SSd in W520

hello i would like a solid state drive in my w520 to boot and run windows and solidworks... i read there can be a 2.5 in drive that would fit (i dont want to sacrifice the DVD). in the maintenantce manual they say it sits in the WWAN... lenovo told me this was my internet wireless card, meaning i cant have my wireless and a HDD at the same time...
was i explained right and if so is there another place where internal ssd can fit in the w520?
thanks
W520 4270CTO 2028QM WINX64 MSATA SSD 16GB

If I am not mistaken, the WWAN card is for celluler based wireless such as Verizon or Sprint wireless internet in the US. WiMax is an added function of one of the WiFi cards for the W520. The WWAN card is not the same, and sits roughly under the 7-8-9 keys on the motherboard and requires a SIM card to be inserted in the SIM slot in the batter compartment to operate.
If you do not have a WWAN card, then that resource can be used for an SSD. There are a variety on the market, and I do not know if all will be supported or compatible with the W520. Were I to have the slot free, I'd go with Intel.
The best way to insure a good transfer from a mechanical HD to a SSD in the drive bay is to clone the factory drive to the new drive. The most successes and easiest experiences are with Acronis Home, although I've used Norton Ghost which comes with the Samsung 830 series drives with no hitches... the Samsung laptop replacement drive kit comes with a USB to SATA adapter for easy cloning and a copy of Ghost. And the Samsungs, available in multiple capacities up to 512 gb run very very well in the 520. I have one in the drive bay and one in the ultrabay. I keep the factory HD as a full backup of the "new computer" settings.
David Gleason. Every T from the T20 to the T61p, W500, W510. Current system: W520 4270-CTO i2820 8GBx4 (corsair), FHD(1920x1080), NVIDIA Quadro 1000M and 2 Samsung 830 512gb SATA III SSD.

Similar Messages

Installing SSD in W520

Just got a W520 with the 500gb HDD with the intention of switching it out for a SSD. My question is what is the best way to install it with the factory settings?
Ive been reading that I can burn the recovery drive to a DVD and boot from that but when I asked Lenovo support they said I would need to buy a recovery cd from Lenovo inorder to get the SSD to work right.
Does anyone have any experience with this? do I need to spend the $60 to get the cd or can I just do it myself?
Ive had a mac forever and am new to PCs so im trying to figure it all out with out messing anything up! Thanks for the help

jordanss wrote:
looking it up it seems to take about an hour and a half? how long did it take when you did it?
to create the recovery disk set? hmmm... don't really remember. i was doing six other things while it cranked away. i just fed it disks as it requested them. my set turned out to be 1 boot disk and 3 add'l disks. probably about 10-11gb all together.
oh, and 'saint'? nah... insomniac is far more accurate!
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I am not a Lenovo employee.

Best SSD for w520 quad core

i have a Crucial C300 128gig in my dock slot now with the factory 500 gig in the hdd slot... the crucial sucks. any good one that works great with the w520, i know a lot are problematic.

Storeagereivew.com did a comparison test of the intel 520 SSD vs Intel 510 vs corsair P 3 vs Crucial C300 in a 2 SSD RAID configuration in a Lenovo W520:
(see the last part of the page
http://www.storagereview.com/intel_ssd_520_raid_review
Intel is known for its reliability.
I also heard from Lenovo that the BIOS team found the issue causing the warm boot delay with Intel 510 SSD, but it will take a while to fix (perhaps a couple months).
W520 4270CTO i7-2820QM Quadro2000M 1920x1080 Display 16GB RAM 2x240GB Intel 510 SSDs (RAID 0) - BIOS 1.42 - PCMark7:4,568
Samsung Series 9 15-inch NP900X4C-A03US - PCMark7: 4674

Crucial m4 128GB SSD Low SSD Speeds W520

Link to picture
Crucial m4 128GB SSD ?
I tested the 256GB in Ultra Bay..also..see speeds.
Is this normal for W520 with M4? SSD Alignment is correct.
Moderator note; picture(s) totalling >50K converted to link(s) Forum Rules

Looks about right to me. In fact your sequential write speeds for the 128GB drive are above the listed spec. Don't expect to get the full listed read/write speeds most of the time, those are best case.

