Lenovo’s flagship ThinkPad X301 laptop can now be found in certain configurations with a 1.8-inch magnetic hard drive, rather than the fast and expensive Solid State Drives, once included exclusively.
Unfortunately the new drives are not available on Lenovo.com as part of a build-it-yourself configuration, yet. Instead you are restricted to one of two pre-built configurations available through resellers:
Model 2776-H1U: SU9400 1.4GHz CPU, 2GB DDR3, Webcam, 120GB 5400rpm, DVDRW, Intel 5100 WiFi, WWAN upgradeable, 2GB Turbo Memory, Bluetooth, Fingerprint reader, 6-cell battery, Vista Business 32 – Street price ~$1700-1800
Model 2776-32U: SU9600 1.6GHz CPU, 2GB DDR3, Webcam, 250GB 5400rpm, DVDRW, Intel 5100 WiFi, WWAN upgradeable, Bluetooth, Fingerprint reader, 6-cell battery, XP Professional – Street price – ~$1700
Considering you can only get the ThinkPad X301 into the $1600 range, sans DVDRW and other goodies, on Lenovo.com with coupons, this actually isn’t a bad deal. The magnetic HDD clearly saves you a chunk of change here. In fact, if you look for the nearly identical model 2776-33U, which adds a 64GB SSD over the 2776-32U listed above, it adds on average $200-300 to the price tag. You still need to do in-depth price comparison to find the model that best fits your needs, but the potential is here for some cost savings.
More background When the ThinkPad X300 launched, it was criticized for its high price tag, which was largely driven by the then-expensive SSDs. The drive itself cost over $700, which is a huge portion of any laptop’s cost, considering you could get a fairly well equipped machine for that much. When questioned about offering a 1.8-inch HDD to bring the starting cost down, Lenovo stated it had investigated that route, but that the performance of those drives was just not up to par for such a high end machine. Indeed, a system’s storage drive is one of the largest bottlenecks on a modern computer.
Since the ThinkPad X300 launched, SSD prices have dropped significantly bringing the X301 into the sub-$2000 price range. However, HDD technology has also advanced and not only are 1.8-inch drives faster, but they have greater capacity too. Hopefully Lenovo will start offering these 1.8-inch HDD’s for the X301 on Lenovo.com, so we can truly see what kind of value they can drive out of the flagship ThinkPad.
New Intel X-25M G2 SSD board - image from Anandtech.com
The unfortunate firmware bug that could cause complete data loss on Intel’s new SSDs is now fixed, although models still aren’t shipping from retailers.
Towards the end of July, Intel announces a new line of SSD drives that promise to bring significantly lower costs to the market, and still improve performance a bit. Unfortunately only a week later the drives were pulled from distribution channels due to a bug that would cause data loss if the user set a BIOS password and subsequently changed it.
Hard at work for the past few weeks, Intel engineers have completed the fix and it is now available to the public. Very few drives should have made it to the public, making for few complications, and all drives shipped from here on out will have the updated firmware applied.
Unfortunately drives still aren’t shipping from retailers like Amazon and NewEgg. Amazon lists shipping time as 2-4 weeks and NewEgg as August 28th. If you are in a bind and need a quality SSD fast, check out the 1st generation Intel SSDs being cleared out at NewEgg.
Last week we reported that Intel’s new 34nm SSD drives were put on a manufacturing hold due to a firmware bug that would cause data loss under certain circumstances. Working quickly to resolve the issue, Intel has stated that the updated firmware will be completed later this week and production will resume.
The bug in question occurs when someone applies a BIOS password to the drive, then either remove or change that password, causing the data to be inaccessible. Sales were also halted at retailers much to shoppers’ chagrin, but prices are dropping on the 1st generation drives too. The 80GB Gen1 drive can be had for around $230 at the time of publishing, bringing them to the same price as the new models and making them an incredible SSD value still.
Thanks to our astute readers, they noticed that the drive in the LogicBuy deal was actually the 1st generation Intel SSD. The 2nd generation SSD can be found here on NewEgg and it is still out of stock with an ETA of 8/28. Still, if you need an SSD now, the Gen1 drives are quite competitive and you might even see the prices dip lower in the near future.
