64GB SSD big enough for a college student?

Hello, I am thinking to buy a X301 with 64GB SSD for my daughter who is going to college this fall. She is going to use the computer mainly for her course work. She is going to do medical. I am not expecting her to do gaming and other irrelevant stuff.

I am not familar with the work load of current college students. In her situation, do you think 64G SSD is large enough?

128GB SSD is really expensive.

Thanks for your input.

 

I guess it would depend on how much storage she needs. You certainly have enough for Windows, but if she's got a lot of music, photos or movies, then you'll be hitting the wall. An external drive might be an option.

 

Any specific reason why you are going with a X301?

 

The X301 uses a 1.8" drive so there will be no standard drives.

 

Yea, sorry about that.
Right after posting, I went to the Lenovo site and noticed that.

 

Buy an external drive for her media. I assume she has an mp3 player for on the go?

Also teach her about backing up/having redundant copies. I work in university IT and students always lose their data that they need for papers, etc. They never backup or seek to fix problems until they become overbearing.

 

I was not harmed. An apology is not required.

 

Using an USB external hard drive is a smart idea!

I LIKE THAT!!!!

 

I am thinking about these scenarios:

She can put a light notebook in her bag easily and carry around. I dont want my daughter to carry another computer bag.

She can easily use it for most of a day without the power cord. I am thinking to buy a 6-cell battery.

 

Jaredy, thanks for the tip. This is really from people who know how.

Appreciated!!!

Edited: I was thinking about x200 too. I brought my daughter to a local Best Buy. She feels that 12.1 in screen may be too small for her course work. What do you think?

 

Here is what I just ordered for my daughter. Good? Comment?

A quick question: Do X301, T400, T500 use the same memory? Just want to confirm before buying more memory.

Thanks!

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Intel Core 2 Duo SU9400(1.4GHz, 3MB L2, 800MHz FSB)
Genuine Windows Vista Home Basic
13.3 WXGA+ TFT (1440x900 LED backlight) 3x3 UltraConnect
Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
1 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory (1 DIMM)
64GB Solid State Drive
Intel WiFi Link 5300 (AGN) with My WiFi Technology
Integrated Mobile Broadband upgradable
ThinkPad X300/X301 Series 6 Cell Li-Ion Battery
2777: Topseller - 1 Yr Depot Warranty
1GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory8

 

Yeah, occasionally I have one. I might recommend the WD Elements 400GB external. Sometimes you can shag one in the $50-60 range. I have one. The only thing I'd say about it is sometimes it can be a pain to have an apendage hanging off the side.

Yes, they all use the same memory. I'd get the minimum memory, then buy a stick from NewEgg.

Why Vista Basic? One thing I might point out and I don't know if it's relevant here, but some schools require XP Pro or Vista Business because they want you to log in to the NT domain for access to the network. XP Home and Vista Basic/Premium can't do this. You might want to check it out.

What did you get for the modular bay?

 

Thanks for your thinking about vista basic. I was thinking about the same thing, but about area. I had a SL500 wisth Vista Basic briefly and feel it was slow. So I was thinking about whether to choose XP. Good thinking?

Another reason for vista basic is that I have a vista ultimate disc and thinking about upgrade it myself. Could it be even slower, considering x301 slow cpu?

Regarding modular bay, I did not buy anything. no DVD burner. Will this pose any problem in the future?

 

Well if you didn't get the optical I'd say the x20x series is worth a look, however I'd imagine needing an optical drive from time to time for a student. Vista is not an issue of speed really as long as you get rid of any extraneous programs on startup. Also the SSD makes programs open up very quickly, so slowness attributed to vista shouldn't be a huge problem. I use it myself (64bit flavor) with an SSD.

 

A clean install is a good idea. It will likely perform better than the fully loaded preinstalled Vista.

 

Send me a PM, I'll see if I can get a cheaper configuration for an x301 for you.

 

A lot of that could be the bloatware that comes on machines nowadays. A clean install with your ultimate disc would help as will the SSD, which are much faster than conventional drives. Just don't forget to make the recovery discs and a copy of the SWTools folder. The SWTools folder contains all the drivers and applications installed on your ThinkPad.

