X301, T400s, what size hard drive?

Does anyone know what sized hard drive does the x301 uses? 1.8inch or 2.5inch?

And what about the T400s? 1.8inch or 2.5inch?

How easy it is to replace hard drives on these two models? I heard 1.8inch hard drives are not as easily found as 2.5inch hard drives.

Thanks

 

Both use 1.8" hard drives. They can be accessed by removing a single side panel, so it's easy to replace - the most difficult part is finding a good 1.8" drive, as 1.8" HDDs are slow, while 1.8" SSDs are more rare and, like other SSDs, tend to be expensive.

 

Thanks.

What about the harddrive on the x200 and the x200s? Are they 1.8inch or 2.5inch?

I have another question about the T400. Is the optical drive removable? Can I add a second hard drive using a hard drive caddy?

 

The X200 has a 2.5" drive. As does the X200s. Yes, the T400's bay is removable, and there's a drive caddy for it.

 

The x200, x200s, and x200 Tablet use 2.5" bays (although they can use 1.8" drives with the appropriate adapter).

The T400, T500, and T400s (but NOT x301) use modular optical drives and support a 2.5" HDD with the appropriate caddy.

 

Thanks guys!

Does the T400 and the T500 use the same hard drive caddy for the optical bay?

And in terms of build quality, which one is better? T400 or the T500?

And what about comparing the T400/T500 to the x200/x200s? Is there much difference in build quality?

I was thinking about picking up a Thinkpad from Lenovo outlet. If I purchase one from Lenovo outlet, do I still qualify for the Windows 7 upgrade?

 

1) Yes.

2) I believe they are comparable, but the T500 is about 1 pound heavier.

3) The biggest difference is weight, but I believe the x200(s) are also superior in overall build quality, especially in regards to keyboard/chasis flex.

4) I believe if it has Home Premium or above it should qualify for an upgrade.

 

Thanks guys for all the help!

One more question, what about the x200 tablet? Does it use a 1.8inch or 2.5inch hard drive?

 

I believe the X200t also has a 2.5" drive. You can tell from the upgrade options - if it has anything that's 7200 RPM, or more that 120-250G except at extremely high prices, it's 2.5.

 

See what jonlumpkin wrote above. I think you missed it.

"The x200, x200s, and x200 Tablet use 2.5" bays (although they can use 1.8" drives with the appropriate adapter)."

 

Just curious, you guys are talkign about the external drive bay. The internal drive on the X200 and T400s can only be 1.8" rights?

Thanks

 

No, the internal bay for the X200 is 2.5"

The X300, X301, & T400s internal bay is 1.8"

 

Summarized as follows:

System	Primary Bay	optical drive
12.1" X200	2.5"/9.5mm	none
13.3" X300/X301	1.8"/8mm	7.5mm
14.1" T400s	1.8"/8mm	9.5mm*
14.1" T400/15.4" T500	2.5"/9.5mm	9.5mm

​

* from posts below it seems needs a ultrabayIII caddy to house a 2.5" HDD or SSD.

 

Thanks for the chart, that should help alleviate the confusion.

 

OK, here's a fun question for someone who knows:
What kind of *connection* do the 1.8" HDD/SSDs have? I was thinking of getting the cheap 120G drive and upgrading manually to the intel SSD when it comes out, but I want to make sure it'll just plug right in, and the HDD isn't some weird connector.
I figured if I'm getting the mini drive anyway, I can get a cheap enclosure for it and have a nice, small, external storage. But one of the enclosures I found:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817707128
talks about a variety of different connectors. No SATA, though.

Can anyone shed some light on this?
Thanks muchly.

 

That's a 1.8" ZIF (PATA) enclosure. You'd need a 1.8" sata enclosure (aka microsata). There's a couple of them on ebay as shown here.

 

OK, good. Just making sure it *was* SATA. One of those in your link is a neat looking 1.8" (ZIF) to 2.5" (SATA) enclosure, which makes me think it might be fun to put the 1.8" drive in the drive-bay-caddy. But you get the slower speeds and sizes, with little benefit, as far as I can tell.

Hmm. Also makes me wonder - I see one of the links in your signature discusses some DIY caddies. Is the shape/dimensions of the 9.5mm drive bay standardized enough that I could slide one of those into, say a T400s, and it would fit/work? Or is it better to just get the branded model?

 

The US$15-delivered ebay 9.5mm sata optical drive caddies for a T400/T500/W500 will work fine in a T400s. We see the T400 and T400s use the same optical drive with identical cut-outs in the bottom right corner. The sata caddy is a very basic device - it just rewires from the e-sata type optical drive connector to a sata 2.5" drive connector.



