mSATA on X201

[chaihg]

Hello everyone,

I am wanting to expand my hard disk on my x201 3680 which has a 120GB SSD. If I am not mistaken then mSATA can be used in the card reader slot in my laptop.

Is this idea possible and will it be accessible as another external drive or will OS need to be installed on it altogether (which is of no use to me)?.

Regards

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

Won't work.

[chaihg]

Correct me if I am wrong. But i see older Lenovo laptops being able to integrate mSATA SSD into them. So is it that the SSD will not be possible to be inserted, or is it that the laptop does not recognise it as a drive?

Regards

[Maliha Retired Moderator · Accepted solution]

Hi chaihg,

Select newly released series of ThinkPads support mSATA through mini-PCIe, please see this post:- http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/Install-Intel-310-Soda-Creek-SSD-into-X201-min...

Hope this helps.

[chaihg]

Ah thanks for that reply. Well, I think we will only need to wait and see if mSATA gets popular enough and that Lenovo can give us a BIOS update to support such hardware.

Thanks everyone.

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

This is a hardware limitation, bios update won't fix it. You would have to get a X220 to use this feature.

[chaihg]

Alright thanks for that update. I did not even know that this was a hardware related limitation.

cheers

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

The planar has to have a special line run from mini-PCIe to SATA for this drive to be recognized/bootable - so older planars like X201 are just not compatible. I know the planars in all the coming ThinkPad Classic (T,W, and X) will support it and the new Edge E220s & E420s will. But I am not sure if the lower cost systems like regular Edge 14/15, L/SL-series, or X120e will support it or not.

Hi guys. I don't think that will ever work. Only the new systems (Huron River-based) coming out this year will support the mSATA 80GB SodaCreek drives.

That is what is said by perfguy in the link that is provided by Maliha.