You'll need an optical drive to install Windows. If you're not planning on using it much, then maybe an external might work. If you need a lot of battery life, the bay battery might be worth considering. I think either is cheaper if you buy when your ordering. Since the X301 uses super slim 7mm bay devices, there's only one source for them, Lenovo. If you want to acquire one later, I think they're kind of expensive, unless you can get lucky and find a used one. You don't really want a used battery anyway.

 

64 gig is enough and if she needs more space for non-important things she can always pick up a cheap external.

at my school we had a huge pirate network of 70 terabytes so many students often bought large hdds, but i doubt your daughter will need that unless she's into piracy.

 

64GB is plenty for applications, documents, etc. The only time you run into an issue would be storing media (most notably video) as this can take a fair amount of space. However, a USB HDD or a NAS is a great option for storing media (and a backup of everything on the SSD as well).

One other thing you need to consider with the USB HDD is form factor. If your daughter would always leave the drive on her desk, a 3.5" drive will offer more storage space at a lower price. However, if she might want to take the drive (and its contents) with her, a 2.5" drive that is POWERED via USB is probably a better choice. You can either buy these drives pre-made (easy) or assemble one yourself with a standard HDD and enclosure (cheap).

The x301 is a very nice option. However, if your daughter doesn't need an optical drive or touchpad on a regular basis the x200 series might be a better choice. The x200s is the lightest ThinkPad available and offers the best battery life as well as a high resolution (for its size) display. The x200 regular is less expensive, slightly more powerful, and offers a good balance of size/battery life. I might also recommend the x200 Tablet as it can be a fantastic choice for a student (can take far better notes, easily rotate the screen to read content, and general usability); in addition the tablet has the highest quality display of any ThinkPad as well as above average multimedia features (stereo speakers, webcam, noise-canceling microphone, etc).

All of the x200 models offer a card reader (can easily take the memory card out of a digital camera or simply expand the internal storage), docking station support, and a 54mm ExpressCard for expandability. The x301 lacks all of these options.

No matter which model you go for, I think a 64GB SSD is a good choice.

P.S. - Your daughter is lucky that her Dad has such fine taste.

 

Hopefully she won't think it's ugly and not like it 8).

 

With an external DVD recorder, there should be no problem making product recovery discs or creating a backup of the hard drive, correct? Also I need to have a guaranteed way of doing Ultimate upgrade with the external DVD recorder. This is someting that worries me. Can someone gives me a definative anwer to these two questions?

I do want long battery life and that is why I ordered 6-cell battery. I have no idea of bay battery. I did not paying attention to it when ordering. Is the bay battery something on the "Accessories" page, such as this one?

>>ThinkPad X300 Series 3 Cell LiPolymer Bay Battery ThinkPad X300 Series 3 Cell LiPolymer Bay Battery

Can this bay battery be put into the computer without sticking out? The reason I can use bay battery is because I did not order DVD burner, is it right?

Thank you so much for your help. As you can see, I dont have much experience here.

 

I thought about x200 indeed. x200 seems to too small for my daughter. I brought her to a local Best Buy and she feels that it would not hold much content.

Is x200 right for a college student for her course work?

Thanks!

 

Screen size is largely based on how much text you want to see at a time. A 15" will let you read two docs side-by-side, a 14" will let you see a decent amount of text, anything smaller may leave her feeling cramped.

If you go for a T400/T500 (or similar model) afaik you can swap out the optical drive with a $50 addon that will let you add a second harddrive. That might be a good option if you want a larger screen and an SSD, although you'll be at around 6lb by that point.

 

Thanks so much for all the suggestions and information!!! Really appreciated!

 

I'm not a doctor, although I did play one on TV. It would be difficult for me to say what her "course work" for medical studies would entail. The X200 is a light portable powerful machine with good battery life. If that's what you need, then it's worth consideration.

How much it can hold is a function of the hard drive capacity, not the screen size. Since the X200 uses a regular hard drive it can hold as much stuff as the biggest machines with a single drive. The downfall of it is the fair screen. While it's bright enough, the contrast and viewing angles are inferior to the tablet. Much the same can be said of the X301. For Office and Internet usage it's probably fine, but for any mulitmedia stuff like movies or photos it will not be as good as the tablet.

