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    X220: Power options with mSATA + HDD

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by dtp7, Jun 6, 2011.

  1. dtp7

    dtp7 Notebook Enthusiast

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    I've got an X220 with an intel 310 series mSATA boot drive + 320gb hitachi HDD.

    A couple of questions about power manager options:
    1) PCI Express Link State Power Management - since the mSATA drive is plugged into the PCIE port, does this setting affect drive performance? Is there something specific it should be set to when using that as the boot drive?
    2) Spin down hard disk after XX minutes - if i set this to 30 seconds in power manager, which drive will it apply to? I'm hoping it will spin down the actual HDD and allow the mSATA SSD to keep doing its thing. Is that what will happen?

    Thanks!
     
    dtp7, Jun 6, 2011
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  2. User Retired 2

    User Retired 2 Notebook Nobel Laureate NBR Reviewer

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    1. mSATA uses SATA rather than a PCIe link. Changing this setting will have no effect on your mSATA SSD.

    2. The setting will affect your HDD but not your SSD since the SSD doesn't spindown. You want to spin down the HDD when inactive to extend battery life. Related: hdparm-for-Windows is a utility that allows setting the spindown per drive.
     
    User Retired 2, Jun 6, 2011
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  3. dtp7

    dtp7 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Thanks nando! One more follow-up question: as I'm not using the PCIe link, that setting should also have no impact on my machine's power consumption...correct? So as long as I have an mSATA SSD installed, that setting is 100%, totally meaningless to me?
     
    dtp7, Jun 6, 2011
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    User Retired 2 Notebook Nobel Laureate NBR Reviewer

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    wifi, expresscard, NIC and USB 3.0 alll use a x1 pci-e link ports. If have a dedicated GPU then it uses a x16 pci-e link. That setting is not meaningless.
     
    User Retired 2, Jun 6, 2011
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  5. dtp7

    dtp7 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Oh, gotcha. Important...just not for the SSD.

    Came up with another power related question in the meantime: If I disable hibernate in Windows (using powercfg -h), but power manager is still set to hibernate after X minutes, what will happen? I'd assume it will be unable to hibernate...will it just sleep, or crash the computer, or what?
     
    dtp7, Jun 6, 2011
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