T430s mSATA speed?

[s1148625]

I have confirmed with two different Lenovo technical support reps that the mSATA port in the T430s is SATA III, although I am concerned that they don't know what they're talking about. The QM77 chipset only supports two SATAIII connections, which means either the Ultrabay is only SATA-II (unlikely), or they've included a third party controller to provide the SATAIII speeds to the mSATA port (also unlikely).

Cany anyone confirm whether or not the T430s mSATA port is SATAII or III?

[JDay]

It's a direct connection to the PCI-E bus. The mSATA probably has a built-in controller.

[ThorsHammer]

I think everyone hopes the mSATA support in the Ivy Bridge ThinkPads is SATA III.  Looking forward to seeing an authoritative answer.

[someotherguy]

I asked the question a while ago to hardware team.  The answer I got was that Ivy Bridge chipset (in T430, T530, W530, etc) only supports two SATA-III ports and these are reserved for internal HDD bay and ultrabay.  So mSATA is SATA-II, not SATA-III.  

[raikoken]

Hi someotherguy,

I'm confused, because in the customization page of the T430s, it says in the integrated mobile broadband section that "WWAN is not compatible with Micro hard drive (mSATA)", which I take to mean mSATA is not supported by the T430s. So does the T430s support mSATA? And how about the T430?

Cheers

[someotherguy]

T430s and T430 both support mSATA, and they both support WWAN, but you can only use one of these devices and not both.  That's because the same PCIe slot is used to install the mSATA SSD, or the WWAN card.  There is only 1 slot, so pick which device you want to use in it (mSATA SSD or WWAN).