9.5mm SSD in X220 Solved! (Not for the faint of heart)

Hey all - I was in the same position that many of you are in: I just bought a brand new X220, stuffed it full of RAM, and was trying to figure out the best SSD to put in to bring the machine to perfection. I had a OCZ Vertex 2 I was looking to slot in, but it was a no-go.

The problem: The 7mm SSD choices are limited. As numerous other threads have pointed out, the 7mm constraint really decreases the options; Intel 320 (or 310) or Crucial C300/C400 (aka Micron M4) were the front runners, when all I wanted was something along the lines of the Intel 520.
I didn't want to buy a "stopgap" SSD - meaning a 7mm drive which was of only decent performance (ie Intel 320) with the plans of replacing it later when a high-performance 7mm SSD is finally available.

Initally I didn't want to void any warranties, but the sight of my new X220 sitting there looking lonely and helpless won me over. The thought of just pulling the PCB from the SSD and putting it in naked creeped my out a bit, so I figured "If I'm going to void the warranty, go big or go home.
So what did I do? I got out my phillipshead screwdriver, ruler, and dremel.

I removed the silver "top plate" from the bare Vertex 2, breaking the warranty sticker and then carefully unscrewed and removed the PCB from the case. After some measuring and comparing with the 7mm HDD which I removed from the X220, I figured out that the "roof" of the case (meaning the large rectangular side which has all the OCZ logos etc) is just over a 2.5mm thick. I traced a line around the edges and went to town with the dremel, removing the entire top. I made sure to keep the cuts flush, as it preserved the threading for both the PCB and the top plate which I initially removed. After about 45 min of careful grinding, three cutting wheels, and a number of concerned looks from my soon-to-be wife, i was done. I was basically left with three sides of a rectangle, the inside of which had all of the threading for drive mounting. And how high were the edges? Yep, almost exactly 7mm. Boom. (I really didn't think this was going to work).
I screwed the PCB in, put the top plate back on (which also added some more structural integrity to the "drive") and easily screwed it into the X220's drive caddy. I put the rubber bumpers back on, and it slide in without a problem. It doesn't shift, bounce, jiggle, or move in any way inthe drive bay.
I'm still hoping to purchase a high end 7mm SSD at some point in the future, but this will tide me over I've included pics of most of the process.. the final shot with the top plate got deleted somehow.. I may pull out the drive to get another shot, but I'm not sure if I want to tempt fate.
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Whats up Macgyver.

*Golf Clap*

 

Yikes man I was considering something like this but with the seemingly poor reliability of OCZ drives I decided to just wait it out a bit longer till Intels get cheaper. I wish you luck, and I hope you won't need the warranty you voided.

 

Thanks - agreed. I don't store much data locally (I Dropbox anything I'm working on, or save it on my own "cloud" server). I haven't had any problems with the drive yet - I had had it in a different machine since November; firmware is all updated and diagnostics say things are A.O.K.. but i still have my fingers crossed!

 

I wonder what's up with this OCZ reliability myth. Out of dozens of these drives among friends I have yet to find an example of a failure so many people are talking about. Isn't it a bit exaggerated?

Today I'd get Vertex 3 over Intel 510 anytime any day, performance wise.

Actually.... I'd get Intel 320 over Intel 510 anytime any day, performance wise. These Marvel's are not marvelous at all, especially concerning IOPS and not raw speed rates.


M.

 

Articles like Coding Horror: The Hot/Crazy Solid State Drive Scale help fuel the discussion.

 

That's how it is. In fact, I find any kind of storage unreliable and I would never resort to the lack of backup plan altogether. Dozens of spinning hard drivers failed on me in the worst possible moments of my work. Many times I did not have the full backup at hand.

If you don't want your bu...neck hurt, make backups and don't worry about drives failing.

The only gigantic drawback is the price if an SSD fails - replacing a conventional hard drive nowadays is pretty much cheap. Not so with an SSD.


M.

 

Agreed. So far (knock on wood), I haven't had a drive fail. In fact, only recently have I had a traditional drive fail and it was really my fault. The 200GB HDD in question was getting old (Sept. 2007) and should have been pulled from use.

Thankfully I had a good backup of the OS and apps from two weeks prior, and all of the users data from a few days prior. The only changes not in the backups were email. But that was stored server side so there was no loss.

 

I had a friend who bought a Vertex 60GB and it died. In addition, on Newegg a lot of the OCZ drive reviews have a significant number of people reporting drive failures, but it appears this is not nearly as big of a problem as Intel. I don't have proper statistics to cite, but for one thing RMA is always a hassle and an SSD is a lot of money to replace should yours go without warranty.

Even though Intel drives are supposed to be reliable, I still don't trust them so I'll be backing up of course.

 

wonderful fabrication job. Once I saw a buddy take a plasma cutter to the frame on my first race car, I have been pretty OK with fabrication if the fabricator has some skill and it appears you do.

Perry