OCZ Vertex 4 512GB SSD on W520 guaranteed BSOD--BEWARE!

Just wanted to make a quick post to let prospective W520 upgraders know about Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) problems that occurrs when using a the 512GB Vertex 4. This is an issue that affects more than just Lenovos (Alienware in particular). When resuming from sleep, the W520 will BSOD 100% of the time. I have posted on the OCX forums along with others. I went ahead and returned the Vertex 4 after I bought it from Amazon, since no amount of troubleshooting would fix it. I am replacing it with the Samsung 512GB since there are many people on the forum who have had success with that.
Bottom line: don't buy a Vertex 4 until Lenovo or OCZ come out with a fix, unless you don't mind testing manufacturer's stuff for free!
W520 CTO BIOS rev 1.37. Core i7-2760QM, 32GB PC3-10600, NVidia Quadro 1000M, Samsung 830 512GB, SanDisk pSSD-S2 32GB, x64 tri-boot: Win2k8R2, Fedora 17, Ubuntu 12.04

I would go with Intel for reliability:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-reliability-failure-rate,2923-9.html
My next machine, which will be 17" Ivy Bridge/Kepler w/120Hz 3D display, will have dual Intel SSDs in RAID0, with probably an mSATA SSD for backup. And if you keep data/docs on a separate partition from the system partition, then you seldom need to backup the system (I dump my data/docs to a NAS each day, which itself is backed up).
The problem with less reliable SSDs is that SSDs tend to fail completely and with no warning, unlike hard drives. So, if avoiding downtime is important to you, then you want one of the more reliable SSDs. Overall, the more reliable SSDs (the orange line & dotted line in the chart, which should include the Intel 520-series SSDs) now appear to be more reliable than hard drives, under heavy use, according to that article.
But, as with any computer-related product nowadays, I would make sure that users say that the current firmware/drivers are stable with your computer, before buying.

SSD and W520

I have installed Lenovo Windows 7 on a W520 with with a Samsung 264 GB SSD. The system will not boot now. Apparently it cannot read the disk inspite of the disk being brand new. What wrong? I rember that disks have two modes.
One is AHC. I wonder if it not set up for the wrong mode?
Renee

You got the china made SSD? it should be 256GB, if it is 264GB then you are in trouble
Just kidding.
Anyway, with window 7, the settings should be AHCI mode under lenovo Bios->Sata. The other mode is compatibility mode. As for why the OS didn't boot, it could be that the firmware of the SSD, the driver of the lenovo or wrong installation of win7.
My top guess is that the SSD is NOT compatible with the lenovo model, there were several forum post with regards to this (ie 256GB non compatibility). The next guess is that you should download drivers such as Intel chipset, Intel Rapid boot from the lenovo support website for your model. Lenovo drivers are custom build (from Intel) and different from Intel driver or the ones that may come on the window 7 installation disc (if you are using a non-lenovo one).

Big Problems with Samsung Series 830 SSD SATA III (256GB) and W520

Hi,
i get my W520 last week with an normal SATA 500 GB Drive, at home i changed it to a Samsung Series 830 SSD SATA III (256GB) and install windows 7 64bit pro via recovery media.
I was wondering, startup was taking very long .... from starting windows to the logon screen 1.45 minutes ... Now i tried a new recovery, same issue, tested the harddisk which is in good state.
I changed back to the 500GB Drive, startup take only 30 seconds around....
Are there any known issues?
Best Wishes
Markus
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Hi,
hope to catch all questions and some additional Information
1. RST is installed
2. BIOS 1.34
3. latest Lenovo Updates are all installed
4. latest Windows Updates are all installed
5. Clean Install i have tried, but first startup has shown the same issue
6. Tried the SSD via main bay and via multibay
7. checked BIOS for AHCI Mode
8. switched to Diagnostic mode (where can i view the report, machine goes driectly further in Booting windows)?
Machine Type is 42844MG
Core i7-2860QM (2.50GHz), 16GB RAM, 500GB 7200rpm HD, 15.6in FullHD LED BL 1920x1080 + Colorimeter, 2GB nVidia Quadro 2000M, CDRW/DVDRW, Intel 6300AGN Wireless, Modem, Bluetooth, UMTS, 1GB Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, Fingerprint reader, Kamera, 9c Li-Ion, Windows 7 Professional (64-Bit)
What speaks again Samsung SSD's, at the moment it is the fastest SDD on the market and so far i've seen no bad rewiews.
I can't find any thread with same (SSD and problem) ... i have seen some SSD issues in another community thread, but not with same symtoms. I don't know where to locate, at the SSD, at W520, whereeever.
Best Wishes
Markus

