Dan, thanks! That was really helpful. Do you happen to remember what was your drive's original F/W version (it's printed on drive's label)?

I can see a couple of ebay auctions for these drives nowadays, i.e.:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/261051013002?ss ... 1438.l2649

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Samsung-128GB-1 ... 4604c37664

One is HP-branded F/W VBM1AH1Q, and the other one is unknown since picture is not clear and the seller doesn't reply on emails...

Thanks,
-albertr

Looks like my firmware was VBM1EL1Q. It has a Lenovo partno on it. Found this pic. Mine looks just like this, but is revision 1002:



I would probably stick with the Lenovo branded one. I know for sure it works, but the others very likely will as well. Maybe google for firmware updates for whatever you're looking at to get a warm fuzzy that it won't be an issue.

--Dan

Dan, thanks! Your help is much appreciated. I'm torn between getting this or try Dell-branded Samsung 470/PM810 -series drive which has a small 1.8" PCB inside a larger 2.5" case (P/N MZ-7PA/MZ-5PA). I have a 470 in my other laptop and it was running great so far and it has TRIM supported by factory firmware already (no F/W tinkering required).

http://www.storagereview.com/samsung_47 ... 5pa256hmdr

-albertr

I'd go ahead and use that one then. If you know it's a 1.8" board & supports trim there's no reason really not to use it.

Edit: Actually, there is the 3.3v vs 5v thing to consider. The x41 and its PATA connector are for 3.3v drives. Most 2.5" drives including this one you're looking at are 5.5v. The SATA power connector though has different 3.3v & 5v pins. If the drive will run on 3.3v, you're set. If not, you'll have to find 5v somewhere on the mobo for it. Probably not hard to find something, but I dunno. There might even be a 5v pin in the PATA connector somewhere.

--Dan

Have received the drive today. As was noted before, there's a 1.8" PCB inside Samsung 470/PM810 drive case, which is about the same size as 1.8" PATA drivers, here's the pictures:



Here's the size comparison to 1.8" PATA drive (SSD is on top, PATA is bottom):



There're plenty of new Samsung 470/PM810 SSD drives available on Ebay. I got mine for $90 shipped here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/290682803602?ss ... 1439.l2649

It's has a Dell-branded firmware AXM08D1Q, so Samsung Magician will not work and I will not be surprised if Dell will never release a F/W updates for this drive. The drive's F/W AXM08D1Q apparently already has TRIM support enabled. I was able to see it's recognized as such under Linux, but haven't seen how automated garbage collection works. I hope that it works as advertised, but cannot verify it at the moment...

Also, the datasheet mentioned that there's an activity LED indicator signal line available on SATA pin 11 on these drives:



Dan is absolutely right - this drive doesn't have +3.3V power lines on its SATA connector, only +5V lines. Needs +5V to power up.

-albertr

Always knew that dremel can be quite handy...







-albertr

Wow, you really went to town on that chip eh? Not that mine looked much better. To do it again, I'd probably go the same way, but just take extra care around those corner pins needed to solder to so that the pads don't get destroyed. One of mine was pretty messed up and it took a few tries to get a good connection.

Done yet?

--Dan

Not quite yet. The drive gets recognized by laptop's BIOS, so I assume that the data lines are connected correctly, but I was not able to get it recognized when I boot up Linux from the CD-ROM. It looks more line power/grounding issue. Currently the drive is powered from USB +5V, and I think it was not a good idea. I need to find a reliable +5V source inside X41 tablet.... Any ideas?




-albertr

You have been way too impulsive/destructive!
These motherboards have several layers in them. The wiring does not go just on the top and the bottom!
Your amateurish work has also ground away some of the intermediate layers and their wiring, causing way more damage than just annihilating an innocent SATA-PATA bridge chip.
I take those off with a heatgun in only a few minutes.
I suggest you start looking for another motherboard.