Original post below
About two weeks ago we saw Intel’s new SSD drives introduced. Using a more efficient, smaller manufacturing process, this 2nd generation of drives promised to bring lower prices to SSDs all around. The drives started appearing in retail channels about a week ago, primarily at big e-box retailer Amazon for right around MSRP.
Shortly after, Intel put SSD manufacturing on hold due to a firmware bug that could lead to data loss. Here we are a week later and not only does it appear drives are flowing once again, but NewEgg has put the 80GB version on sale.
That’s right, two weeks after launch we are seeing Intel’s second generation of SSDs on sale for a total of $85 off. The $85 is a bit misleading – while NewEgg’s regular price is listed as $314 and the drive is on sale for $229 (with free shipping), Amazon has the same drive for $244 regularly (also with free shipping). Still, almost $20 off the next lowest price within the first 2 weeks since announcement is damn good.
In case you missed my previous post, tech hardware site Anandtech took a preliminary, yet still revealing, look at the new SSDs and put them through some paces. An even more detailed article, looking at nearly all consumer-level SSDs, should be out soon. We’ll post it here when it goes up!
Pick up one of these drives here while the sale lasts, courtesy of LogicBuy
Read other posts related to SSDs, or specifically Intel SSDs
Intel has come across a snag in their new 34nm SSDs. A bug in the firmware may cause data corruption if “a password is set on the drive in the system BIOS, and then changed or disabled later.” While it doesn’t appear many units have been shipped through resellers yet, everyone is sitting on their stock and Intel has ceased manufacturing until the problem is remedied. A firmware patch is expected quickly and everything should start flowing again.
New Intel X-25M G2 SSD board - image from Anandtech.com
A few days ago Intel released a new lineup of SSD drives that are more efficiently made with the intention of driving SSD costs down, opening up the market to more people.
We noted in that article that Anandtech had posted their usually excellent analysis of the decision and technology, but they also had one of the new X25-M (G2) drives dropped off for a bit o fun. This is just an initial preview, but has a good look at the changes in the drive and some benchmarks.
I’m also going to point you to another article of Anand’s that is a must-read if you’re interested in SSDs. There is far more underneath the surface of “bunch of flash chips with a SATA connector on them.” SSDs have evolved incredibly since their initial debut and there are a number of real world concerns with usability and performance. Anand covers all this in the “SSD Anthology” as he calls it – which is an accurate description, at 31 individual pages in the article.
I admit to reading every page, geeking out like I haven’t in a while, but if you’re interested in SSD technology I highly recommend a read of at least the first 5-6 pages. The most interesting analysis of SSD technology occurs through about page 15 and after that it covers evolution of SSD technology in the past few months, largely prompted by the discoveries of the online tech review community. Here’s the Anthology, enjoy and let me know what you think.
Update: If you’re interested in a technical discussion of the new SSDs, I highly recommend you check out Anandtech’s article
Today Intel announced a new line of Solid State Drives (SSDs) using highly efficient manufacturing techniques to drastically reduce cost.
This is it folks. SSDs are heading mainstream at full speed and nothing is stopping them. Intel has been collaborating with fellow silicon-noisseur Micron Technologies and the joint-venture firm named IM Flash Technologies created flash memory based around a 34nm NAND manufacturing process. Samsung and Toshiba are also working on a smaller flash technology, to be built at 32nm, which will really up the competition level as well.
What does this mean to you? Intel’s previous flash drives were based on a 50nm manufacturing process, making the transistors in the new drives 32% smaller. When you can fit more transistors in the same slice of silicon, you can make more devices from that slice and reduce costs thanks to economies of scale. The sweet images and presentation Intel released yesterday on how a processor is made are very applicable to what we’re talking about here.
These new drives will still be called the X25-M (2.5-inch form factor) and X18-M (1.8-inch), but they will of course have new SKU’s. The X25-M 80GB (SKU SSDSA2MH080G2C1) and 160GB (SKU SSDSA2MH160G2C1) model built on 34nm technology will be available very soon, with a 320GB model expected at an unknown later date. The X18-M versions should ship later this quarter.