Intel SSD 530 startup problems on ThinkPad W520 - Bug in SSD or lack of BIOS support?

The are problems with Intel SSD 530 and ThinkPad W520. Many people, including me, are complaining about startup problems ... see this thread also: https://communities.intel.com/thread/44258
One month ago I bought an Intel SSD 530 240GB to replace the stock HDD of my ThinkPad W520 (4270CTO). When I cold-start the laptop everything is fine, but when I restart it from Windows 7 or even CTRL-ALT-DEL, the drive is not found. Both SSD and W520 has the latest firmware/BIOS.
I had no problems with Intel SSD 335 240GB; Windows starts and restart without problem, but with the Intel 530 it fails when I do restart, the BIOS does not find it after a normal reset. I think BIOS implementation for W520 does not support the newer ATA feature called "Device Initiated Power Management (DIPM) for Software Setting Preservation (SSP)". There is a BIOS update for W530 but not for W520.
Should I assume Intel SSD 530 is and will remain incompatible with ThinkPad W520 or wait for a BIOS update?
W520 | i7-2720QM | NV Quadro 2000M

I am also seeing the exact same issue. I have a ThinkPad W520 and a Corsair Force GS using a Sandforce 2200 series controller. According to the Intel SSD thread, there is some incompatibility between that controller and Intel QM77-chips which is causing the issue.
The symptoms for my laptop are the same. SSD is always recognized on cold boot, but effectively never on warm boot / restart. Will we get a BIOS update that fixes this?
I have dual boot configuration with both windows 8 and windows 7. The issue is happening regardless of what OS I issue the restart from.

Probleme SSD 830 512GB

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,
Ich besitze ein MacBook Pro anfangs 2009 2,93 Ghz, 8 Gb ram, Lion 10.7.2 und seit 06.01.2012 eine Samsung SSD aus der 830 Serie mit 512 GB. Nachdem ich die SSD extern angeschlossen und formatiert hatte (Extended Journaled, GUID), habe ich Lion 10.7 installiert. Alles hat soweit einwandfrei funktioniert.
Ich habe die SSD 830 512GB eingebaut und das MacBookPro gestartet. Soweit lief alles wie geplant. Anschliessend habe ich via Migrations Assistend die Daten von der ausgebauten Segaete Momentus XT übertragen. Auch das hat normal funktioniert. Als ich anschliessend das MBP neu starten wollte, haben die Probleme angefangen. Das MBP wollte nicht mehr starten. Es dauerte ungemein lange bis überhaupt etwas passierte, hatte auch die Fehlermeldung Kernel panic. usw.
Ich hab mich dann dafür entschieden, das ganze zu wiederholen jedoch die SSD zuerst in das MBP einzubauen. Dieser Schritt hat nicht funktioniert, denn ich konnte Lion 10.7 gar nicht mehr installieren. Die Installation startete und brach dann mit dem Hinweis, dass das Medium nicht gelöscht werden kann ab. Ich konnte die SSD auch nicht neu formatieren, es ging gar nichts mehr. Also habe ich wieder die Segaete Momentus XT eingebaut.
Können Sie mir sagen, was das Problem ist oder was ich unternehmen kann, damit diese SSD problemlos funktioniert??
Freundliche Grüsse
Marcel Jungi