RealBlackStuff,

I'm not quite sure what's your point... I can't care less about any destroyed traces to the bridge chip since I never planned to resolder it back. As far as everything else goes, I can boot Linux and run fine on this motherboard. Wouldn't it be sufficient proof of functionality for you?

-albertr

I don't require proof from anybody.
And I couldn't care less if your motherboards works or not. I only gave a pointer. Ignore it if you like.

Is there a way to upgrade a Samsung 128GB MMCQE28G8MUP-0VAL1 with firmware VBM0DL1Q to any firmware which supports TRIM.

FRU # 41W0519

For those of us who are less adventurous, this simple adapter for mSATA　drives should do the trick:

http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=16819695910

They seem to cost only a tiny bit more than the 2.5" SATA flavor:

http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs. ... T256M4SSD3

http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs. ... T256M4SSD2

That seller even offered both 3.3V as well as 5V versions so theoretically any older ThinkPads should be able to take those mSATA drives if BIOS were able to recognize them. Eventually they should be available @ eBay or AliExpress and then placing an order will be much easier.

Finally I will have sweet SSD upgrades for my X31 and X41 Tablet.

Thanks for uploading this, you're my new friend.

"Will have". I await positive results and will applaud your efforts. Sadly, promises have delivered more than reality, of late.

5V is on ebay.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/280952757843?ss ... 328wt_1076

3.3V also
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-E-MSATA-SSD ... 3207wt_840

Haven't been here for awhile, just want to give everybody a quick update... My X41t runs beautifully with Samsung 470/PM810 SSD drive. The brief instability problem I had back in July was due to one of my flying leads I soldered to the motherboard came loose. After re-soldering I put a layer of epoxy to cover the solder joints and never had an issue since then.

A couple of things to notice:

1. There's +5VDC available on the X41t motherboard. I'm using +5VDC found on docking station connector.
2. The activity LED doesnt work with Samsung 470/PM810 drive.
3. Samsung 470/PM810 drive needs +5VDC, it won't work on +3.3VDC.
4. TRIM seems to work fine in Linux with the original f/w.

-albertr

I appreciate this, greatly, as my CF SSD pursuit is costly and unfruitful. I opened a Samsung 830 SSD to find a 2.5" CB, so that's a dead end, too.

Hello everybody,
i am also a long term X41t user and went from a 4200HDD over a 64Gb Kingspec now to a Crucial M4 64Gb + mSATA Adapter. One thing that annoys me is that there seems to be a bug in the SATA-IDE Conversion Chip or on the software side. With both SSD i get an almost hanging system under heavy ssd load, like crystalmark. System hangs for 5-6 seconds, HDD LED full bright.
With the Kingspec i always thought this pehnomenom is due to the small cache of this drive, but the crucial has to be safe in that term. One things that helps a lot against that behaviour while doing normal working is disabling windows write cache in the device manager in Win7.
Anyone else observed that behaviour? I also have it after a clean install...Bios is the newest!

You need to get rid of the SATA-PATA bridge chip.
In your situation you have:

Motherboard -> SATA -> Bridge Chip -> PATA connector -> mSATA converter -> mSATA drive.

After doing the SATA mod you could have:

Motherboard -> SATA -> mSATA connector -> mSATA drive.

Which is what I have just done on my X41: took a dead X61 system board with miniPCIe connectors, sawed the piece of PCB with connector and screw mounts and cleaned the piece of components with hot air gun. Then soldered 6 wires (GND, +3.3V, four SATA wires) and connected them to X41.
With the Adata 64GB mSATA drive it works perfectly.


And it is also possible to use mSATA drive on X60/X61 as the southbridge has 2nd SATA pins on the system board as I learned from the schematics. Since on X60/X61 the mSATA pins are not connected on the mPCIe connectors, you can just solder them (from southbride -> mPCIe) and you have booting 2nd SSD.
When I have more time, I will do it.

