[resolved]Lenovo T440p upgrade to m.2 SSD

stevepa · 2014-12-13 17:01:07

Greetings,

Running Arch on this mostly great laptop.

Right now, I want to explore using the second slot to install an m.2 SSD, to give me another boot option. My idea is to use this or the 2.5in SSD as a windows + linux installs, utilizing BIOS to choose between them. I am aware of using the optical drive bay as a hard drive option.

I understand there are two slots available: one occupied by the wireless LAN card, the other other free. Is this really true?

Some observations about this:
When I ordered the laptop, Lenovo had no option to configure to buy a m.2 drive. Crucial, a trusted big mfg'er of SSD's, lists no m.2 drive for the laptop. Lenovo.com's search shows no m.2 accessory for the T440p, in fact, few at all for any box. EDIT: the appropriate drive apparently is 42mm, which is less common it seems, but readily available from Transcend.

I am also concerned about Lenovo's whitelisting of accessories.

I would appreciate any hints, comments, or links regarding these questions, especially from T440 owners.
Happy Holidays,
Steve.

Edit: Now is see this info for a very similar model: http://blog.laptopmag.com/install-m2-ssd-lenovo-t440s

Last edited by stevepa (2014-12-24 05:26:16)

WonderWoofy · 2014-12-14 00:16:59

I have a T440s and a T440. I bought a couple MyDigitalSSDs that works wonderfully. They too are available in capacities up to 256GB. Lenovo only whitelists things with radios. This is apparently has to do with regulatory things like FCC rules.

You should know though, that these 42mm M.2 SSDs are not nearly as fast as a full 2.5" SATA SSD or even an mSATA device. This is because the actual available space on the chip itself is very limited. So the number of flash chips they can slap on there is also limited. A typical SSD achieves its speeds by creating a kind of internal raid0 amongst all its flash chips... so the fewer chips there are... you get the idea.

That said, I think the M.2 option is still perfectly good. It still provides storage that is faster than a spinning disk, and it uses a hell of a lot less power than other options.

stevepa · 2014-12-14 05:04:28

Woofy,

I appreciate the response.

That is sad how much slower the 42mm drive is.

I guess I will relegate Win7 to the m.2 and leave Arch on the SATA SSD, then use the BIOS boot order to control what runs.

Took me a while to stop cursing at the new generation of Trackpads, though the 1920x1080 screen, with Gnome, is fantastic IMO.

My use for Win7 is mostly to run Netflix, Amazon video, Adobe Lightroom, and rarely Office. Yeah, I know I can run Netflix on Linux now.

Arch is for the things that count. :-)

Have a great day.
Steve.

WonderWoofy · 2014-12-15 00:55:45

The Trackpoint physical buttons are coming back! Check out the release announcement for the next generation W-series. Honestly, I don't mind the actual Trackpad itself on the T440s. It is just that the Trackpoint buttons don't feel right since you have to push the front edge of the Trackpad straight down.

If you ordered the machine with the basic 500GB HDD with the 16GB SSD cache, you should have two M.2 slots available. There is the one next to the WiFi card that you can obviously use. But the 16GB cache SSD lives underneath the battery. So if you are not afraid of running in a RAID0, you could buy two drives and do it that way. The only issue you might have is that the area for the M.2 under the battery is a bit tight. So with these M.2 SSDs with flash cips on both sides might be a bit of a squeeze.

If you ordered with the SmartCard slot or with the WWAN wireless option, you will also lose one of those slots. Or if you order the machine with one of their SSDs in the 2.5" slot, they don't put the M.2 slot under the battery. Though, you could probably buy the part somewhere on the internets. The FRU list indicates that the part number is 04X3827.

stevepa · 2014-12-18 16:41:20

Wonderwoofy,

I would like to get your opinion on what I should do.

I have this one T440p laptop. I really need to run Arch and Windows on it.

If I have these resources available:
1. spinning hard drive with Lenovo's Windows on it, along with my other needed programs (Lightroom, etc)
2. 256GB 2.5in Sata SSD with Arch on it
3. Optical drive bay with caddy available for a secondary hard drive.
4. The m.2 port and new Transcend 256GB SSD as we discussed.

What would you do in my case?

I thought I would copy/clone the Lenovo drive with Windows to the new m.2 drive, then keep that spinning drive as a backup of windows.
Put the Arch SATA SSD 256GB drive in the laptop's primary SATA connector.
Use the BIOS to control booting either Windows (m.2) for Linux (SATA SSD).

I hope this discussion is not off topic here, and understandable.

Your input appreciated.
Steve.

Update:
Cloned the SATA Windows drive into the m.2 drive using EaseUS software, going from 500GB (42GB used) drive to 256GB SSD. Did not try clonezilla. :-(
Removed Win HDD and changed boot order to use m.2. Result: blinking cursor. I know Windows sees the m.2 drive as drive d.
On a whim, decided to reinstall the grub.cfg (with os-prober in action). Viola!! Grub boots windows!! Linux to the rescue. Still need to find out why setting bios to boot from windows does not work, though.

Last edited by stevepa (2014-12-18 22:56:01)

WonderWoofy · 2014-12-19 02:08:05

That is exactly what I would have done...

Arch Linux

#1 2014-12-13 17:01:07

[resolved]Lenovo T440p upgrade to m.2 SSD

#2 2014-12-14 00:16:59

Re: [resolved]Lenovo T440p upgrade to m.2 SSD

#3 2014-12-14 05:04:28

Re: [resolved]Lenovo T440p upgrade to m.2 SSD

#4 2014-12-15 00:55:45

Re: [resolved]Lenovo T440p upgrade to m.2 SSD

#5 2014-12-18 16:41:20

Re: [resolved]Lenovo T440p upgrade to m.2 SSD

#6 2014-12-19 02:08:05

Re: [resolved]Lenovo T440p upgrade to m.2 SSD

Board footer