I don't have a clue as to why the difference. You have the 256GB SSD, I have my 512GB SSD divided into two volumes. I've checked the alignment and all is correct. Here are the numbers from an earlier timeframe:
Perhaps it's a reflection of additional data storage and usage. My earlier benchmark looks very similar to the one you've posted.
UPDATE: CrystalMark results are being distorted by Norton Internet Security. I uninstalled and then reinstalled the software and the numbers immediately jumped up to look like the ones that you've posted. As you can see from the Samsung SSD Magician runs, the drive hasn't really changed much in performance since May, 2012.
Here's a comparison between early May and September using the Samsung SSD Magician:
W520, i7-2820QM, BIOS 1.42, 1920x1080 FHD, 32 GB RAM, 2000M NVIDIA GPU, Samsung 850 Pro 1TB SSD, Crucial M550 mSata 512GB, WD 2TB USB 3.0, eSata Plextor PX-LB950UE BluRay
W520, i7-2760QM, BIOS 1.42 1920x1080 FHD, 32 GB RAM, 1000M NVIDIA GPU, Crucial M500 480GB mSata SSD, Hitachi 500GB HDD, WD 2TB USB 3.0

Intel 520 SATA III SSD causes atapi errors, but stock Hatachi SATA II does not

W520 Received March 2012. Took out stock Hatachi HTS72322A7A365 500GB SATA II drive and replaced with Intel 520-Series 240 GB SATA III SSD also put a second identical SSD in drive bay. All went well until a few days ago, now getting scores of Atapi - Event ID:11 - The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Ide\IdePort0. Either of these two SSDs bring up this error on channel 0 (underneath laptop). NEITHER (NONE) SSD brings up the error in the drive bay.
Put the Hatachi back and no error. What happened over the last few days? Hatachi SATA II no error; is there a W520 hardware problem with very high speed SATA III SSDs? Why the degrade all of a sudden? Bad chip set? BIOS was upgraded to latest, but still errors. Don't think there were any WIN-7 / 64 updates.
Call Lenovo to replace laptop? But NO errors with the stock / supplied SATA II Hatachi, just the SATA III SSD on channel 0, but not channel 1, so do I have a claim? Any ideas? I'd buy the wimpy Lenovo 160GB SSD (it's approved) for channel 0, but it's SATA II not III. SSD or W520?
W520 4282W59 WIN-7-64 i7-2760QM @ 2.40GHz 2401 Mhz, 16GB Memory, NVIDIA Quadro 1000M

I did a hard drive copy from the Intel 520 SSD in chanel 0 (underside laptop) to a new Samsung 830 256GB SSD in channel 1 (Ultra Bay). Remember I get the atapi errors on channel 0 with the Intel 520 SSD in chanel 0. The copy took longer that I thought it would. Then I put the Samsung in chanel 0 and the Intel in chanel 1 UltraBay. Reboot. No atapi errors! The Samsung DOES NEED "enable write caching and turn off buffer flushing" or it performs badly compared to an Intel 520 SSD. The Samsung (using ATTO and AS SSD) comes in at 475-495 MB/s with "enable write caching and turn off buffer flushing". It performs half that if "enable write caching and turn off buffer flushing" is not checked. The Intel SSD performs at 485-505 MB/s no matter if "enable write caching and turn off buffer flushing" is checked or not. These are general observations and are dependant on transfer size, queue depth and so forth, but this observation is repeatable.
So, all things being equal, one might conclude that the Intel 520 SSD is not compatible with the W520. NO. NOT. I put that Intel 520 SSD back into chanel 0 and booted up. Again see atapi errors. Next I did a complete software update from lenovo. Checked and installed all updates, recommended, critical, so forth. Ended up with all that bloatware. Big battery and Wi-Fi icons on notification area task bar... Ran the ATTO and the AS SSD in parallel. No atapi errors. Disk rates way up there at 500 MB/s. Ran MalwareBytes in parallel with MS Security Essential in parallel with ATTO in parallel with AS SSD. No atapi errors and still great disk rates.
Nest removed as much Lenovo bloatware as possible. Reboot. Still NO ATAPI ERRORS. The Intel 520 SSD is better than the Samsung 830 looking at AS SSD and ATTO, but the Samsung is quite respectable.
Solved? Yes mostly. I took another Intel 520 SSD that was always used as a one for one copy of my chanel 0 Intel 520 SSD. I put this other, identical copy, Intel 520 SSD in chanel 0 and again saw atapi errors. I upgraded Lenovo software, but only the one critical update (Intel ACHI SATA Driver 11.2.0.1006). Reboot. No more errors, BUT this (identical copy) Intel 520 SSD only works at SATA 2 rates. ATTO and AS SSD never go higher than 250 MB/s.
I will keep trying and get to the bottom of this. Maybe I'll install all that other Lenovo updates and see if the "copy" Intel 520 SSD goes up to 500 MB/s. Maybe I'll just copy the "working 500 MB/s" Intel 520 SSD to the "copy" Intel520 SSD but this is like giving up. Jimbetto, I would recommend doing what I did. Install ALL Lenovo updates and see if your problems go away. Or, copy to a Samsung 830 and then see if your problems go away.
Any comments from the group?

