T60 & Mini PCIe SSD?

Hello,
I have a Thinkpad T60, Type 2007-C95. For the sake of performance, I was thinking about adding a Mini PCIe SSD and using it in addition to the hard drive. (OS on the SSD, HDD for storage) Specifically, I wanted to get a 16GB SuperTalent SATA Mini PCIe SSD. (Model FPM16GRSE, newegg link)
While doing some research, I learned that the T60's BIOS whitelists at least one of the PCIe slots. Apparently this is to limit what devices can be used in the slot. From my research, the general consensus appears to be that the PCIe slot that the wireless card is in, is certainly whitelisted, but the status of the other PCIe slot is unknown/untested.
My question is will the SSD I have chosen work in my T60?
Thanks!

Hi
Yes these drives are popular with Netbooks. However, they use a mini-PCI-express slot, which is a standard. (I could use this on my desktop if I wanted) I know the T60 has an availible mini-PCIe slot, so therotically, it should work. But I have heard that the BIOS of the T60 restricts what devices can be used in that slot...
The end configuration would be a 16GB SSD drive for the OS and my 100GB 2.5in hard drive for data storage. The access tims on the SSD would be insane compared the hard drive and I'd still have enough space for storage.
Thanks for the article. I've already read it, but it is an extremely informative article. However, I don't think these drives use a JMicron controller.... Not that I have any evidance of that, but I assume the JMicron controllers are only in larger, faster, and more expensive drives. As long as it doesn't stutter.... I haven't seen any reports on that though, so I think it's safe.
Thanks for your reply!

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Mini pcie ssd - x120e

Hello everyone.
Just wondering if I can use the seperate mini pci for adding a mini pci ssd. Is this possible? Was reading for some samsung pcis that have the sata capability embedded and will offer the functionality..
Please let me know.
Thanks!

I had the same idea, for my X200.
The idea was good, but the mini PCI express definition is just wrong.
The so called mini pci express disk are just, mSata disks with a couple of scrambled pins, there isn't a sata controller on them.
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G500 half mini PCIE ssd??

Hey Lenovo Community
I recently purchased a new G500 i5 3230m+radeon 8750m on the 30th December, yesterday I added an extra 4gb 1600 ram
and saw a that there is a half mini PCIE wireless LAN card, I can sacrifice that and put a half mini PCIE ssd, will it work or do I need to do something in the BIOS? That is my main concern.
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hi jcagara08,
Welcome to Lenovo Community Forums!
I believe this will work as the miniPCIE in your system supports Data signaling for both WLAN and SSD.
It should be detected right away once rebooted.
Replacing HDD with SSD.
If your Operating System is Above Windows 8, you wont have an option to create Recovery CD using the One key Recovery,
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Regards
Solid Cruver
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X120 + mini PCIe SSD CoreStore MV

X120e has no mSATA mini PCIe compatibility, so Intel 310 SSD will be of no use for creation of high speed SSD + HDD system.
But Super Talent CoreStore MV has standard mini PCIe interface, so it can be detected and used by notebooks with no mSATA support. The only problem is booting of OS from it as X120e bios has only PCI LAN boot option.
Is it possible to leave HDD as the boot source in bios but only with boot sector, which will redirect to SSD, where Windows will be actually installed?
Another option is to push Lenovo to add PCI SSD to boot options in bios. The guys with Dell notebooks have succeeded in this question and got an updated bios from their tech. support...

Hello,
All I can think of is that you would have to try purchasing the Super Talent CoreStore MV mSATA mini PCIe SSD and experimenting. I would strongly suggest buying from a reseller that has a good returns policy, in case it does not work.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
I am a volunteer and neither a Lenovo nor a Microsoft employee. • Dexter is a good dog • Dexter je dobrý pes
S230u (3347-4HU) • X220 (4286-CTO) • W510 (4318-CTO) • W530 (2441-4R3) • X100e (3508-CTO) • X120e (0596-CTO) • T61p (6459-CTO) • T43p (2678-H7U) • T42 (2378-R4U) • T23 (2648-LU7)
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S10e bootable from mini PCIe SSD?

