What kind of SSD does the ThinkPad X200 come with, and is it any good?

I'm considering a ThinkPad X200. There's a 128 GB SSD option, and since I'm a huge fan of the Intel X25-M SSD I've been using on my older X61s, I'm thinking of going with that.

I am kind of worried because I've read a lot of discussion of SSDs online which implies that some of the first generation of SSDs were pretty terrible. Does anyone know what kind of SSD I'd actually get with the ThinkPad X200, and if it's any good?

Joel Spolsky

Posted 2009-09-04T02:19:15.603

Reputation: 1 764

2Just want to mention that I did eventually go with my own Intel X-25M SSD, which was fantastic. – Joel Spolsky – 2010-06-23T16:41:38.440

Answers

It comes with a Samsung 128GB Flash SSD. You can find it's specifications here.

Compared to the X25-M you're used to it will be a fair bit slower.

Samsung SSD: 90MB/Sec Read - 70MB/Sec Write
Intel X25-M SSD: 250MB/Sec Read - 170MB/Sec Write

John T

Posted 2009-09-04T02:19:15.603

Reputation: 149 037

Anandtech really doesn't like the Samsung SSDs, claiming the performance is terrible: http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=19

– Joel Spolsky – 2009-09-04T03:43:54.270

Hmm, the samsung website claims those transfer speeds, but benchmarks show otherwise. The speeds intel claims seem to stick, not so much on samsung's side. Answer updated to reflect benchmarks. Go for Intel. – John T – 2009-09-04T04:08:26.187

Sounds like as of today, the best bet is to put in your own SSD drive for the best performance. – Joel Spolsky – 2009-09-04T05:42:09.943

The Intel X25-M's sequential write speed is only 70 MB/s. Not that it matters; as AnandTech (and elsewhere) point out, the excellent random read/write performance is usually much more important. – sblair – 2009-09-07T21:34:21.443

The Lenovo FRU (part #) is 41W0519. I think it's a Samsung MLC type SSD, model # MMCRE28G8MXP-0VB, based on this thread and previous research when buying my X301.

I have an X301 with a 64GB Samsung SLC type SSD. I would have preferred to wait for a faster/cheaper SSD and upgrade myself, but that was not an option. I am not sure if current Samsung SSD's support the TRIM command. SSD's that support TRIM avoid the potential long term performance degradation issue.

Anandtech gives a detailed explanation of SSD's and the TRIM command:

The SSD I got in my X301 seems very zippy, especially during boot. I have been using my laptop for almost a year, and I have not noticed any major performance issues.

Leftium

Posted 2009-09-04T02:19:15.603

Reputation: 8 163