Boot from ExpressCard SSD - x200 Tablet

I posted this on the Lenovo forums as well, but I figured I'd post it here as well (this community seems to be far more active):

I am looking into getting an SSD for my x200 Tablet. Ideally, I would like this to be in an ExpressCard format so that I can have the combination of a fast/small SSD for my OS and a large/cheap HDD for data files.

I have found an ExpressCard SSD that looks very promising. This MTRON 16GB SLC SSD is in an ExpressCard 34mm format, is relatively affordable, promises solid performance (100 MB/s symmetric), and most importantly connects via the PCI-Express as opposed to USB bus. The drive also appears to be bootable (at least in theory) and I am curious as to whether this would work. Verbatim also has a similar product that is supposed to be released by the end of February ( announcement), but it's less desirable as it's MLC and has a comparitively slow write speed (30 MB/s).


Principle questions:

1. Does the ThinkPad x200 support the option of booting from the ExpressCard slot (I know HDD, USB, and SDHC are possible)?
2. Does anyone have any experience with these kind of SSDs (ideally PCI-Express attached ExpressCard drives)?
3. What tricks are required to get Windows (ideally Windows 7 x64) and your primary applications to fit in a 16GB package?
4. Does anyone have any alternate suggestions of how to accomplish the combo of a small/fast OS drive and a large/cheap data drive on the x200 Tablet?

 

Booting from an expresscard must be supported by the bios. Most laptops don't support this and I doubt it'll work for the X200. Hopefully other X200 owners can chime in and confirm/disprove this.

 

Best way to confirm is to go into the BIOS and look at the boot order list. If Expresscard appears in there, then it is supported by the BIOS. Otherwise, there's a high chance that it is not supported.

 

Bump. Anyone know if this is possible?

 

It technically will work, but since no one tried it before, so nobody can tell.
My suggestion is to buy it first(if the price is fine for you), then try it. Even if is not working as a start up disk, Yo can still keep it as a second storage option. Personally, I think buying a Intel X25-M 80 GB at $360 from Newegg and put your large capacity HDD in harddrive adapter in ultrabase is a better choice. You can keep all your document files in the SSD when you are on the road, and all media files in the HDD when you at home with ultrabase. That way you could completely take advantages of X200's portability and SSD's amazing speed.(especially reading speed on X25-M)

 

I am strongly considering taking the risk, and just buying it. It's definitely a little pricey ($10/GB) for a simple storage disk, but it would be great as an OS drive due to its speed.

I would consider getting either the Intexl x-25M or the 64GB Samsung SLC drive that originally shipped with the x300; however, it's not ideal with my situation. I don't have the ultrabase, and don't really need the storage at home (I have a desktop with 2TB+ storage [I can access this over 802.11N], plus a PS3 for playback of media at home). The concern is simply taking a large amount with me on the road.

If I can't get this hybrid storage to work, I would need to go all solid. This would be a 64-80GB main SSD, a 32GB SDHC card, and/or a cheaper ExpressCard SSD for storage. These extras would push the total price far higher, and I would still have less storage space.

 

How much storage space do you need?

Even if you can get the hybrid solution to work, I guess you need to ask yourself if the price and hassle of that decidedly non-ideal solution is worth it for the relatively small period of time it will be until better options are available for you. Consider that 6 months ago $170 would buy you a entry-level 32GB SSD (OCZ core) whereas today you can get double that capacity (60GB) for $100 (OCZ Solid) with way better performance than its entry-level predecessors. If we extrapolate just 6 months into the future...who knows what will be available. We do know that Sandisk will soon be releasing their G3 SSDs ($249 for 120GB, 200MB/s read and 140MB/s write with a controller designed in-house). I think we can shortly count on 256GB drives being available that are affordable if not cheap by today's standards.

If you really want some fast OS storage in the interim, maybe you should check out one of the cheaper normal 2.5" SSD options available in a smaller capacity (32 - 64GB) and just grin and bear toting a little 2.5" external drive or using an online storage solution for 6 months - 1 year. I suggest getting one of the cheaper SSDs (not Samsung or Intel) simply because it seems to me that *all* of today's SSD offerings will be so terribly out of date in just 6 - 12 months that the $350 investment required by Samsung or Intel for what amounts to only marginal real-use performance for most people is just not worth it unless you have silly amounts of disposable income or your company/parents/sugarmummy/criminal enterprises are funding your hardware purchases. Of course, I don't know if you fit the mold of "most people" or if you would be one of those that sees a real benefit in the performance advantages of the Intel and Samsung drives outside of running benchmarks...you decide!

FWIW, I chose the latter options and picked up a $100 60GB OCZ Solid Series drive to tide me over.

 

From what I'd read, the Intel X-25M SSD isn't quite a mature product yet, and its performance dips erratically. I'd recommend that you stay with a Mtron Mobi SLC, in either the Expresscard/34 or 2.5" SATA form. I've seen some VERY good prices on them while shopping around, and they should cost you no more than twice the cost of a MLC SSD for the same capacity.

