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W520 & SSD SATA III
W520 & SSD SATA III
I want to put in an SSD into my W520.
Will it handle SATA III or should I stick with SATA II?
Also, what brands of SSDs do you recommend?
Will it handle SATA III or should I stick with SATA II?
Also, what brands of SSDs do you recommend?
ThinkPad W520: i7-2760QM @ 2.40GHz ~ 20GB RAM ~ 500GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD ~ 2GB NVIDIA Quadro 2000M ~ FHD+ @ 1920x1080 ~ Win 10 Pro x64.
ThinkPad T520: i5-2520M @ 2.50GHz ~ 8GB RAM ~ 250GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD ~ Intel HD 3000 ~ FHD+ @ 1920x1080 ~ Ubuntu 16.04 x64.
ThinkPad T520: i5-2520M @ 2.50GHz ~ 8GB RAM ~ 250GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD ~ Intel HD 3000 ~ FHD+ @ 1920x1080 ~ Ubuntu 16.04 x64.
Re: W520 & SSD SATA III
Your 2.5" drive bay should be SATA III. From what I understand (I might be wrong on this), the ODD bay should also be SATA III.
You'll definitely see a nice boost in performance with a SATA III drive over a SATA II. If your vendor of choice has a SATA III drive that has been reviewed well, I'd say go for it.
Me personally, I am going with a 512gb Crucial M4 SSD (SATA III) to replace the 500gb drive that will be in the W520 that I will order later this week.
You'll definitely see a nice boost in performance with a SATA III drive over a SATA II. If your vendor of choice has a SATA III drive that has been reviewed well, I'd say go for it.
Me personally, I am going with a 512gb Crucial M4 SSD (SATA III) to replace the 500gb drive that will be in the W520 that I will order later this week.
600X (2645-9WU), X41 Tablet (1866-6SU), W520 (4270-CTO)
Yes, I have been jaded by (purported) technocrats. Almost as jaded by the tech itself.
Yes, I have been jaded by (purported) technocrats. Almost as jaded by the tech itself.
Re: W520 & SSD SATA III
I'm also considering either the 240GB Patriot Pyro SE or 256GB Samsung 830 SATA III SSDs for my W520. Good luck with your upgrade.
Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk
Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk
Re: W520 & SSD SATA III
http://www.storagereview.com/lenovo_thi ... 520_review
http://www.storagereview.com/lenovo_thi ... rade_guide
http://www.storagereview.com/lenovo_thi ... rade_guide
- IBM T60p/1,83 M/RAM:3 Gb/15' SXGA+ IPS Ati Fire GL V5250 256Mo /SSD Intel X25 E 32 GB /XP Pro
- HP 8740w - Core i5 540M 2.53 GHz - 17" LED WVA TFT 1920 x 1200 ( WUXGA ) NVIDIA Quadro FX 2800M 1 GB GDDR3 SDRAM- Samsung 850 Pro 500 GB SSD
- HP 8740w - Core i5 540M 2.53 GHz - 17" LED WVA TFT 1920 x 1200 ( WUXGA ) NVIDIA Quadro FX 2800M 1 GB GDDR3 SDRAM- Samsung 850 Pro 500 GB SSD
Re: W520 & SSD SATA III
The real benefit of a SSD for most uses is the near instantaneous seek times, not the throughput. That won't change going from SATA II to III as they're all .1ms. Only things that put a heavy load on the controller like copying and pasting are likely to benefit from the move to SATA III. Typical notebook usage does not put a heavy load on the controller.
I might suggest if you're not using WWAN, picking up a mSATA SSD. A mSATA SSD is a small SSD that plugs into the miniPCI slot on the motherboard. Once installed it's seen as another hard drive. The benefit of this arrangement is you can install the OS on the mSATA for speed and keep the platter drive in the main bay for storage where speed is not as important. I have this setup on my X220i. It's quite slick and much more cost effective than a 512GB SSD.
I might suggest if you're not using WWAN, picking up a mSATA SSD. A mSATA SSD is a small SSD that plugs into the miniPCI slot on the motherboard. Once installed it's seen as another hard drive. The benefit of this arrangement is you can install the OS on the mSATA for speed and keep the platter drive in the main bay for storage where speed is not as important. I have this setup on my X220i. It's quite slick and much more cost effective than a 512GB SSD.
