Upgrade a ThinkPad X230

[jdhurst]

I have a ThinkPad X230 with a 500Gb hard drive (2306-CTO). When I purchased it, I also purchased a Lenovo Slim USB Portable DVD Burner (DY-8A8NH13C). The DVD device works well to install some software from a CD or DVD.

I want to consider upgrading this computer to a 1Tb hard drive (0A65633)

1. Will the 0A65633 1 Tb hard drive fit in the X230. That is, replace the existing drive with the new 1 Tb drive?

2. The 1 Tb drive is 5400-rpm whereas the existing 500 Gb drive is 7200-rpm. It has been nearly 10 years that I have used anything slower that 7200-rpm. Will the 1 Tb drive be slow?

3. Since if is a new drive (no recovery partitions), can I order Recovery DVD's from Lenovo for the X230?  I think I can.

4. Can I boot the first Recovery DVD from the USB Slim DVD device?  Will that work? or do I need to purchase a Docking station?

5. I have not changed UEFI security at all in the BIOS. Can I just boot the Recovery DVD?  and will it even install?

I imagine I might do this in November after Windows 8.1 is released and combine the two upgrades (hard drive and Windows 8.1) into one exercise.

I also might wait until a faster 1 Tb drive is released. Do you imagine fast 1 Tb hard drives in the near future?

Thank you, .... JDH

[lead_org]

1. The 0A65633 is a 9.5 mm drive, so it won't fit the X230. It requires 7 mm drives.

2. The speed of the drive is not only dependent on the RPM of the drive, there are other factors too i.e. amount of drive memory cache, etc. Since the density of the data of the 1TB drive more than 500 GB drive, then for each rotation theoretically the reader/writer head should also pick up/write more data thus making it faster.

3. Yes you can. Or make your own.

4. Yes you can. Or use a USB thumb drive to recover from.

Fast platter hdd? The technology of platter will only allow so much data to be read, we are pretty much at the technological dead end with the current platter hdd in terms of transfer rate. Don't expect revolutionary breakthrough with the current platter hdd, i am expecting only tiny speed increase increments. 

I mean if you need speed, use a mSATA drive (maybe 64 gigs one) to act as a cache drive with Lenovo ExpressCache software, or get a SSHD (which is basically a platter hdd with SSD cache installed) pretty much same as the mSATA + normal spinning platter in terms of how it works.

[SEAlaa]

Dear Customer

Welcome in lenovo forums

Unfortunately the X230 is up to 500GB

Thanks

Alaa

[lead_org]

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2013/06/the-worlds-thinnest-1tb-hard-drive-is-just-7mm-thick/

the above will work, but it is not from Lenovo.

[jdhurst]

Thank for the information on the Western Digital. It looks reasonable. I have a 1 Tb Western Digital USB drive and it works fine.

Alaa - I hope you were not suggesting the X230 has a upper limit on drives of 500Gb. It must be able to use a bigger drive if one were available.

Does the use of a WD hard drive have any effect on, or void, the warranty on the remainder of the machine. It has a 3 year warranty.

Thanks, ... JDH

[lead_org]

Hdd and ram on ThinkPads are CRU, so replacement won't void the warranty. I usually don't even send the hdd in with my laptops when it requires repairing.

500 gigs 7 mm 2.5 inch hdd is the largest version that Lenovo ships on the X230, it is not the largest capacity drive that the machine will use.

[jdhurst]

If I look up PSREF for my ThinkPad X230 it says that an SSD SATA drive works at 6 Gb/sec. The next line says the Hard Drive (also SATA) works at 3 Gb/sec.

There are two Western Digital 7mm 1 Tb hard drives. One for 6 Gb/sec with a very large cache and one for 3 Gb/sec and a smaller cache.

Can I use the WD drive that is limited to 6 Gb/sec in the X230?

Or must I use the WD drive with the slower throughput?

Thanks, ... JDH

[lead_org · Accepted solution]

Most of the platter hdd that Lenovo ships on the current system is a SATAII version. But if you put a SATAIII version in the system, it will also work.

P.S. Platter hdd can't even use all the bandwidth of even the SATAI standard (1.5 Gbps), so whether they operate in SATAII or SATAIII mode is not really an issue neither will they affect the performance of the system.

I would recommend the hdd with large cache if it is reasonably priced, since it will be slightly faster (don't worry about the SATAII or SATAIII marketing gimmick for platter hdd it is useless).

The analogy i would like to use for this, is like a Toyota Camry of same specification having a Speedometer saying top speed of 200 km/h vs 300 km/h. You may get the illusion of faster speed with the Camry showing top speed of 300 km/h, but in reality you will never ever able to drive faster than 180 km/h in either one of them.

[RobAC]

Just to add to this- I shoe horned in a 7mm Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid 750 GB SATA III HD into my X230T.

It came with rubber side spacers that fit over the sides of the HD drive to give a snug fit when inserted into any laptop.

This HD was actually thicker in the middle than the stated 7mm so I had to leave the rubber spacers off. I also had to  take the laptop slightly apart and pull the keyboard while angling the HD upwards to insert it. (So check to make sure your replacement HD is actually 7mm thick the full length.)

But once the HD was in, it was perfectly fine and had lots of room in the chassis. It was a bit loose so I got some thin cardboard and placed it against the end of the HD and screwed on the little lid that held it back in place. This acted as a bumper stop and now the HD does not move. I can take the laptop and shake the living tar out of it and the HD does not move at all. (Cardboard to the rescue !)

I will be upgrading to a 1 TB SSD later on when the prices get to the .50 cents and below pere GB mark.

Rob

[jdhurst]

I probably will go with the WD drive in October/Novermber (waiting tor Windows 8 V8.1). But your story is discouraging because it is impossible to know who is at fault here: Seagate or Hitachi.

I will have to trust to luck with the WD drive.

... JDH