anyone tried the OCZ 120GB Nocti mSATA SSD?

[MattD22]

You could alsways go the MyDigitalSSD route is has the Phison S5 controller in it.  It's bullet proof as the name says and there is a deal on it making the final price $199.99 if you go here.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=99568

[Stoichiometric]

I just got a T520 (424049U) and installed the OCZ Nocti 120gb mSATA.

Install went very smooth, My Computer displays 110gb usable space, 85.4GB free (using factory recovery)

Windows Experience Index for the hard drive = 7.7

Cold Boot time (Power button push till hour glass stop) = 31 Seconds (with WiFi enabled)

Everything seems perfect so far...

[ljwobker]

I have this running in my T420s, and it's very very good:  ONCE you get the drivers updated.  I had all sorts of problems with this thing (blue screens, freezing, etc)... but I eventually realized that I was running the original Microsoft SATA drivers (which are from something like early 2009!) and that's what was causing all the troubles.

I downloaded the latest Intel chipset and Rapid Storage Technology drivers, as well as the latest firmware for the drive itself, and I've had exactly zero problems since.  With the old drivers I averaged about five bluescreens a week, and in the month since I got the drivers upgraded I've had precisely zero.

these little SSDs are quite bleeding edge, so if you want the benefits you'll need to be willing to do the homework (i.e. the drivers!)

[eos]

Very good news that they can be made to work.

However, in the end its only a sata II disk connected to the bog standard SATA bus, there should really be no problems connecting disks to a system out of the box.  I dont know why the w520 has such problmens with mSata and SSD drives in general - the only SSD drive officially supported appear to be the out of date 320 and 310 series (and possibly the ancient X25).   This is pretty poor show.  Or are other manufacturers like HP as fussy?

[ThorsHammer]

---

eos wrote:

Very good news that they can be made to work.

However, in the end its only a sata II disk connected to the bog standard SATA bus, there should really be no problems connecting disks to a system out of the box.  I dont know why the w520 has such problmens with mSata and SSD drives in general - the only SSD drive officially supported appear to be the out of date 320 and 310 series (and possibly the ancient X25).   This is pretty poor show.  Or are other manufacturers like HP as fussy?

---

That disk isn't going to bog anything down.  As for the comments on why the mSATA drives don't work, there was only two drives on the market at the time the Sandy Bridge ThinkPads launched.  This is an ermerging market and these things take time.

I know you have a jaded view of the W520, but it really isn't the bad guy here.  Be happy this market it moving forward and new suppliers are hitting the scene.  I will be happy when some 160GB devices show up.

[nibs Guru]

mSATA is new and certification takes time. Intel drives are known to be be more reliable and it makes sense that Lenovo tends to ship Intel drives today and used to ship Samsung drives. Lenovo makes many decisions that favor reliability and consistant supply over speed or cutting edge.

[lwh]

Some of the normal size SSDs are so cheap and faster than mSATA I stuck a $100 OCZ Agility 3 60GB in place of the HDD , and put a big HDD in the DVD slot. I am getting over 400MB/s read and write for the SSD - I don't think any mSATA can even come close to that.

[ljwobker]

Yeah, the larger drives will almost always be faster than the small ones... you get some parallelism from multiple devices, and the vendors still sell far more 2.5" devices than mSATA devices, so they're economically motivated to ship those products first.

That said, very very few people will be able to tell the difference between a "fast" mSATA drive and a "very fast" 2.5" form factor drive.  For anything short of really specific applications, they're both so fast as to be indistinguishable.

[itabez]

---

ljwobker wrote:

I have this running in my T420s, and it's very very good:  ONCE you get the drivers updated.  I had all sorts of problems with this thing (blue screens, freezing, etc)... but I eventually realized that I was running the original Microsoft SATA drivers (which are from something like early 2009!) and that's what was causing all the troubles.

I downloaded the latest Intel chipset and Rapid Storage Technology drivers, as well as the latest firmware for the drive itself, and I've had exactly zero problems since.  With the old drivers I averaged about five bluescreens a week, and in the month since I got the drivers upgraded I've had precisely zero.

these little SSDs are quite bleeding edge, so if you want the benefits you'll need to be willing to do the homework (i.e. the drivers!)

---

please could you write how to find divers update? I have the same notebook (T420) but:

- NOCTI Firmware 2.11 (i don't see any firmware  update for Nocti model on OCZ website http://www.ocztechnology.com/ssd_tools/)

- Microsoft Driver Version 6.1.7600.16385 (date 21/06/2006 !!).

Thinkvantage system update doesn't suggest any driver update...

[itabez]

UPDATE:

i succeeded in installing 2.15 firmware by using this tools

http://www.ocztechnology.com/ssd_tools/OCZ_Vertex_3,_Vertex_3_Max_IOPS,_Agility_3,_Solid_3,_RevoDriv...

it is not declared but the tool is ok also for NOCTI series.

Now my firmware is up to date,

but i ever see the same old windows diriver on device manager