Hi
I'd like to keep the SATA bay reserved for a regular hard drive for storage capacity (using the S10e as companion for camera) but also speed up boot time with a SSD.
Is it possibe to boot the S10e from a mini PCIe SSD card with SATA controller on the card, i.e.
http://www.amazon.com/Super-Talent-2PCI--SATA2-FPM32GLSE/dp/B002EJ3HQO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=131101...
I am aware that Intels new SSD with mini PCIe connector but no controller will not work
Rgds/Kjeld Olesen

Hi again,
to clear your quest , you want to remove the WLAN minipci-e card and install a minipci-e SSD instead ,
... that will not work at all not recognized from BIOS, will only recognize WLAN cards ... and even when ...there is no boot from that device...
one other way would be the Express Card Slot 34 on the right side , but there is no boot option again ...
...by the way 2.5" harddrive with 9.5 mm high with 1 TB capacity is available and recognized 100% by your Ideapad ,
... enough for huge pictures and faster than origin harddrive ...
regards and Godaften! til danmark
KalvinKlein
Thinkies 2x X200s/X301 8GB 256GB SSD @ Win 7 64
Ideas Centre A520 ,Yoga 2 256GB SSD,Yoga 2 tablet @ Win 8.1

U150 mini PCIe SSD

Hi,
I just got one of the U150's ... the one with the u7300 cpu.
I would like to add an SSD to it and I would like to know if any are compatible.
I already discovered that 70mm cards don't fit :-( clearly only 50 mm will.
I was going to try the OCZ devices.
Do the 50mm devices for Dell's work?
Steve

Steve--I really appreciate the information. I was unaware of wireless N and the Lenovo. My wireless works flawlessly both in Starbucks (free WI-fi with card) other coffee shops and on both my home network and an Ethernet network, but I don't know anything about "back-ports" or whether it is N or G. Can you give me an advice on how to check this or measure the speed of connection in Ubuntu?
   Like the other correspondents I remain curious about the 50 mm mini-PCie SSD and any further information would be appreciated.
   The graduate student who helped me set up Ubuntu gave more of the space on the hard disk to Windows 7-than Linux-is there a good reason to take some of the space and re-allot it. Any advice on software that you use with Ubuntu? I've been looking for a good benchmarking utility with a gnu (I think that's the term for a graphic interface) so I can measure the speed of the e-sata drives and Usb drives attached. I was able to blunder my way into installing Hebrew and Greek language interfaces which work fine with Open Office now. I still can't get a utility for transforming the Postscript fonts I have on my Macs into open type or OTF to work properly.
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   MJM

Dm4 mini-PCIe slot -- SSD or Bluetooth?

I purchased a Pavilion dm4 1173cl from Costco in November. I would like to add a small SSD to the mini-PCIe slot (designated for use by WWAN module in service manual) to use for source-code and SQL Server databases (both presenting a usage patterns of high random-IO, which benefit from SSD).
I would be keeping the original 500GB 7K drive as boot/os and general app installation, only placing items that would benefit my development experience on the SSD. In other words Boot-time and application launch performance are fine from the spinning drive, I just want to speed up a few specific (high random-IO) things by using an SSD.
in particular, I'm looking at the 80GB Intel mini-PCIe SSD (available at NewEgg by searching for SSDMAEMC080G2C1).
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Any info appreciated.

Ok, finally found some more info about this. Turns out mini-PCIe slots are anything but standard. Instead, mini-PCIe is a reference to a physical slot configuration, but manufacturers are taking great liberties with which of the pins they actually wire-up. mSATA (which the above-linked Intel SSD utilizes) is one such customization of the mini-PCIe slot, others being USB, PATA (parallel ATA/IDE hard-drive), and who knows how many others... all overloading the use of the 8+18 mini-PCIe connector.
Since this slot is desgnated for use with WWAN adapter, I'm doubtful it's configured as mSATA to enable use of an SSD... Which presents another interesting issue... since the dm4 1173cl model didn't come with the WWAN module, they didn't even bother soldering in the slot (just as they don't include the SIM card reader nor WWAN antennae in the screen housing). There are solder contacts on the board, but no card connector. I should have cracked the case open before spending time researching this, rather than relying on pictures from the service manual which covers models that do include the WWAN module.

X121e, other uses for WWAN mini PCIe slot?

Does anyone know whether the mini PCIe slot in the X121e that the optional WWAN card goes in can be used for other cards?
I'm aware of the whitelist, which had been suggested may only apply to wireless devices (e.g. WLAN and WWAN) - although I'm not sure whether that's certain (i.e. doesn't apply for non-wireless devices).
I've heard some people have tried mSATA devices in this slot with no success (which isn't suprising as whilst mini PCIe is physically compatible with mSATA it isn't electrically, and so you need mSATA support in the hardware). However I've been wondering about mini PCIe SSD cards and whether they would work. I've heard that they're not brilliant when compared to mSATA devices - however I can't afford to get a large SSD for this machine, and in general, people don't need to store all their MP3/videos on SSD, as the best benefit comes with the OS and applications being stored on the SSD, with user data being fine on an HDD. My using a mini PCIe SSD, I could potentially put the OS etc onto a cheaper/smaller SSD, with the hard drive for 'data'.
Has anyone tried this, or any other non-wireless mini PCIe devices in the X121e?
Thanks

Might be of interest to you that I tried a half mini pcie micro sd card reader in my X301. It would allow 64gb if it worked. However I got an error message on boot up - can't remember exactly what it was. Other than that the only other option was the intel turbo memory which was of little benefit to me.

