9.5mm HDD in T420s/X1/X220

They're the same price so get the WD, WD10JPVT. Samsung reliability has never been great, and when they do fail half the time they won't even honor the warranty claiming that it doesn't apply to bare drives.

 

For those of you who have simply removed the spacer from the M4, does the M4 then fit into the HD bay with the caddy on the T420s?

My T420s is supposed to ship on the 20th, but I have NO IDEA what to do in terms of the SSD now. It's such a bummer that there are so very few 7mm SSD's...

My only fear from removing the spacer is that the spacer might be there to provide an air barrier of cooling for the flash chips. From what's been said so far, it seems that by removing the spacer the flash chips are basically pressing up right against the metal cover, which requires electric tape to prevent shorts...

 

On the Intel 320 SSD, the spacer is on the outside so there's no need to take the cover off. However, you need some shorter screws.

Did you see this thread which discusses the 7mm compatible or modifiable SSDs?

John

 

Yep. I'm not sure about the x220, but for the T420s, it seems that the best bet for 7mm is the Curcial M4.

According to quite a few personal testaments, there are no warranty stickers on the M4 SSD, and so all one needs to do is unscrew the top cover from the M4, remove the plastic spacer, apply electric tape to the underpart of the top cover and then screw the cover back in with M2x3mm screws.

I haven't done this yet, but I did find this blog post that details the process quite well: Lenovo T420s with 7mm Crucial M4 Mod -- MichaelXavier.net

 

which 1TB 9.5mm drives have people installed in these?

 

Are the 512GB Crucial M4 drives mod-able in this way as well? VERY TEMPTED!

 

I tried to put in a 640GB 7200rpm samsung spinpoint, but it didn't feel like fitting in at all. I'm gonna give it ago another day, hopefully I just did something wrong.

So we don't use the rubber rails, but we do use the metal sleeve thing? I used a file to shave down the tabs, easy enough, but I didn't even get to test them as the drive couldnt even fit it's head in.

 

Okay, it's still not fitting. Is it possible that my samsung is simply fatter than the other 9.5mm drives that you guys are getting to fit?

There is another, long tab on the opposite side of the main tabs. I should get rid of that as well right? It seems to be there to hold the cover in place but it looks like it should be fine to remove.

IMG: http://i.imgur.com/ws36C.jpg

I'm going to go buy a dremel and clean up the top ones, and see if I can get this other one too.

EDIT:
Yeah, it's not fitting. The head fits in, but then it completely halts at something. I think it is the cover catching on the base metal in the bay. If I take the cover (the tray bit with the tag) off, it allows it slide in - barely. I assume that I shouldn't take the cover off, right?

I tested the WD Blue from my other laptop, and the same stuff happens, so I assume it's not just the samsung being too fat. Maybe my laptop is physically different to you guys' ones. I have the earliest x220 model, the 4286.

 

Hi,

I've recently ordered a x220t and I was wondering if I could use the same method detailed earlier (filing the tabs down) to for a 9.5mm hard drive into it.

Also, (sorry for off topic) does anyone think laser etching the lid would not void the warranty?

Thanks in advance,

// SkuToV

 

well the person above didn't seem to be successful, what happened?

 

laser etching the lid won't affect the overall system warranty. Some companies do this to their machines to facility stolen property retrieval or preventing people stealing products from their businesses or homes, etc.

 

The guy said he had the model number 4286, in tabook this comes up as a standard x220 (not a tablet version), also the newer version could be different.

 

SAMSUNG Spinpoint M8 HN-M101MBB 1TB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive

I picked it from Newegg for around $120. Install worked flawlessly, following the directions provided. I wouldn't want to try and get it out, but it is absolutely possible to install a 1TB drive in the x220. Yes, the 5400rpm is slightly slower than the BTO 320GB drive - but it is actually quieter. Silent in fact.

T.J.

 

With or without the tray/caddy? I still don't know if It's okay to leave it off.