The tablet has the best screen, but it's heavier than either the X200(s) or the X301 due to the extra parts needed to make it a tablet. It's still pretty light, less than four pounds.

That is the bay battery. It does not stick out. You can use either the battery or the optical drive, but not at the same time. They're not modular like the T or R series. You can't swap them out. There's a screw that secures them to the chassis.

 

ZaZ, you are not doctor because I never see your name in any doctor directory

You are a great helper!!!

All the best.

 

Might be possible to mod a 9.5mm SATA optical bay caddy with a dremel to fit in the 7.5mm cavity of the X301 to house a thin SSD? Idea to then create a hybrid SSD+HDD system as explained in DIY: Adding SSD and/or HDD storage using an optical bay caddy. No expresscard port means external storage is limited to ~30MB/s transfer rates.

If such mods are not to taste, then consider a X200 or a HP 2530P. Both have expresscard so can install a flush-type e-sata expresscard to have fast e-sata external storage. 2530P better in the storage department as has a 1.8" bay useful to take a 1.8" Samsung/Intel X18-M SSD and it's optical drive can be swapped out for an optical bay caddy with a 2.5" HDD (or hotswapped between them as is required). Could even install a 2.5" OCZ Vertex/G.SKill Falcon in the optical bay caddy and keep the 1.8" 80GB HDD for storage, though not so well suited to hotswapping optical drive/2.5" bay setup.

 

I'm pretty sure this would be impossible. Even if you could saw a 9.5mm housing down to 7.5mm, the drive would be problematic. Even the slimmest 1.8" SSD is still 8mm high IIRC (although I suppose you could run it without the casing if you really wanted to).


In any event, if you want hybrid storage of some sort the x200 or T400 is a better choice. The T400 allows the use of two 2.5" HDD/SSD. The x200 allows the use of a 2.5" HDD/SSD (or 1.8" w/ adapter) and an ExpressCard or SDHC card. You can also buy ExpressCard SSDs, but they are NOT bootable (I checked in detail before I bought my 64GB Samsung SLC SSD).

 

I've noticed that 9.5mm and 12.7mm optical bay caddies have the rear connector at the same level from the base, with the 12.7mm just having additional plastic on the top. Worthwhile comparing the 7.5mm unit delivered with the X301 against a 9.5mm unit to see if that trend continues. The ebay caddy makers haven't embraced the 7.5mm format yet so perhaps the 9.5mm caddy could be be trimmed from the top allowing a 7.5mm or thinner SATA SSD to fit in? How thin are the 2.5" SSDs are without their plastic casing?

1.8" SATA SSDs, without the casing would fit but would require an ebay sata to microsata adapter. The ebay "Samsung Slim SSD" is 3.48mm thick. The Intel X18-M is 5mm thick. 1.8" HDDs too can be 5mm or 8mm thick.

 

I think you made the right choice with the X301, especially if she will be using it as her main system. I have an X200 myself and although I love it, I often find myself wishing that I had a larger display! It gets a bit hard on the eyes after a full day of work.. So although some people here suggested the X200, if your daughter feels that the 12" screen is small right from the start, you definitely don't wanna get the X200 because it will only get worse for her after extended usage.

Personally I'm thinking of grabbing a T400s when it comes out.. It's supposed to be 3.85lbs. It's heavier than my 3.1lbs X200.. But it just might be necessary.

 

Have you talked to your daughter about what she wants?

If it is not too late I think you should work out a couple notebooks within a price range and have her choose. From your sig it is obvious you like Thinkpads however you probably should give her more choices as she will be the one using it for a few years.

I would let her consider:
Lenovo X301,
Lenovo X200, screen might be a bit small as a main machine.
MacBook Pro 13, a bit on the heavier side. But definitely popular on campus and priced pretty well with the back to school discount and has great battery life.
Dell E4300, can be found very cheap, good machine but not great in any area IMO.
Sony SR, might be pricier.
etc etc

 

Thanks so much for your comment. Finally I heard something that is in line with my daughter's thinking She wants 13.3 in screen.

