X220 and mSATA SSD: A Resource

@nancyh1990

I was planning on doing the following:
1. adjusting size of C: partition so it was smaller than my mSATA size
2. doing a backup of C: to USB (assuming using ThinkVantage?)
3. removing my SSD (or in your case, HDD)
4. inserting 120GB mSATA
5. booting from USB-based backup and restoring to mSATA
6. once Windows all working again, then re-inserting SSD/HDD
7. delete original C: and D: partitions on SSD/HDD and create new partition making it D:

I'd be interested to hear if others feel that it needs to be more complicated than that.

At least one thing that I don't know is if the Q: Recovery will be still be usable/accessible.

Based on my experiences with laptops, I don't like to do clean installs. I would rather remove (and do registry clean-ups) of software that I don't want or need on my boot disk.

 

Any news on if Lenovo plans to do some kind of software caching for the X220?

The mSATA drive makes it a very good candidate.

Does look enticing...
DIY SSD/HDD Notebook Caching With NVELO's Dataplex | StorageReview.com

 

Good morning,
When you mean "backup", you mean creating recovery discs from Advantage tools or simple backup and restore?
If you meant the former, from what I read on the forum, the recovery disks will not work on another computer. When I insert the mSATA and remove the HDD, will this mean "another computer" for the recovery disks?
Thanks so much

 

Oh, I mean creating recovery discs from Advantage tools. (The "recovery discs" will actually on a USB drive.)

Not sure about the "another computer" question. Is that a Windows 7 licensing issue that you're talking about? This question should be able to be answered by anyone that has replaced their HDD with a different HDD or a SSD. I'll try to research a little today.
(I don't actually have a Windows 7 licensing problem because I have two licenses for Win 7 Pro 64 in addition to the Win 7 Prem 64 that will come on the laptop).

 

Hi nancyh1990,

I have removed the HDD and inserted a mSATA SSD and used the created R&R discs to reinstall the factory image onto the mSATA SSD. Then I fitted back my HDD and transferred my work files into the SSD and reformatted the HDD to use it as data storage for photos/music/etc.

There was no licencing issue at all.

Cheers.

 

I did the same thing from a USB thumb drive and had no licensing issues. In fact, I was paranoid enough that I called Lenovo before installing the mSata to confirm.

 

I'm using the original 250gb 5400 rpm drive from my x220.
Do you think it will really be worth it to add an msata or is it better to get an 8gb ram?

__________________
64GB MyDigitalSSD mSATA SSD
ThinkPad X220 / i5-2520M (2.5GHz) CPU / 4GB Ram / 250GB 5400rpm HDD / IPS screen / BT / Cam / 9-Cell Batt / Win7x64

 

I believe that you should get both since an additional 4GB ram is inexpensive.

 

May I ask how many GBs did the factory image consumed after you used the R&R discs made with the ThinkVantage tools? I in the process of installing a 64GB mSATA drive. Since its only 64GB, I'm looking at reducing the size of W7HP and putting all user data onto the 7200rpm HDD.

Thanks.

 

I believe it will be about 30+GB? It will also create a recovery partition which will be about 10GB.

 

Don't know if this is where to post this but just wanted to share. Installed my MyDigital 128 GB mSATA drive on my new x220 recently. Runs well but I have run into a situation when backing up and restoring a system drive image where during either restoring or backing up the SSD pauses for about a minute before resuming the imaging or restoring process. Also, speeds are very slow in comparison to HDD speeding when imaging or restoring. Thankfully the restore worked but just wondering about this.

This was done outside of Windows 7 64bit using a USB Recovery disk of ShadowProtect 4.1.5 and a Seagate 1 TB 2.5 USB HDD on which to store the images. Same setup I have used to image my T400 for several years now.

Have you noticed this behavior with this drive using your particular imaging software? Not try to knock this drive but just looking for some info which makes this forum a valued resource. Thanks much.

Gary

Just an update, I tried outside of windows an image and then restore of my C drive on MyDigital SSD with Terabyte's Image for Linux and speed of both processes was outstanding. SSD booted up fine.

Gary