to get a C300 SSD 1.8 and put it in a 2.5 adapter (Dane Elec 1.8" to 2.5")?

 

I believe half the point of this mod is for those who already own a C300 and don't want to pony up more money for a new SSD just because of fit.

 

Ah I see, just providing alternative info if you want the warranty intact. Anyhow mod away

 

The sticker does look slightly tampered with, but if I had to replace the spacer it would fill in those little spots with the residue on the spacer. Anyway, those looking for screws - I salvaged mine from an old 2.5" IDE HDD. One of those Thinkpad Hitachis.

 

Is it just me or the C300 I found doesn't include the spacer at all?

Link

 

You are looking at the 2.5 drive. The 1.8 drive is thinner according to this spec sheet (9.5 mm vs 5 mm):

http://www.crucial.com/pdf/Tech_specs-letter_Crucial_RealSSD_C300_v9-16-10_online.pdf

 

????? The 1.8mm drive has nothing to do with my post or this thread at all ?????

The thread is about how the 2.5mm drive has a spacer that can removed to make it 7.5mm thin (compatible with X220 etc).

However, the C300 2.5mm drives I've found no longer have that spacer.....

 

Found where? I really hope Crucial, Intel, OCZ, etc. get behind this 7mm move. Otherwise...

 

Here

The pictures of it show no spacer..? Whats the deal?

 

Fortunately, I think you are wrong and the newegg pic is one of the better pictures that demonstrates this. Look closely at the third picture from newegg. The pic of the drive flipped over bottom up. See the black plastic layer? Notice the sata connector and lid? See how they'll line up nicely with the plastic layer removed?

The only issue doing it is the short screws needed. I found a spare set in my bag of screws when I converted a X-25M drive but I don't have any more.

I'm hopeful the drive makers will ship cases with an extra set fo short screws to solve the 7mm challenge. Otherwise this is going to be an ongoing cluster...

 

Do you know what type of screws the Intel 310 needs (short version)?

Planning on doing that? Also, how do I do the transfer of my HDD to SSD with making sure alignment is fine.

 

It's most probably M2 x 3mm - the same size as commonly used for fixing down wireless cards - but I can't be 100% sure until Lenovo put one of their products in my hands.

Acronis TrueImage 2011 claims to handle the partition alignment when cloning. It seems to work OK for me.

John

 

Thanks for the link. But how do you know when it doesn't work?

 

the silver lenovo M2 x 3mm wireless card screws will work on the 320.   M2 x 4mm is the longest that will work without bottoming out.

 

Good question. I would assume that one would see some poor benchmark results. If benchmarks can't see any performance hit then what is the likelihood of users seeing any performance problem?

John

 

Hahaha just reading through this thread. Funny

 

From what I've read, a misaligned SSD has much higher write amplification, and thus shorter drive life, even if there is no obvious performance hit. I'm pretty sure you can do a quick alignment check with Windows Disk Management and a calculator, but you'll have to google for the specifics as I don't know off the top of my head how you'd do it.

 

Which M2x3mm screws did you guys order from Laptopscrews?

M2x3mm

 

I picked up these:

M2x3mm Wafer Head Machine Screw #10131 [10131] : Metric Screws!, We have the screws you need!

They were pricey for what they are, but they work. IIRC one of the forum moderators or someone on the Intel Community forum ordered a ton of screws in bulk and was offering to send them to forum members who requested. Not sure if that offer is still valid.

 

I have the M4, and all I did was remove the spacer, then I carefully placed complete strips of pvc tape on the underside of the case, with a 1mm overlap. I then used some good quality tape, fiberous like what whitegoods are shipped with (not 100mph tape) to wrap around the sides and all good,
I placed the bubber slides on and it went in easily.

Scores are just under 500 and 200 for sequential.

 

I was thinking of going the tape route as since I'm in Canada, all these sites want $12+ to ship me a pack of 4/5 screws.... !