SSD in Mini-PCIe slot on mid-2009 MacBook Pro

Hi all
I've just bought a mid-2009 MacBook Pro (the one with a 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo and 9400M and 9600M GT).
I want to add an SD to the current mechanical storage to install OS X and programs on. I don't want an Optibay as I would rather keep the optical drive so I am now looking at the Mini PCI-Express SSD drives. Currently the Airport card is in that slot, and I can replace that with a small USB Wi-Fi dongle.
My question is does the slot run at full speed (i.e. 1x or 2x, as I hear some run at USB 2.0 speeds only), and is it fully-functional or has Apple limited it to the Airport cards only, as Toshiba do with some of their laptops?

I'm not talking about the ExpressCard slot, I'm talking about the Mini PCI Express slot. I haven't opened the mid-2009 model yet but I presume it has a Mini PCIe slot with a Mini PCIe Airport card in with the aerials surrounding the display, like 99% of laptops and the other MacBooks?

Using ssd in mini pci-e for U260

I saw the post about installing an ssd into the ideapad u260 http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/IdeaPad-Y-U-V-and-Z-series/Ideapad-U260-Installing-an-SSD/m-p/483963#M39...,
but that is technically beyond what I'm willing to do at this point, and I'd like to keep a large drive for data, and use ssd for OS, etc.
My laptop has a Mini PCI-e, that I can't imagine using for anything, and I can get mini pci-e drive with mSata controllers apparently fairly reasonably priced. http://www.amazon.com/MyDigitalSSD-64GB-50mm-Bulletproof-mSATA/dp/B004X5YAP4/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronic...
But I'm wondering
1) will this work with a u260
2) will it actually fit IN the slot?? Or will it end up sticking out of the side of the computer
3) (this is a bit sad), how do you get the PCI slot open? I see it on the left-side, but the cover doesn't want to seem to come off. Why would Lenovo put the slot there and then just hide it behind this peice of plastic?
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Hi pedalpete and welcome to the community,
Are you sure that isn't the multi-card reader, for SD cards and such?
Try pushing the cover in and it should spring back out if it's the card reader.
Dave
T430u, x301, x200T, x61T, x61, x32, x41T, x40, U160, ThinkPad Tablet 1838-22R, Z500 touch, Yoga Tab 2 Windows 8.1, Yoga Tablet 3 Pro
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Install Intel 310 Soda Creek SSD into X201 mini-PCIe

I'm wanting to install this 80GB SSD into the avaliable mini-PCIe slot in my X201 (3249-CTO) :
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167040
or
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167039
I've looked everywhere, but i cant find the answers to some of the remaining questions that i have before i make the purchase.
- Does the x201 BIOS allow boot from a mini-PCIe mSATA device?
- Once installed, will the BIOS determine this as a non-whitelist device and give an 1802 error upon bootup?
- ThinkWiki says that the secondary mini PCIe slot may be usable or unusable, but based on what?
- http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:X201
- For this, i will place another mini-PCIe Wifi module that i have from an X61
Looking forward to all of your posts!
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Hi guys. I don't think that will ever work. Only the new systems (Huron River-based) coming out this year will support the mSATA 80GB SodaCreek drives.
The planar has to have a special line run from mini-PCIe to SATA for this drive to be recognized/bootable - so older planars like X201 are just not compatible. I know the planars in all the coming ThinkPad Classic (T,W, and X) will support it and the new Edge E220s & E420s will. But I am not sure if the lower cost systems like regular Edge 14/15, L/SL-series, or X120e will support it or not.

Upgrading T60 HDD to SSD

I have a Lenovo T60 (2623-KFU) for about 3 years now, and it's still going strong with no real problems. I was thinking about some SSD solutions. Is it be possible (and not void the warranty) to replace the hard drive with an appropriately sized SSD? I hope the BIOS/Motherboad/Others does not limit this in anyway.
Alternatively, I do not use my WWan device, and was thinking about replacing the Wireless care with a Mini-PCI-e SSD card. I do know that the BIOS whitelists a few components, but is the restriction for Wireless cards only, or for everything?
Solved!
Go to Solution.

I upgraded my Thinkpad T60-1951 HDD with a PNY 128GB and is fantastic upgrade it boots extremely fast I am still using
Windows XP still and works better than my wifes new laptop. All computers must have SSD's is a waste of time to use HDD's.
New life for my T60 at least 5 more years.