I just bought a T400 from Lenovo Outlet (that was intended for my daughteer but I am going to use it for other purposes) and it is a great buy. If you do engineering, I would recommend T400, which is powerful/portal both for school and in job. Here is what I paid $742 for. I already got this laptop. IT IS BEAUTIFUL.

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Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo processor T9400 (2.53GHz 1066MHz 6MBL2)
Operating system: Genuine Windows Vista Business
Operating system language: Genuine Windows Vista Business US English
Display type: 14.1 WXGA+ TFT, w/ CCFL Backlight, Camera
System graphics: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD with vPro
Total memory: 3 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory (2 DIMM)
Intel Turbo Memory: 2GB
Keyboard: Keyboard US English
Pointing device: UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad)
Hard drive: 160 GB Hard Disk Drive, 5400rpm
Optical device: DVD Recordable 8x Max Dual Layer, Ultrabay Slim (Serial ATA)
System expansion slots: Express Card Slot & PC Card Slot
Wireless card: Intel WiFi Link 5300 (AGN) with My WiFi Technology
Mobile Broadband: Integrated Mobile Broadband upgradable
Battery: 4 cell Li-Ion Battery
Power cord: Country Pack North America with Line cord & 65W AC adapter
Language pack: Language Pack US English

 

Thanks for your input. My daughter likes 13.3 in screen and I am a Thinkpad person. This X301 is going to be my 5th Thinkpad.

BTW, UIUC is a fine school and my relative is a student there too

 

How much are you spending on the X301?

If it is around $1.5k something tells me your daughter would probably prefer a MBP 13 for $1.1k w/ free Ipod Touch or a Dell E4300 for <$900 if you let her pocket the change. Generally girls like Apple more than Lenovo.

 

around $1150. you can find a good deal at slickdeals.net.

 

64 gig by todays standard seems kinda small to marginally ok for college. you put a good selection of songs in there and whats left of your harddrive after windows will be close to full. you add in the large files accumulated from courses like lecture notes etc and you can be out of memory very soon. then you'd have to leave room for a selection of programs and what have you that also take a lot of space.

 

Thanks for the input!

>>whats left of your harddrive after windows will be close to full

Could you please let me know how much space is left for a X301 with Vista Business-32 when it comes out of a Lenovo shipping package? (I understand that it may have some bloatware from Lenovo at that moment).

Thank you!

 

in a highly conservative worst case perspective

windows business will take prob around 15-20 gigs and this value fluctuates over time and course of usage.

lenovo partitions the drive for their stuff and thats usually 10 gigs but they only use 5ish there. then i think they do another partition for something else.

Bottom line is with 64 gig space youre looking at 32ish gigs free . This is based on t400 specs. I have not used a x30x

Its always about how you use it. Something you should know:

mp3s run at about 3-5mb each, so with 500 songs (not a bad prediction based on my experience) thats close to 2 gigs or more.

1.5 hour videos people store can be anyway betwen 600mb-1gig each on average. 1/2hr to 45min videos are around 300-500mb. if the user is in the habbit of storing videos youd run out of disk space quick.

then onto photos. a lot of people have every photo they have taken and more from their friends from over 6 year past or something. Each high quality photo with a digital camera can be upwards of 1mb.

Then theres always school work which is what it should really be about. That depending on the nature of the courses will depend. But some lecture notes if not converted to pdf format by the prof can be as large as 50mb if theres a lot of pics.

If you force yourself into the routine of putting things into external disks then that 32 gig left is perfectly fine I'd say for any normal college student.

I love the look of x30x as much as nyone but I wouldnt say its exactly the most 'practical' if youre gonna require moderate performance. of course practical is relative. You can opt to get the t400s that i hear is quite thin and can prob store normal harddrives that are not only cheaper but have way more harddisk. but then again, i also know how enticing that x301 is. beauty over brains

 

Thank you so much for your detailed analysis.

I would also like to add installation of Microsoft Office 2007 and applications. Must-have, right?

Thanks!

 

yea. i dont know the current specs but i know 2003 office runs at around 300mb. its nothing much. you delete one video and youve got room.

plus unis and colleges have deals themselves but doesnt always mean theyre cheaper than lenovo offers. however the software like office usually is better than lenovo for sure.