I just acquired an x41 (Non tablet, 2526-AM8) 1.6 ghz 1gb, no hard drive for 115 shipped with an ultrabase and what seems to be a good 8 cell battery. I would like to make it my primary travel machine but i cant decide if i should look for one of the few 5400rpm hard drives for it or go with a 32gb ssd which i can get for 100 shipped. I would like to avoid the 2010 error if possible but it will be shut down and restarted quite a bit which im worried would cause a lot of wear to whatever drive i go with. Any ideas of what i should do?

The only way to avoid the 2010 message is to stick to the original Hitachi drives, which are louder and slower than new ZIF drives. There is also a Lenovo branded SSD that will not trigger the message. There are not many 5400RPM hard disks available on the market, I personally only know one Samsung model with this speed (HS122JC).

Check this thread for a list of ZIF drives for X4 models, or this one for SSDs.

I would also max out the memory (if you did not do it yet). You can add a 1GB or 2GB module to extend the memory of your X41, but its chipset will address maximum 2GB of RAM.

My 0.02 cents...

I agree. A 2Gb stick of PC2-5300 should be easy to get. Never mind that Lenovo specifies PC2-4200, the PC2-5300 sticks will downclock to that speed. That's what I did on mine. No matter what is on the MB, you have to put a 2Gb stick in it to max it out.

Thinking that 2Gb is all anyone will ever need is just like saying that 640K is all anyone will ever need. Thank you, IBM...

what should i do for storage though if i want something thats not as slow as 4200rpm drive and doesnt give a 2010 error?

In that case I only see one solution: The (expensive) Lenovo branded SSD . The 5400 RPM Samsung drive will trigger the 2010 error.

Now, counting on RPMs only is not necessarily a guarantee of high speed. New 4200 RPM ZIF drives have better performance and are quieter than the old Hitachi ones at the same speed. I have a Toshiba MK8025GAL which runs great in my X40 (now in the hands of a good friend of mine). You will also find a very good performance comparison table of drives and SSDs here.

Now, regarding the 2010 error, I personally don't care. There is a BIOS setting that allows the boot procedure to continue after the message, so at the end you just have to wait 2 more seconds to boot. Alternatively, you could hibernate the notebook instead of shutdown. But I know for some people this is a huge annoyance.

There are also some good SSD/HDD offers for X4 machines in this thread.

I personally prefer ZIF HDDs for this TP series due to the better price ratio per GB, but it's just my personal call. I find the prices for IDE SSDs too expensive for the amount of storage they offer. (It's a complete different situation for SATA SSDs).

Hope this helps...

Regards

If you are not afraid to solder, you can use 1.8" SATA HDD/SSD on your X41 system which broadens the opportunities by a large margin.

is this the SSD Id want?

http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-LENOVO-SSD-60Gb-1-8-Mini-HDD-Hard-Drive-X40-X41-NEW-/170540368094?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27b4ff80de

Yes, that's the SSD with no "2010 error". I see the price has gone down a bit...

It seems like the cost is still more than the rest of the computer is worth. At $3.00/Gb, I can wait.

You may have to wait a bit then, I haven't seen IDE SSDs prices come down so fast as SATA models