 

That was my thought as well. It seems Intel achieved great performance with an MLC drive due to some creative tricks with their controller. However, some of these tricks (e.g. write combining) have long term performance issues that are very hard to fix.

As a result, I definitely would like an SLC drive if possible as they seem to be largely free from these kind of controller nightmares. However, the cost of SLC flash is so high (usually >$10 per GB) that a hybrid storage (SSD & HDD) method would be ideal. However, if you have seen a good quality SLC SSD in 2.5" format at a decent price, by all means tell me about it.

Unfortunately, I have not heard good news on using an ExpressCard as an OS drive. Mark Hopkins over at Lenovo forums does not believe the BIOS currently supports this feature and he is generally very knowledgeable on these things.

 

Interesting. Considering that many ExpressCard SSD's actually connect to the USB bus, and that these systems should be able to boot from USB devices (I'm just assuming they can), that would mean that one could boot from such an ExpressCard drive, but still possibly not from one that actually connects to the ExpressCard bus (that's the PCI Express bus, right?).

 

Samsung 64GB SLC for $199 - 10% using code "geekbert"

LINK

$180 is a pretty good price IMO for a reliable SLC drive. I don't know if 64GB is enough storage space for you though. This Samsung drive is also not super fast.

 

64GB is pushing it a little, but I could probably make it work (augment capacity with SDHC and/or ExpressCard storage). The price is also quite reasonable because most of the 64GB SLC drives I've seen have been >$500 (e.g. this Rebadged Samsung).

Is this the same, or a very comparable, drive to the one that originally shipped with the x300?

Also, the performance seems very good. My preference is to find a drive that is nearly symmetric and stable. This SLC drive (as well as the MTron 34mm ExpressCard) matches that by being 100MB/s read and 80MB/s write (I assume these numbers are stable throughout the drive and at many sizes due to the SLC technology). I do not care about ultra high sequential read speeds (e.g. the 250MB/s+ read Intel X-25M) if the write speed isn't equivalent (<70MB/s on the Intel x-25M) as I'd never be able to appreciate the sequential read throughput.

 

The SSD in the X300 was an SLC Samsung AFAIK. The one at geeks for $180 is either the same drive that has shipped in the X300 or a newer version. I think this exact drive is currently shipping in several notebooks from Dell and Lenovo.

From the reading that I've done the Samsung SLC drives are hard to criticize in terms of performance and stability. Even the mighty X-25 has purportedly been exhibiting inconsistent performance lately (although I think the synthetic environments achieving those results may not have much validity).

 

I'm not sure what's up with the price of the Samsung SLC drives, but now even Newegg has the 64GB for $175 - this time for the 1.8" version. Weren't you kind of looking for a good 1.8" drive Jon?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147056

 

That's a great find.

Best guess is that Samsung is lowering the price on these drives as they have a new high performance (220 read, 200 write) drive coming out very shortly. However, the new drive is MLC, so I might just go with the older 64GB SLC drive (especially at these price points).

Now I just need to find a good price on the 1.8" to 2.5" storage converter. Or, buy the 2.5" drive off Geeks.com.

 

Jon-

I see that you have a 64GB *SLC* SSD on your signature. Did you recently purchase a drive? I'm curious which you ended up buying, and if you bought the small Samsung SLC SSD off of NewEgg, how do you like it, and was it a hassle to install?

I'm currently running XP Tab Ed w/ intentions of finding a Windows 7 Act Key, but I want to get an SSD first. I'm a medical student in Detroit and need excellent battery life w/speed, min. 6 hrs active in class/day. Still there is always time to nerd out online. Thanks!

-Matt

 

I bought the 1.8" Samsung SLC off Newegg. You need part 42W8019 from Lenovo ( IBM parts store) to make it work (1.8" Micro-SATA to 2.5" SATA), but aside from that it's very easy. I did a clean install of Windows 7 Beta (a release candidate should be coming soon), and had no problems installing it.

I haven't done heavy battery testing yet (I just installed it last night) but I am very impressed with the drive already. It cut down on the noise from my notebook considerably (I have to put my ear right over the exhaust to hear the fan moving very slowly; there is NO OTHER NOISE). System boot time and general performance is extremely good. Windows boots in <15 seconds, and hibernate/resume is also <15 seconds (it was >60 on my 320GB 5400 RPM drive). General felt performance is also very good, I have not felt any slowdowns at all, and applications install extremely fast.

You also gain a reduction in weight. The 1.8" SSD in converter is <50 grams; conversely, my 2.5" HDD with rubber rails is >100 grams (I have pictures on a scale that I will post soon).

I highly recommend you make the upgrade. Unfortunately, the <$200 bargains on this drive (geeks.com and newegg) appear to be sold out. So you will either need to pay more, select a different drive, or wait for another sale (Samsung is releasing a new high speed MLC drive soon, so this SLC drive may go on a fire sale).