I'm just afraid that if I tape the drive together that:

A) because of the heat generated, the tape will melt/come off...
B) taping the drive might leave quite a few glue marks and if I need to RMA the drive, they might make a big stink out of it.

Tape marks on the OUTSIDE of a drive should not be cause for the rejection of an RMA though...

Anyone here have some extra screws that they'd be willing to throw into an envelope and mail to Toronto? I can Paypal you the postage...

 

I don't think the screws are really needed.

I have a Intel SSD G2 80GB drive on mine. The drive originally came with the spacers. I removed the spacers. And I can actually open the case now since it is not screwed down. I just put those rubber slide thingy on the drive and stuck it back into my X220T. I've been running it like this since I received my X220T. I ordered my X220T when it was released.

I haven't had any problems with it. The SSDs is not like a hard drive disk platter where any contamination on it will destroy the storage capabilities. The memory components on SSD are already packaged and is protected from air born particles. Besides the SSD drive case is not air tight anyways. So I don't really understand why screws are needed.

If you look at the mSATA drives, none of them comes in a case.


Just my $0.02

 

I agree

I used that tape that has a sort of fabric running through it (not 100mph) and it is fine. I placed one side of the tape over one edge and firmly placed the other side over making sure that the cases were aligned.


I too would not worry about the screws.

 

This guy used electrical tape to cover the exposed chips and seal the outer cover (instead of screws) on his 256gb M4 and i'll do something similar when mine arrives

 

I just had a scary conversation with a Crucial CSR. A lot of companies are, for lack of a better term, d*cks when it comes to RMA's so I thought I'd give Crucial a call to see what they're like and ask if any tape marks on the outer case of the SSD would void the warranty.

The rep said that as long as there was no damage to the drive (ie. dents), the RMA dept. should have no problem. Then he goes on to say that if you buy the drive direct from Crucial it comes with a 3yr warranty, but if you buy the drive from a retailer (and he specifically mentioned Newegg), you only have a 90day warranty.

I bought my M4 from Tigerdirect, and as far as I can tell, everything seems to indicate that the M4 is covered by a 3yr warranty regardless from where you bought it.

I'm going today to a nuts/bolts manufacturer that I found in the city and so they have M2, but the shortest they have is 4mm, instead of 3mm. I'm pretty sure 4mm is about the largest screw that would fit the M4 with the spacer removed, so I'm going to try the 4mm screw.

If it's too tall, then I can always file/cut off the excess...

On thing that puzzles me though is why people are sticking electrical tap on the actual chips themselves. Why not just stick the tape on the metal cover? It seems risky to stick the tape on the chips as though it may not conduct electricity, the flash chips still seem to get hot/warm and I'm wondering if over time the glue on the tape could melt off all over the chips/PCB. Although the PCB is also covered by a coating to protect it from finger oils, air, dust etc...

 

I just cut a sheet of very thin plastic and laid it over the chips before winding with tape. Works perfectly.

 

Before seeing this thread, I just put a crucial M4 256GB SSD into my x220t yesterday. Had to remove the spacer to get it to fit, but got windows7 installed and it's working great so far. But I haven't read any comments about possible overheating. I assume the spacer is there for a reason. The only reasons I can think of would be proper fit for a larger receiving hole, and proper cooling. So, since I removed the spacer and the PCB is now pretty much directly adjacent to the metal casing, I'm not sure how worried I should be about my $400 drive overheating and dying in a week's time. From the unfortunate placement of that now obviously tampered warning sticker, it would seem that removing the spacer is something Crucial frowns upon.

Any thoughts?

 

Has anyone tried Kingston's SV200S3128G? It is in the 7mm format, but the WEI stays in 5.9. Did I do something wrong?

 

The chart here suggests that SSD isn't s star performer. Install and run SiSoftware Sandra and use the storage benchmark to see how your SSD stacks up against other drives.

John