MSata vs mini PCIe

I think I have this right...mini PCIe is for periphery cards (e.g. wifi) but sometimes can be used for SSDs, while mSATA is used for SSDs, and nothing else, right?
The T430s has both a mSATA (for a boot/storage SSD) and a mini PCIe (populated by the wifi module), yes?
Tangentaly related...
On eBay, I see there is a 4gb intel "turbo cache" memory module that fits mini PCIe; says it's for Thinkpads T400 and X200. For example:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-4G-4GB-Turbo-Cache-Memory-Half-Size-Mini-PCI-E-Card-For-Thinkpad-T400-...
I assume this module could not be used as a storage or boot drive? Since it says it's for cache, it would get erased upon powering down or restting, yes?
I'm scheming on using a small PCIe-based SSD coupled with a full size PCIe adapter card for a simple boot drive on a FreeNAS server.

wiki comes through...
mSATA
An mSATA SSD on top of a 2.5 inch SATA drive
Mini-SATA, which is distinct from the micro connector, was announced by the Serial ATA International Organization on September 21, 2009.[29] Applications include netbooks and other devices that require a smaller solid-state drive. The connector is similar in appearance to a PCI Express Mini Card interface,[30] and is electrically compatible; however, the data signals (TX±/RX± SATA, PETn0 PETp0 PERn0 PERp0 PCI-express) need connection to the SATA host controller instead of the PCI-express host controller. Due to the absence of a standard for quite some time, there is still some confusion around this subject. For host devices which support either an mSATA SSD or mini-PCIe card interchangeably, this application note from NXP explains how to use a PCI-express/SATA router chip. This chip is essentially a four-channel bi-directional multiplexer. The vast majority of computer motherboards however have single-purpose headers which may support one of either an mSATA SSD or mini-PCIe card, but not both interchangeably.
So I'm guessing the Lenovo is interchangable?

PCIe SSD - compatibility?

I'm trying to figure out if any of the PCIe SSD's currently available are compatible with a first gen Mac Pro 1,1
Say just for example, PCIe SSD Mini Cards which are supposed to be for netbooks, and are much more affordable option than larger PCIe SSDs, if somewhat low in storage size. Now there may be other pitfalls with these SSD mini cards in particular (mlc versus slc ssd's) but that's why I'm posting my stupid question!
Just trying to think out of the SATAII connection 'box' for SSD AND do it more affordably...
Thanks for constructive replies!

Hi justmetoo,
I know that you said that you are "trying to think out of the SATAII connection 'box' for SSD", but why?
If you are thinking of installing only one or two SSDs, then this link includes instructions for the installation of 2.5" SSDs in older Mac Pros (2006-2008), using SATA cables:
http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-InstallingSSD.html
The read and write times of Mini PCI-Express SSDs (PATA or SATA) are pathetic compared to those of 2.5" SATA SSDs, particularly the latest generations of the latter, and the price difference is not that great when you compare them for the same capacity in each.
If you are not that concerned about read and write speeds, then the price differential is even less if you compare them to "value" ranges of 2.5" SATA II SSDs, such as the recently released OCZ Onyx range, which still outperforms Mini PCI-E SSDs.
I am sorry, but I cannot follow your logic. The reason most Mac Pro users upgrade to SSDs is to improve, or even to obtain maximum increase in, performance, and this is extremely noticeable when a fast 2.5" SATA II SSD is used as a system boot drive.
If this drive had been available when I upgraded last December, I would not have hesitated in buying one, albeit that I would have had to import it, because OWC do not have any distributors or resellers in the UK:
http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-SSD-OWC-Mercury_Extreme.html
Regards,
Biltan

1802 Error Message on installation of Broadcom Mini-PCI Wireless Card

I am getting an 1802 error message on boot when I install the Broadcom Mini-PCI wireless card. I know it has something to do with some code IBM put into the BIOS or CMOS to check the cards for manufacturer or something like that. Is there anyway around this message or do I have to try and find an IBM mini-PCI wireless card for this machine?
Solved!
Go to Solution.

All depends on how one defines success...
To put it this way: A3x machines are very unpredictable and moody when it comes to these issues, and you're talking to someone who has owned over a hundred A31p ThinkPads, not counting A30/p and A31 units along the way. More than once I've faced a scenario where the card that worked "out of the box" in one machine required a hack in the next one...
But to answer your question:
Can it be done? Absolutely.
Do I recommend it? Absolutely not.
IBM-issued (with a proper FRU number) Intel 2200BG should work in your machine with no hack. Some people have reported this experience even with generic card of the same type.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
George
In daily use: R60F, R500F, T61, T410
Collecting dust: T60
Enjoying retirement: A31p, T42p,
Non-ThinkPads: Panasonic CF-31 & CF-52, HP 8760W
Starting Thursday, 08/14/2014 I'll be away from the forums until further notice. Please do NOT send private messages since I won't be able to read them. Thank you.

T60 & Mini PCIe SSD?

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