 

With my 1-terabyte drive I left off the drive caddy and I haven't had a problem with it in over two months of use. It just held in place through friction / and being a really tight fit. Zero noise or vibration issues.

 

Awesome, thanks. I imagine it would be tricky/impossible to remove it after, but I was mainly concerned about the bare drive being allowed to rub against the base of the chassis, like maybe i'd have to protect it from static.

 

I just did this for my samsung m8 1TB.
aswell as the 4 tabs, there is a sort of pin sticking out in my drive that fouled part of the laptop base. i dremeled a little notch out of this area, and it fit in fine.

When sliding it in, it was still fairly tight, and it was actually hard to work out that i had got it correctly into the sata connections. i actually had to turn on the laptop and go into disk management to confirm it had gone in!
just need to put some packing between the drive and cover so that it doesn't slide out of position... (and so the cover fits properly)

 

Just completed the dremeling. I used the SAMSUNG Spinpoint M8 HN-M101MBB. I put tape down inside to prevent any metal shavings from flying all around. I also stuck some paper towels inside to prevent shavings from going inside.

There is this very tiny metal notch near to the top of the hard drive itself, that gets stuck on the top lip of the entrance. Don't worry, and don't shave that off. Just stick a piece of paper in between the notch and the entrance to the laptop. This will help the notch slide in. The second notch in the lower left of the hard drive does not hit the lip of the entrance.

Shimmy here, shimmy there, and it slides in perfect. I put some foam in-between (about 3 or 4mm) and closed the lid.

All went well, just needed to go to drive management and initialize the hard drive.

 

For those who still check this thread, I just installed the Seagate Momentus 1TB drive STBD1000100 (5400rpm, 8MB cache) in my X220. It's a 9.5mm drive, so I had to grind down the 4 tabs first, but it went in fairly easy after that.

The drive operates quieter than the 250gb Seagate I got with the laptop, although it makes a slight beeping sound when it first spins up. It's not loud, but annoying when I have power saving set to turn off the drive when not in use (I have a MSATA SSD for the OS).

 

Glad this is still helping people. To make it easy to remove the drive, tape something like the plastic pull tab you get on caddies and it'll fold in just as if you had a caddy. I had a spare caddy so I cut the tab off it and taped it on on the drive.

 

Just installed the SAMSUNG Spinpoint M8 HN-M101MBB 1TB about two weeks ago, all good. I do get the same beep that jarros gets on the Seagate 1TB drive when it spins up, running it besides an mSATA SSD for the OS as well. I don't like it, but its okay and I rather have that than the 320GB that I used to have.

 

Hi, What Kind of speeds can be Expected on the mSATA SSD ?
Thanks

 

I just successfully installed a Samsung Seagate Momentus SpinPoint 2TB in my X220. No cutting or altering the laptop. Just a couple of screws.

The issue is getting the drive through the hard drive opening, which is too small, and had tabs in the way. You can bypass that with a few steps which I find easier than altering the frame. You'll need to open up the laptop for this, but Lenovo makes it very easy.

Take off the keyboard (2 screws). Take off the wrist pad (5 screws). Loosen the cover inner plastic hard drive cover (2 screws). The goal is to access the drive bay from the top (right under the keyboard) rather than the tiny drive bay opening.

Plop the hard drive into the drive bay from the top and back it out into the opening. Then slide the drive into the port. Connect the keyboard cable and wrist pad cables and check that your drive connects. If good, then screw everything back in and you're done. The drive will shift side to side as there is no rack to hold it in place; just shimmy with cardboard or folded pieces of paper on both sides snugly, close the hard drive cover and you're set.

You may need to move detach and reattach a few easy snap on cables for this, but I find it less destructive then dremeling or cutting. And no mess. The whole thing is a 5-10 min job.

I should have realized this before trying to cram the drive into the tiny opening. Go it all scraped up, including messing up the serial number label so bad that I can't resell the drive. So I was determined to get the drive in. Hope this post saves someone else the trouble.

Good luck,
Simon