And yes, there are 1.8-to-2.5" adapters so you could put the supplied 1.8" SATA HDD into the optical bay caddy to use. Would give better performance than a USB 1.8" enclosure and can be hotswapped with the optical drive as needed, if you have a SSD/HDD in the primary 1.8" bay. Follow the sig..

EDIT: Suggestion below is that T400s needs a ultrabayIII adapter. I don't have a T400s or ebay adapter to confirm my statements above.

 

Hmm. You positive about that? This guy:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=404831
says that the sizes are different, and that ones for the T400 will stick out a bit.

How well will the ebay ones match the outside appearance of the machine?

 

Yeah, I was just going to say, the Ultrabay Adapter from the T400 will definitely work in the T400s, but the style of the bezel will not match the rest of the machine and will jut out slightly.

 

OK. And so then I'm guessing this is the case for the ebay ones, as well.

 

From Thinkpads forum where someone posted this comparison picture (T400s vs T400 bezel):

 

This thread is quite old, so maybe this is not interesting anymore, but here is my experience with the $13 ebay HDD caddy on a T400s...

This caddy worked great on the T400 that I had before, then last week I got a T400s (came with XP). The T400S did not recognize the drive when I stuck it in.

And it was almost impossible to take it out, since it just does not fit right. Almost damaged the case..but it seems you can shave off the caddy enclosure to make it fit. Cheap plastic.

I tried after I clean installed Win 7, but again, there is no recognition of the HDD at all.

Checked in BIOS, and same thing. said there was no drive there.

I am tempted to try the Ultrabay III to see if this works.

has anyone else had this happen?

thanks

 

Hello,

I own a T400 that has a 1.8" SSD (model # SAMSUNG MMCRE64G8MPP-0VA) but the consensus is that T400 has a 2.5" bay. Is it possible for a 1.8" SSD to be in a 2.5" bay...?

Thank you.

- x3r

 

Yes. See 1.8" to 2.5" sata adapters.

 

Again old thread, but the T400s is just perfect for me EXCEPT for the freaking 1.8 HDD.
So I wanna use the caddy for a 2.5", but as my primary HDD and literally throw away the included ty 1.8. Is that possible?

 

theres no point in throwing away the included 1.8" drive. Nothing else will fit in there. If you like, get he caddy, put in a 2.5" HDD, and put it in the ultrabay as a second drive, but boot from it as if it's your OS/System drive. And you can use the 1.8" drive for.. whatever. Better yet, get a small SSD for the 1.8", use it as your boot/system drive, and put a conventional 2.5" hdd in the ultrabay and use it as storage.

 

The point is I have a 500gb 2.5" so the 1.8" will just add weight and consume energy for no good reason.
So you confirm that I could boot on the caddy drive and use it as my primary with the 1.8" slot empty?

 

I think the best fit for your situation is to get a good, fast, and small SSD for your 1.8" drive and a large, slower 2.5" drive for data storage; I think Toshiba makes some 750GB models.

I run things a bit differently in my T500, but that one can take two 2.5" drives. I run a 500GB, 7200RPM main drive and a 500GB, 5400RPM data drive. I like that particular setup.

 

Yes you can boot from just the ultrabay hdd. I see what you're saying, but the 1.8"ssd is the size of a credit card and weighs next to nothing. Power consumption is 75-150mW according to Intel. For a minuscule sacrifice in weight and power, you can have a quicker/more responsive system, plus the benefit of separating the OS from your data files. However, if you choose, you can just remove the 1.8" drive and put the cover back on and boot from the ultrabay. It will work.

It's good to have the ultrabay free though IMO. You can plug in the ultrabay HDD only when you need it, or leave it in there all the time. Swap it out with the battery for more battery life, and what if you need to burn something or install something from CD or watch something? You probably have an external cd/dvd but it's nice to be able to do it with out any extas.

 

WD made 1TB 2.5" HDD

 

I think that 1TB WD HD is a 12mm size, not 9.5, so it won't fit in the ultrabay.

 

I know it will be a drawback to have the ultrabay frozen. But many thin&light laptops don't have any so...
I'm not very enthusiastic about SSD yet, I mean I got my 500gb 7200rpm cheaper than a 64gb SSD...

Thinking about it... maybe I should grab this Newegg.ca - Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAA064MAG-1G1 1.8" 64GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) and only install Windows on it ? (ps: I still always use XP..) That way I could use my dvdrom if I need to.