Prices have been a huge roadblock for SSD proliferation and they are dropping rapidly. While the original 80GB X25-M announced for $595 not even a year ago, the new model is priced around $225. The 160GB version is appropriately doubled, offering double the capacity for $440, down from $945 at launch.
P.S. Maybe now we can all afford to go crazy with SSD.
A report was recently released by analyst firm J. Gold Associates citing that despite initial higher cost, SSDs are a better long-term investment for notebook purchases.
The goal of the research conducted here was to deteremine if SSDs were a good economic choice in the enterprise environment, particularly considering if notebook life cycles were extended to 5 years from the current 3, a move that many IT shops are considering. In the end, it all comes down to this:
Deploying notebooks with SSDs instead of HDD will save a company $214 over a three year deployment lifecycle and $493 if the lifecycle is 5 years, for a 107% and 247% ROI respectively. Further, SSDs can lower the overall machine failure rates by one third.
And there you have it. SSDs have been dropping in price steadily for the past couple years and the higher capacity, higher performance models are now approaching mainstream affordability. This makes the SSD choice easier to swallow for large enterprise and should make PC manufacturers happy with higher margins.
Solid state drives are all the rage today. First becoming available in flagship notebooks like Lenovo’s ThinkPad X300 and Apple’s MacBook Air, they were at first a $1000+ luxury performance option. Now prices have dropped significantly as with any new technology and the usage of lower end SSD’s has been popularized with low cost netbooks.
OCZ has introduced a new option for you to add inexpensive SSD technology to your laptop, theoretically without breaking the bank. The MiniPCI-Express SSD plugs directly into an open MiniPCI-Express slot and adds either 16GB or 32GB of flash goodness. They are even available in SATA and PATA, depending just how old of a notebook you are rejuvenating. OCZ calls for 100 MB/s read and 51 MB/s write on the SATA model, while PATA drops you down to 45 MB/s read and 35 MB/s write. Pricing is not yet announced.
Remember that inexpensive ThinkPad X41 I wrote about recently, the one that could benefit from an SSD upgrade to its pokey 1.8-inch 4200rpm HDD? This would be a tasty drop-in. It appears the Intel 915GM chipset has a mini PCI-Express slot and while the main hard drive is PATA, the chipset should support SATA (whether Lenovo implemented it or not is another question). I’m drooling over cheap, portable, and functional computing as I type this.
A few weeks ago I wrote about an alternative to netbooks in the search for a low cost computer. In fact, I even specifically called out the ThinkPad X41 as a great option (yes, I’m quoting myself):
The folks over at OSNews have a review up on a ThinkPad X41 purchased from Geeks.com for a good price, and with Linux preloaded! It is of course a refurbished box and only comes with 512MB RAM, but you can bring it up to 1.5GB. The slooowwww 1.8″ 4200rpm drive will hold it back in outright performance, but you could always drop in a 1.8″ SSD if you find a good bargain. Regardless of your intentions, this Geeks.com-edition ThinkPad X41 is a good bargain at only $239, although it appears to be out of stock at the time of writing.
The folks over at I4U took an aging ThinkPad X40, with its bottlenecking 1.8-inch mechanical drive, and dropped in a KingSpec 1.8-inch SSD that also brought capacity up to 32GB from 20GB. They were very happy with the result, as there is no more HDD churning noise and performance is strongly improved. The downside is of course the price, with their 32GB model running $170. That is almost as much as the X41 I cited above, but for a hair over $400 you could have a machine that rivals netbooks in usability and likely performance as well.
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Lenovo’s flagship ThinkPad X301 laptop can now be found in certain configurations with a 1.8-inch magnetic hard drive, rather than the fast and expensive Solid State Drives, once included exclusively.
When the ThinkPad X300 launched, it was criticized for its high price tag, which was largely driven by the then-expensive SSDs. The drive itself cost over $700, which is a huge portion of any laptop’s cost, considering you could get a fairly well equipped machine for that much. When questioned about offering a 1.8-inch HDD to bring the starting cost down, Lenovo stated it had investigated that route, but that the performance of those drives was just not up to par for such a high end machine. Indeed, a system’s storage drive is one of the largest bottlenecks on a modern computer.
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