Hi,

I'm thinking about getting my hands on an X41 as a lightweight "hobby" machine that I can keep around as a keepsake/toy (yes, I'm a big Thinkpad nerd). However, before I plunk down money on eBay, I have one question:

I know that the X41 has a PATA connector for the hard drive. What PATA SSDs do you guys recommend?

I use this with a 3-dollar ebay IDE-to-ZIF adapter with the 3.3v regulator removed. There's also an adapter that does not require modding.
Read this for your SSD choices.

Hello, and welcome to the Forum

Were you considering an x41 or x41 Tablet?

Daniel.

You can also do a SATA mod on that X41 and then use SATA drives!
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=93396

PS: if you are looking for an X41 Tablet, PM me if interested.

I would prefer a non-tablet version of the machine. Also, I'm open to getting an X40 or an X31 as well (if there's any difference besides a processor refresh between the two machines).

I can offer you a beaut of an X31, which comes with its original box, 2 IBM batteries and an IBM charger.
ThinkPad X31 (2885-PWU)
P M 1.6GHz, t.b.d RAM, t.b.d HDD, 12.1 XGA(1024x768) TFT LCD, Modem(CDC), Intel PRO 802.11b wireless(MPCI), 1 Gb Ethernet(LOM), Secure Chip(TCPA), 6 cell battery x 2, WinXP Pro

This machine is in excellent condition.
RAM and HD sizes t.b.d. (to be discussed).
Advantage over X40/X41: it uses standard 2.5" hard disks, not the slow, rare and expensive 1.8" drives.
PM me if interested.

Well, "hobby" is the right word since many are in poor condition (hardware failures) and the machine is getting awkward to use with the many updates to Windows XP etc.

Buying an SSD sounds like an expensive hobby with such an old machine using a non-standard HDD size. A later Thinkpad may be much better.

Someone gave me two X41s and an X40. No hard drives, no extra memory. I built one out using a 1.8" 40GB drive and a 512 RAM stick (you have to use the DDR2 type) and I'm screwing around with it. The other two are open for sale. The X41 has a fingerprint reader and the X40 has Bluetooth. Ran both on an external CD-ROM with Ubuntu 11.04. Message me if interested.

My comments on the X41: Speaker is really tinny compared to the T and R series. The X41 also uses a slower CPU. Performance is not as nice as a good T43, but it weighs about half as much. If you decide to get one, get the X Dock, which has a slot for the CD/DVD drive and connectors for all the stuff you might want to plug in. One arcane thing: the X41 has a SD module adapter. Haven't seen it on any Thinkpad before or since (from 760EL to T/R 60.).

While I'm here, anybody know what the smaller connector (under the left-side USB) is for?

Powered USB 2.0 connector, per the HMM. See this for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_USB

It's a Power-USB connector

What are your OS aspirations and intended usages for this?

I'm a huge TP nerd, so I can relate to the "hobby" aspect: I've had them since my 701c 486 DX4-75 "butterfly" and then the gen1 Pentium 100Mhz models! Currently running a bundle of T and X-series...

X41 laptop a couple of years ago, so probably worth sharing my upgrade decisions: the reason why I asked about the OS aspirations is that was able to get 1.5Gb RAM (I tried 2.5Gb, but it didn't work - although I didn't try THAT hard) and also win7 (32bit) onto it without any issues and it was very reasonable provided you didn't open up too much stuff, but I was always wanting for more memory and the 30Gb 1.8" 4000rpm PATA HDD was VERY slow... most of the time, I ran it on one of those ultra-compact USB sticks (now only £12 for a 16Gb Sandisk cruzer), which is fine if you're okay running Linux which was actually better for launching most apps: the battery life is amazing when you have one of those as your only storage! But I wanted to run win7 for some stuff and decided to upgrade the HDD, but when I looked into the total costs, it just wasn't worth it.

I got a PATA-to-CF adapter first (very cheaply) and mucked around with a borrowed 2Gb CF, fine for win98, but you need more than that for win7: the cost of a 32GB+ CF was high enough that I could actually buy a reasonable spec X61 off eBay for the same money (£50) and re-use an "old" 60Gb Vertex2E 2.5" SSD... it's 64bit, dual core and has 2 memory slots, so takes 8Gb of RAM!

PATA-CF adapter is probably the last choice since it is highly dependent on the CF card speed and high speed CFs are very expensive.

PATA-ZIF is native and just a connector adapter. I still have many choices available. PM me if you have a need.

PATA-SATA offers more modern choices and only limited by form factor of X40/X41s' 1.8in bay. There are 256GB SSDs available but it will be much more than a X60 so not very practical unless you love your X41.