How to re-install windows from disk

Hi
I have taken lenovo rescue recovery to my external drive sometime ago.
I am planning to upgrade my HDD to SSD and would like to re-install windows freshly from factory recovery.
However, when i tried to create rescue media, it was complaining "Only one Microsoft windows copy" in the system.
This seems due to previous factory backup taken to my external drive.
Now, i want to use the external drive to re-install windows. Please help me how do i re-install after fixing my SSD
Thanks in advance

You should have made a bootable USB in the rescue process. After installing the new SSD, boot into that USB with your external drive (with the data part) plugged in. It may also be possible that the external drive is also the bootable drive, which makes things easier.
After that, you should be in the Rescue and Recovery environment, where you can restore the factory copy of Windows onto your new SSD.
W520: i7-2720QM, Q2000M at 1080/688/1376, 21GB RAM, 500GB + 750GB HDD, FHD screen
X61T: L7500, 3GB RAM, 500GB HDD, XGA screen, Ultrabase
Y3P: 5Y70, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, QHD+ screen

Please help! Major problems (performance and lock-ups) with brand new W520 with Intel 520 SSD

My company primarily uses HP machines but I've been a long time IBM (now Lenovo) fan so I recently had IT purchase me a new Lenovo W520 (product ID 42763LU).
Once the machine arrived I had them do the following:
Remove the 500GB HDD and replace it with an Intel 520 series 240GB SSD
Remove the optical drive and install the 500GB hard drive that came with the machine in the optical bay (with the bay adapter of course)
Format both drives and put a preconfigured windows 7 64-bit image on the SSD
A general summary of the system is the following:
Intel i7-2860QM CPU
8GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro 1000M
Intel 520 240GB SSD (primary HDD) [SSDSC2CW240A3]
Hitachi 500GB HDD (optical bay) [HTS727550A9E365]
Intel Advanced-N 6205 network adapter
TouchChip Fingerprint Scanner
The machine was a few days delayed getting to me due to "hard drive driver issues" (that's what I was told). When I received the machine I immediately noticed that it was much slower than I expected (I have a custom built i5 HTPC at home running windows 7 on a Crucial SATA III SSD that I was comparing it to) and I was experiencing frequent hangs (ranging from 30 seconds to multiple minutes), super long boot times, general “slowness” at times, and occasional lock-ups. Since our "baseline" laptop here at work is the "equivalent" HP workstation my IT guys have been less than helpful in helping me to solve this issue. Being reasonably computer savvy I decided to try to try to fix the issue myself. I performed the following “troubleshooting” steps:
1. One of the first issues (errors) I noticed in the event viewer was errors related to the optical drive. Clearly the image they installed on the machine was not from a machine with the same hardware configuration. So, I decided to just wipe the machine and perform a fresh install of windows 7 from the disks (well, USB). After spending multiple days installing windows, performing updates, making sure all the drivers were current, and installing only the critical software I need, I was disappointed to realize that although I fixed the optical drive errors the machine was still slow, was hanging, and locking up regularly.
2. Removed the cover on the machine and removed/reinstalled the drive to verify it was secure.Everything looked good.
3. Verified the latest firmware is installed on all my Intel hardware. Everything seemed up to date.
4. I performed a number of troubleshooting steps like booting the machine with/without the battery, with/without the HDD in the optical bay, installed/removed from the docking station, etc. and none of these things helped (also a note – occasionally when running on the battery I was hearing a strange “buzz” or “static” sound coming from the area around the SSD).
