Yo dudes.

So there's a kickass Black Friday deal going on at Lenovo, especially if you log into the Barnes and Noble Gold thing first. Lasts through tomorrow.

I've been considering buying a Thinkpad x230 for ages, and am going to finally bite the bullet. Got a few questions though, because I'm gonna do some manual upgrades to it (Lenovo charges too much for RAM & SSD).

Question 1: What kind/size SSD do I need to go in the extra express card (or whatever) slot? I know that Samsung 830s and Crucial M4s are awesome, but there's more than one size or whatever, right? I don't mean storage size either, I know I'll be picking up a 128GB.

Is there any reason to just upgrade the existing hard drive instead of adding this one? Heh.

Question 2: I don't want my ThinkVantage button to quit working, because that thing saved my ass on my old laptop quite a few times. So... does that mean that when I install the SSD, I need to make an image of the installed Hard Drive and copy that over somehow instead of doing a Clean Install? Or what? How would I do that, and is there a way of just installing the Win7 Ultimate copy I have without screwing up my ThinkVantage button functionality?

Question 3: Do I need to purchase the "54mm ExpressCard Smart Card Reader" on my laptop when I order it? I had always assumed no, but the way that Lenovo words it when you click "more information" implies that the slot to add something (eGPU, SSD, etc.) won't be there unless you buy this... but that's stupid, right?

TL;DR -- I really wish Lenovo wouldn't charge so damn much to upgrade RAM and buy an SSD. I hate having to purchase something then screw around with it like this to get it to work like I want. I don't mind the RAM so much, but I'm concerned about functionality and getting the hard drives to work like I want without losing functionality, heh. I might say screw it in the end.

---------- Post automerged at 10:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:39 AM ----------

Ordering now, can't wait ^^

Can always figure some of this out later.

 

You can get support drivers from the website. Do a clean install. Back up all your shit you want to keep, install the new ssd and install os. It doesn't make a fuck if you replace shit. I've done it four times since I got mine a couple months back. I've had no trouble with computer not booting up. That think whatever thing you want to keep will be in your support drivers. Just a bunch of bloat for added functionality. However you can't really pick and choose what you want. Hope this helps.

 

woot -- looking forward to having this ^^