 

Would this drive work? It is 2.5 and considering the I just paid 48 dollars for the part and the Samsung drive is 175, making 225. Perhaps it would be worth the extra $100 for the Intel?

 

Intel SSDSA2MH080G1C5 X25-M 80GB MLC 2.5-Inch 9.5mm Solid State Drive

Sorry, forgot the name of the drive in the last post

 

The Intel x25-M will work fine, but it DOES NOT REQUIRE THE ADAPTER. The x25-M is a 2.5" drive and uses the same rubber rails as a standard HDD. If you want to use the adapter, you should look for the Intel x18-M (18=1.8" 25=2.5").

Also, be aware that the Intel SSD is MLC. As a result, it offers fewer erase cycles, uses slightly more energy, is highly asymmetric (reads much faster than writes), and does suffer some long term performance degradation (cleared by issuing the "secure erase" command). However, the Intel x-25M does offer superior read and small random write speeds due to a controller that employs write combining and parallel reads.

 

To those here who own or are otherwise knowledgeable on the MTRON 16GB SLC SSD ExpressCards (MSD-EXCD3034), I have an open thread on the forum (see this post especially) where the search for additional storage space has largely begun to mirror the content in this thread. I have a few lingering questions about this card though, and if you don't mind I am just going to copy the highlights rather than restate everything:

"Would the 'MTron 16GB SLC SSD' ( Model number MSD-EXCD3034?) sit flush with the outside of the tablet's case? Going by a vendor's website (it appears they have new models in stock), the presence of a plastic end cap with status lights seems to suggest it would not:...

Also, from their detailed specifications sheet (.pdf), they provide all the dimensions, but I have never used an ExpressCard before, and could not find the dimensions of a typical ExpressCard slot, so I can't piece together how much if any overhang there would be (it does at least seem to have the standard 34mm width):...{Length is 92mm}...

Should it overhang, would that piece possibly be detachable?...

Update:...I did find dimensions on the ExpressCard.org Standards website:...{Length is 75mm}...

So assuming this is the distance to be flush with the X200t's case, there is 17mm (2/3 ") excess on the MTRON card. Can anyone confirm this? And for anybody who has owned oversized ExpressCards, are the projecting plastic tips fragile (that has been my experience ages ago with wireless PC Card adapters)?..."

After most of those ellipses are pictures to be found the linked post.

 

I'm purchasing the Intel drive (X25-m) 80gb. What has sold me is the small file random write performance of the drive in comparison to other SSDs. All SSD drives are all prone to degradation, however from studies it appears that the Intel drive degrades to a lesser degree than other drives. The Intel drive truly stands out as far as performance and appears to be a worth while investment for the long run. Anandtech as a great article here.

 

I'm going to buy an Intel SSD for my T61, and since the X18 and X25 are exactly the same price (in Sweden) I tought I'd order the 1.8" and the 2.5">1.8" adaptor from lenovo, as it's more flexible if I decide to replace the notebook with one that only takes 1.8" ssds.

I've looked at the pictures in this thread and some of the X18, and it seems to me the samsung SSD has a thinner edge, and because of that I'm not sure the X18 would fit in the adaptor. The X18 case looks thinner though, and because of that the edge appears thicker in comparison, but I'd like to be sure.

Adaptor
X18

Has someone tried using a X18 in this adaptor (42W8019)?
Would the older one (42W7888) fit better?

Any help appreciated.

 

I'm pretty sure that either of the adapters works fine. Lenovo only stocks 1.8" SSDs and those are the only converters available so they should work with any 1.8" SSD.

I have the 42W8019 (see the SSD link in my sig) and it works great in both my laptop and desktop with the Samsung SSD. The Intel drive should work just as well.

 

Hey, I've purchased and kitted out a X200 Tablet.

I have a 128GB Samsung SSD, but I'm wondering if its worthwhile to move my %Temp, browser history, etc. off of this drive? What would people recommend?

At the moment its zippy and i'm happy, but i don't want to accelerate ssd decline if i can help it.

I do not want anything that's intrusive however, I'd look for something that's internal or fits flush. What options do I have?

Any recommendations? Should I bother?

 

I wouldn't bother. Your %temp and browser history will perform better off an SSD than anything else. Additionally, your 128GB Samsung SSD will likely perform far better than almost any Expresscard based solution. Additionally, most expresscards are NOT flush.

I also wouldn't worry too much about SSD decline. The wear leveling algorithm should prevent, or at least delay for sufficiently long time, most of that.

 

thanks jon! Appreciate the answer.

So what about extended storage? I'm a build manager, so i tend to be building, compiling, playing, etc. Storage always becomes tight, and although i try and put my work and documents in svn, i'd still be interested in hearing how people manage their space?

i was thinking about building a 16GB SDHC card, there anything that can go in the expresscard for storage, say of documents or images or things that aren't necessarily speed intensive?