x301 SSD Upgrade Help

[Danwahoo]

Hello,

This is my first post on the forum. I am a proud owner of a 2+ year old Lenovo x301 Thinkpad. I have the 64 SSD currently which allows for 48GB space (28GB of which is taken up by Windows). It is time to upgrade my SSD and I want to make sure I purchase a compatible one.

Is this compatible (I know of the 1.8" requirement): http://tinyurl.com/37sj6br

Any recommendations for other SDD drives or good experiences with switches would be great.

Thanks!

[erik SuperMod]

welcome to the forum!

even though the photo on amazon is incorrect, that is the correct part number for a 1.8" drive.

while i haven't used crucial SSDs, i have used samsung and intel.   both of these brands have been reliable for me.   i personally recommend intel G2 SSDs over anything else right now.   the crucial may have more space but the intel drives are known to be the most reliable SSD on the market.   i currently use 160GB X18-m G2 drives in my thinkstation and thinkpad (both with adapters) and used to use the same drive in my former X301.

the only drawback is that if you need more than ~150GB of usable space then intel won't work for you at this point in time.

[Roger99]

I recently installed a Crucial C300 256GB SSD in my X300, and I am very pleased with it.

[Danwahoo]

erik - Thanks for the welcome and the response. Is there any noticable or on-record different between the Intel 160GB X18-m G2 drive and the Crucial 256 GB SSD C300 Series Solid State Drive? Also, is the Intel reliable on a personal end, or does the Crucial drive have a history of failures as compared to the Intel drive?

Is the install of hardware/software for the new drive not to difficult? If you could point me to a thread with the proper info that would be very helpful. Thanks!

[Danwahoo]

I am leaning towards this, is it 100% compatible with the x301? Were you replacing the stock SSD drive? Was the install trouble-free?

[erik SuperMod]

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Is there any noticable or on-record different between the Intel 160GB X18-m G2 drive and the Crucial 256 GB SSD C300 Series Solid State Drive?

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you'd have to hit google for that answer.   there are plenty of reviews online for each drive.

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Also, is the Intel reliable on a personal end, or does the Crucial drive have a history of failures as compared to the Intel drive?

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in reviews from anandtech.com and sites like newegg.com, the intel drives historically get more positive feedback than any other SSD.   that's not to say the crucial drives are bad by any means.   like i said, i have no personal experience with them.

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Is the install of hardware/software for the new drive not to difficult? If you could point me to a thread with the proper info that would be very helpful.

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install windows and download TVSU.   run it, choose what you want installed, and let it do the work.   it doesn't get any easier.

[Danwahoo]

install windows and download TVSU.   run it, choose what you want installed, and let it do the work.   it doesn't get any easier.

Regarding the above, I meant more in line with installing the 3 existing partitions (C:, Q:, and S and copying the existing data from C: onto the new SSD. Or does ThinkVantage do this for you?

[erik SuperMod]

if you are recovering from an R&R backup then yes, it should replace your existing partition structure.   problem is, you'll likely be left with the same size partitions as the old drive and will need to change the sizes somehow.   this can potentially be done in diskmgmt.msc and you might be able to add a data partition if you so choose.

admittedly, i don't use R&R at all and don't know exactly how it will act when moving to a larger drive.   for the best answer, this would be a question for the TVT board here: /t5/ThinkVantage-Technologies/bd-p/Special_Interest_Utilities

[DocTriode]

I've found that with laptops living on batteries, power consumption and stability are more important than raw speed. 

The Sandforce models are presently the speed darlings, and the Crucial is a rocket.  But I agree with the other poster that Lenovo has OEM experience with Intel and Samsung SSDs.  We opted for the new Samsung 470 on our TP.  While not the fastest, it still very fast and is a real power miser, and its controller is rock stable.  I've had current SF controller SSDs exhibit occasional slight stutter on a TP.

All speed is fleeting without TRIM.  Only W7 properly implements it.  Manufacturer and 3rd-party trim utilities become a factor on an older OS.  Even with W7, some tweaks can really make a difference.  This free utility can save a lot of time:  http://sourceforge.net/projects/ssdtweaker/

[Max90034]

I am trying to upgrade old 128 gb samsung SSD in my x301 and I have pretty bad experience so far. The first drive I tried was OCZ 2 240 GB. It was never recognized in bios. Works file in other machine. Next I tried 2 intel x18-m 160 Gb SSD. In both cases the driver was recognized first and I started windows installation but somewhere does the road I got error that it could not find some files. When I restarted, the drive could not been seen in bios anymore. At this point I returned 1 st intel SSD thinking that drive is bad. I am still playing with 2d one. A few times after I reformatted in in another machine, it was recornized by x301 but installation always failed. Usually after that I am getting 2100 error - error to initialize drive. I have most recent 8/2010 bios. I would really appreciate if those who successfully upgrade SSD in X300/x301 listed the SSD model (including size), and any installation tips. Thanks!