ThinkPad L14 - 2.1GHz Ryzen 4650U | 16GB | 256GB | 14" FHD | Win11P
ProBook 470 G5 - 1.6GHz Core i5 | 16GB | 2.2TB | 17" FHD | Mint
ProBook 470 G5 - 1.6GHz Core i5 | 16GB | 2.2TB | 17" FHD | Mint
Re: W520 & SSD SATA III
I was originally going to put an Intel 320 80GB mSATA card in and keep the 500gb spinning disk, but I decided to just make things simple and just replace the spinning disk (to be used as an UltraBay backup drive) with the M4 512GB.ZaZ wrote:The real benefit of a SSD for most uses is the near instantaneous seek times, not the throughput. That won't change going from SATA II to III as they're all .1ms. Only things that put a heavy load on the controller like copying and pasting are likely to benefit from the move to SATA III. Typical notebook usage does not put a heavy load on the controller.
I might suggest if you're not using WWAN, picking up a mSATA SSD. A mSATA SSD is a small SSD that plugs into the miniPCI slot on the motherboard. Once installed it's seen as another hard drive. The benefit of this arrangement is you can install the OS on the mSATA for speed and keep the platter drive in the main bay for storage where speed is not as important. I have this setup on my X220i. It's quite slick and much more cost effective than a 512GB SSD.
Cost isn't a concern right now...
600X (2645-9WU), X41 Tablet (1866-6SU), W520 (4270-CTO)
Yes, I have been jaded by (purported) technocrats. Almost as jaded by the tech itself.
Yes, I have been jaded by (purported) technocrats. Almost as jaded by the tech itself.
Re: W520 & SSD SATA III
Well, cost is a concern for me - Lol! I just ordered my 256GB Samsung 830 from Newegg on sale for $299.99!
Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk
Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk
Re: W520 & SSD SATA III
If cost if no option you should still get a 128gb msata for your OS. Let me tell you why.http302 wrote: I was originally going to put an Intel 320 80GB mSATA card in and keep the 500gb spinning disk, but I decided to just make things simple and just replace the spinning disk (to be used as an UltraBay backup drive) with the M4 512GB.
Cost isn't a concern right now...
If you have your OS and Work drive on the same disk your 512ssd, you run into the problem of bottleneck if you try to massive read and write on the same disk. With your OS on a msata you open up the bandwith for your work drive and cause non of your software and OS will ever need to run off the work drive.
This way you get 250mb r/w on your OS drive.
And 500mb r/w on your work drive.
So in the end you should buy both the 512 ssd, and a 128gb msata.
Thinkpad W520 | Intel i7 2.5 XM | 1920x1080 FHD 95% Gamut | 32 GB DDR3 | 128GB MyDigitalSSD mSATA SSD | 2GB NVIDIA QUADRO 2000M | UEFI WIN 7
Re: W520 & SSD SATA III
Thank you for for the post, but honestly, the mSATA interface is a greater bottleneck than just running everything on a 2.5" SSD. Also, if you're constantly pushing 250+MB/s on your drives, you don't need a laptop, you need a server with an attached SAN.Kaze22 wrote:If cost if no option you should still get a 128gb msata for your OS. Let me tell you why.
If you have your OS and Work drive on the same disk your 512ssd, you run into the problem of bottleneck if you try to massive read and write on the same disk. With your OS on a msata you open up the bandwith for your work drive and cause non of your software and OS will ever need to run off the work drive.
This way you get 250mb r/w on your OS drive.
And 500mb r/w on your work drive.
So in the end you should buy both the 512 ssd, and a 128gb msata.
Yes, cost was not a limiting factor in the build of this laptop. That being said, I'm not going to spend money on something that most likely will offer no perceivable benefit.
The setup I have is plenty fast for what I need. *shrugs* This isn't my first computer configuration rodeo.
600X (2645-9WU), X41 Tablet (1866-6SU), W520 (4270-CTO)
Yes, I have been jaded by (purported) technocrats. Almost as jaded by the tech itself.
Yes, I have been jaded by (purported) technocrats. Almost as jaded by the tech itself.
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