Uh, WWAN slots on X61 actually has PCIe lanes. So you'll have to cut the PCIe traces on a X61 before connecting SATA to them.
Also, are the extra SATA channels actually available (as in easily accessible, instead of being grounded immediately / not connected)?

Solved the hanging problem now. When I installed XP for a try, i did not observer any hangs. So whats the big difference between XP and 7? Trim...disabling it in Win7 (disabledelenotify) did the job, no more hangs and nice benches! See here for XP above and Win7 bottom: http://thinkpad-forum.de/threads/147566-Crucial-M4-im-X41t-Ultimative-SSD-L%C3%B6sung-f%C3%BCr-Nichtl%C3%B6tbegabte-%28Pic-warning%29?p=1480579&viewfull=1#post1480579

My bad experience with ssd mod.
I have used SSD Sandisk P4 32gb 2,5 sata hdd.Inside alluminium case is "half" sized ssd.I tried it in my X41t with modified bios(error 2010).SSD was recognized,but installing windows was not possible.I got random errors.Also Xubuntu had errors.First no wifi,then error read disk.HDD regenerator says no bad clusters.Acronics disk server says no disk,GParted in linux repair it,but about a few minutes hdd has 4kb capacity!!! In another
laptop disk was readeable without any problem.In my mods I take 5V from usb socket.Then I tried another point(near docking connector) for 5v.SSD start very hot and now is pernamently damaged.Before it,I look for new firmware.Sandisk utility says no fw for this type.Disc was recognized under winXP after 2-3 minutes via usb adapter,but without SMART and size was 2,1TB!!!Test with classic 2,5 sata 80gb hdd works without problem.Some peoples had also problems with this SSD in tablests and Lenovo products.I have idea about some incompatibility with this SANDISK ssd.

Hi derick,

sorry to hear that it´s not working for you. Which Adapter did you actually use? You have to be careful with the Voltage...X41(t) provide 3.3V instead of 5V that the T4x provide. So if you use the wrong adapter, Voltage might be too low or high for your specific SSD.
USB Adapter don´t provide Smart data in many cases...

Hi
inside X41 was no adapter.Sata was conected to sata pins according mods.(PATA chip was removed etc).
Only 5v was needed.

For the direct SATA mod, i never heard of any incompatibilities. The incomp. arise from the various adapter/bridge combinations that are used in the books.
But now as far as i understand your SSD is broken? I would check the soldering again for 100%. SSDs might not work in an adapter, so if you have the possibilitie check in a "real" PC with SATA. To my experience all these computer parts survive much more than initially expected...

Pins are OK.Another HDD 80gb boot win without problem,but it is classic SATA 2,5 disc.My Sandisk
is now totally broken (Sandisk SSD P4 32gb,model: SDSA4GH 032G).
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=267498

I think it was SSD problem itself.Now HDD is not recongnized in another machine(Dell).Some smd components are very hot.Maybe power line problem.Anyway this SSD had a big problems with X41t.

EDIT:
New info from sandisk forum.Its even for X61 not 41.(My dead sandisk was 3gb/s).
"Lenovo x61 bios is limited to SATA 1.5gbps although the chipset supports SATA 3.0gbps
You might want to flash to the hacked bios which enables SATA 3.0gbps"
http://forums.sandisk.com/t5/SanDisk-Ex ... d-p/272005

Some peoples tried SATAll 3GB/s SSDs and they works OK.So maybe only some models have a compactibility problem.

Check here for 3Gbs: http://en.www.ali.dj/sata-ii-support-fo ... 1-x61-r61/

It is fine,but there is no bios for X41t.As for as I understand the speed is cripled to SATA1,but SSD SATA2 disk maybe work in SATA1 mode.Only speed is limited.But in some models has symptoms freezing or hangs the system.
So what is solution?
1.Test another SATA2 SSD?
2.Put back Marvell chip and buy small PATA SSD or CF card?

EDIT:
So,today I put sucessfully Marvel chip back and I will look for any fast CF card.