5. Next I did some internet research and learned quite a few things. First, it sounds like others have had similar problems with this machine and/or SSD combo and there were quite a few options suggested to “fix” these issues. The general consensus for troubleshooting steps were:
5.1. Download and install the latest Intel chipset drivers and AHCI controller drivers (overwriting whatever windows installs during updates).This didn’t fix anything.
5.2. Turn off PCI express link state power management in the power manager. This didn’t fix anything.
5.3. Disable superfetch, prefetch, indexing, defragmentation, page file, system restore, and hibernate. A few of these were already disabled by windows so in those cases I just verified they were disabled in the services and application editor. These things may have slightly increased performance but did not fix the major hang/lockup issues I was having.
5.4. I followed online steps to edit the registry to disable the PCI link power management by adding ports, adding the required variables, and setting them all to 0. This did seem to have fixed the hangs and/or lock-ups but the machine is still much slower than I would expect (boot times are still pretty slow and it does “stutter” when I’m doing more than one thing at a time. Also a note here – I have the Intel SSD toolbox installed and I noticed that it was giving me a warning for DIPM not being optimized. I made the mistake of clicking “Tune!” and then started having the hang/lock-up issues again. I went back into the registry and sure enough the PCI link power management variables for ports 0 and 1 were set back to 1. I set them back to 0 and the hangs have gone away. I will not be “tuning” the DIPM through the Intel SSD toolbox again…
6. I also fixed a couple of other minor errors I was seeing in the event viewer by disabling benign services and/or making slight timeout modifications (I researched each issue on the internet to verify they were benign before I implemented any changes). These fixes didn't seem to do anything other than make some of the errors/warnings go away. So, the list of errors/warnings has become much smaller but I’m still getting the following (maybe an issue, maybe not?):
Event ID 37 for every processor saying that they are in a reduced performance state for xx seconds since the last report
Event ID 10002 - WLAN Extensibility Module has stopped
Event ID 4001 - WLAN AutoConfig service has successfully stopped
Event ID 27 – Intel® 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection link is disconnected
I suspect the WLAN errors have something to do with windows fighting with the Lenovo access connection tools?
7. Since the machine still seemed slow I downloaded the program AS SSD and checked the performance of the SSD. When I compared my performance numbers to the benchmark numbers I found onlineI was very surprised to discover that I’m getting about 50% of the performance that I should (values below are read/write).
Seq: 262.11 / 188.32 (s/b 504.58 / 298.28) [MB/s]
4K: 15.83 / 44.92 (s/b 21.70 / 62.60) [MB/s]
4K-64Thrd: 165.23 / 154.46 (s/b 241.38 / 234.08) [MB/s]
Acc.time: 0.218 / 0.294 (s/b .0186 / 0.208) [ms]
Score: 207 / 208 (s/b 314 / 327)
Overall Score: 533 (s/b 797)
One more note - it seems like my cooling fan is running at a high speed almost all of the time. This is probably one of my power settings (I think I have it set for max performance) but it's even doing this when there is no load (i.e. I'm using IE and just vieweing webpages - like right now).
So, I apologize for such a long post but I’ve spent countless hours researching and troubleshooting this problem and haven’t been able to figure out what the heck is wrong here. Am I missing something simple or do you guys think I have a SSD and/or problem with the machine itself? To say that any and all help would be greatly appreciated would be a massive understatement – I’m on the verge of pulling my hair out and I really need this machine working as quickly as possible!
Please let me know if you have any suggestions and/or need additional information. Thanks in advance for your help!
-Erik

Lol gotcha about the drive as an option. I didn't go SSD with mine. Do you have the latest firmware on your drive? It is supposed to be v1.97. Just checking (ah and I see item 3 so guess so). Do you have the SSD drive toolbox software installed?
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&ProductFamily=Solid+State+Drives+and+Cach...)
Seems some useful tools are in there. I can't say much beyond that with the drive. Oh. Why does your fan always run at high speed? Can you describe that? I mean, are we troubleshooting the right kind of issue? Is there anything else going on with your system? I saw about the reduced core speeds message. what are your system loads like? Anything causing high cpu utilization? Could be something other than the drive causing your low numbers and lockups.

W520 support for SATA III or 6GB with Vertex 3 240GB SSD

I need a laptop that supports 16GB memory, HD display (1920 X 1080) and SATA 3 with 6Gb speeds to leverage my existing Vertex 3 240GB SSD.
Looking up PSREF, I find the W520 specs state SATA 3Gb/s (SATA II?) while the chipset is QM67 which is supposed to support SATA III 6Gb/s.
So the question is, does the W520 support SATA 3 at 6Gb/s? I need the throughput to leverage the throughput of the Vertex 3 240GB SSD for multiple VM's on my laptop.
Thanks and regards
Sarge Thomas
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Just for the record i been using several SSDs with the W520 including the OCZ Vertex 3 and OCZ Vertex 3 max and they both fit fine with the rubber rails in the W520. Just don't mount the case that is normally around the HDD/SSD. You won't need that case anyway when using the SSD in the W520. Use only the rubber rails and the SSD will fit fine and should be seated fine as well.
-gan

W520 - installing a 7mm SSD in ultrabay adapter?

I've bought a 9.5mm Crucial m4 256GB SSD for my W520 for some time and now I'd like to get a Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD (http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Electronics-2-5-Inch-Solid-MZ-7PD256BW/dp/B009NB8WRU/), which has a height of 7mm.
I've got an Ultrabay adapter and I've been using my original 320GB WD3200BEKT with this adapter and everything seems to be fine. But that drive is 9.5mm in height as well. Now my question is, could I install a 7mm SSD into this adapter?
Any help is appreciated.

Yes.

W520 CRASHES SSDs WHEN WAKING UP FROM SLEEP MODE

I bought a W520 about a year ago and have gone through 2 SSDs (new Crucial M4 256GB drives), each of which died when the machine was coming out of sleep mode. I had problems with the W520 not coming out of sleep mode properly since I receive it, but since it was intermittent, I didn't send it in. After this second drive crashed (when the W520 was struggling to come out of sleep mode), I shipped it to the depot and they replaced the motherboard. It might be an isolated incident, but wanted to pass it along in case others are experiencing a similar problem.

SSDee wrote:
@Thor - I too like Acronis although one could use Windows Backup if so desired.
Sleep mode - I use sleep mode for scheduled recording of TV shows in Windows Media Center. If I shut down, no recording.
Yea, waking up to do a recording is certainly a valid scenario. I gave up on Windows Media Center right before they came out with an XBOX that is actually quiet and could be used as an extender. We've been a TiVo family since those noisy XBOX days.
Regarding sleep/hibernate, I just got tired of my machines waking in the Lenovo dock and having to reset application position, screen resolutions, and all of the other crap that seems to happen to ThinkPads on a resume. That doesn't even take into account the black screen of death or other reliability issues I've seen over the years.
I am firmly a shutdown guy now. It's clean and I know what I get when I press the power button again. With 15-25 second boots and fast I/O, the reliability outweighs the perceived time savings.
We haven't discussed what might be corrupting the original posters file system. That is disconcerting. Sounds like a Crucial M4 firmware issue. If that is the culprit, there's going to be hell to pay on the mSATA M4 based Ultrabooks assuming it has the same bug.

SSd in W520

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