Lenovo Y50 storage solution

[Lawliet93]

Hi guys, I have a very specific problem.

 

About a year ago, I bought a refurbished lenovo y50 an after some tuning I must say, it´s almost perfect.

One of the things a really don´t is the fact, that it only has one 2,5" HDD slot, no mSATA slot, no M.2. slot an it comes with a 1TB  5400RPM SSHD, which is not fast... even compared to a 7200RPM normal HDD.

I do edit and use shadowplay and powerdirector 14 on my laptop, so anything less than a 1TB drive is going to be a big problem for me.

A 1TB SSD is out of question, even a 512 or 480GB... to expensive and I (a med-school student with deep depressions) can´t afford such a thing, well... not yet.

That´s why I need your help and I do have a few questions.

Can I use the mini PCI-E  of my WIFI card? (it´s terrible and I normally use an external one) It is actually the same as a mSATA slot.

What would be the fastest 1TB 2,5" mechanical HDD I could use in this scenario.

What do you guys think about the western digital black2 dual drive (the one with separate SSD and HDD partitions).

Any help will be appreciated.

[Captain_WD]

14 hours ago, Lawliet93 said:

~snip~

Hey Lawliet93

 

- Regarding the PCI port I'm not sure if this is possible. For this you need to contact the manufacturer directly. If you do please post the answer here as it would be interesting and useful for other people to know this

 

- If I am not mistaken, this laptop comes with a WD Black SSHD ( @don_svetlio am I correct?). Hybrid drives do need time to "learn" what is mostly used on the laptop (including the OS) before store the necessary files on the SSD cache portion for better performance. This is one of the down sides of hybrid drives as it does take time for their firmware to learn the most commonly used things. After that the performance is pretty good. 

 

- A combination between an internal smaller SSD (say 250GB) and a good external drive (WD Elements Portable for example) should give you both good performance and good capacity for whatever you need.

 

- I'm personally using WD Black2 in my laptop and I'm very happy from what I've seen in the past two years and more. The drive's SSD part performs really good and the HDD part serves as a great addition for storage, gaming and pretty much anything I put on it so this is definitely a viable option. 

 

Feel free to ask if there are any questions

 

Captain_WD.

[don_svetlio]

10 minutes ago, Captain_WD said:

Hey Lawliet93

 

- Regarding the PCI port I'm not sure if this is possible. For this you need to contact the manufacturer directly. If you do please post the answer here as it would be interesting and useful for other people to know this

 

- If I am not mistaken, this laptop comes with a WD Black SSHD ( @don_svetlio am I correct?). Hybrid drives do need time to "learn" what is mostly used on the laptop (including the OS) before store the necessary files on the SSD cache portion for better performance. This is one of the down sides of hybrid drives as it does take time for their firmware to learn the most commonly used things. After that the performance is pretty good. 

 

- A combination between an internal smaller SSD (say 250GB) and a good external drive (WD Elements Portable for example) should give you both good performance and good capacity for whatever you need.

 

- I'm personally using WD Black2 in my laptop and I'm very happy from what I've seen in the past two years and more. The drive's SSD part performs really good and the HDD part serves as a great addition for storage, gaming and pretty much anything I put on it so this is definitely a viable option. 

 

Feel free to ask if there are any questions

 

Captain_WD.

Yes, the Black SSHD is the one inside. Your solution is indeed the most practical and cost-efficient

 

15 hours ago, Lawliet93 said:

Hi guys, I have a very specific problem.

 

About a year ago, I bought a refurbished lenovo y50 an after some tuning I must say, it´s almost perfect.

One of the things a really don´t is the fact, that it only has one 2,5" HDD slot, no mSATA slot, no M.2. slot an it comes with a 1TB  5400RPM SSHD, which is not fast... even compared to a 7200RPM normal HDD.

I do edit and use shadowplay and powerdirector 14 on my laptop, so anything less than a 1TB drive is going to be a big problem for me.

A 1TB SSD is out of question, even a 512 or 480GB... to expensive and I (a med-school student with deep depressions) can´t afford such a thing, well... not yet.

That´s why I need your help and I do have a few questions.

Can I use the mini PCI-E  of my WIFI card? (it´s terrible and I normally use an external one) It is actually the same as a mSATA slot.

What would be the fastest 1TB 2,5" mechanical HDD I could use in this scenario.

What do you guys think about the western digital black2 dual drive (the one with separate SSD and HDD partitions).

Any help will be appreciated.

Grab a 250GB 850 EVO and a 1TB WD Passport or Elements and enjoy the best of both worlds

[Lawliet93]

So... I have decided, that the best alternative would be a 256GB SSD as my main system drive (they cost around 65euros in my country so Yeeeessss) and eventually moving to a 480 or a 960GB SSD in the future and using my SSHD as a external drive (an USB3.0 to SATA cable with a small case for the drive costs like 12euros, so no problem there). It is not ideal, I will have to optimize my workflow to compensate for the smaller SSD size (I use the witcher 3 for my temperature and stability tests and I also do let´s plays so with all my programs and with the witcher game... I will have space for one more game an some spare space for downloads and random crap). It´s a shame, that there is no mSATA or a M.2. slot a combination of a 256GB SSD and a 1-2TB mechanical HDD would be ideal. What I might do is to sell my current laptop and go for a newer one with an i7 (the i5 4200H is a real limitation even for games) and a M.2 slot, but it has to be a lenovo one... they use full copper heat-sinks and provide great cooling. I plan on modding the  back-panel (or even better... make a new one) of the laptop, because I plan to use an external GPU and buy a USB hub and some cheap 2500RPM 120mm fans (they go for like 3,5euros) and use them as intakes. I will also ad some new heat-sinks and filters. It will be fun.

 

Thanks guys for helping me

[Captain_WD]

17 hours ago, Lawliet93 said:

~snip~

That sounds like a plan. Are you reusing the SSHD from the laptop or are you purchasing a new one? If you are about to purchase a new one I would suggest to rather get a regular drive as SSHDs are not the best solution for external drives. If you are reusing the old drive from the laptop then you might as well do that and not spend additional funds on more drives.

 

Post back when you are done with the changes so we can see the improvements

 

Captain_WD.

[Lawliet93]

7 hours ago, Captain_WD said:

That sounds like a plan. Are you reusing the SSHD from the laptop or are you purchasing a new one? If you are about to purchase a new one I would suggest to rather get a regular drive as SSHDs are not the best solution for external drives. If you are reusing the old drive from the laptop then you might as well do that and not spend additional funds on more drives.

 

Post back when you are done with the changes so we can see the improvements

 

Captain_WD.

Well.. I have found a lenovo y700 with an i5 4c/4t, even better cooling, gtx 960m (1300MHz and above... I am coming), IPS display and a M.2 slot for about 770 euros... so I might sell my y50 for like 650euros and get that one. I plan on using an external GPU, so... a quadcore CPU is a very important thing to have.

[Captain_WD]

On 27.05.2016 г. at 6:10 PM, Lawliet93 said:

~snip~

That sounds like a good deal Make sure you read some reviews of any products before purchasing so you are aware of any potential issues or known bugs. Post back if you need more assistance or help deciding

 

Captain_WD.

[Lawliet93]

3 hours ago, Captain_WD said:

That sounds like a good deal Make sure you read some reviews of any products before purchasing so you are aware of any potential issues or known bugs. Post back if you need more assistance or help deciding

 

Captain_WD.

Well I can endure some bugs, hell I love to solve them. I am now working on a cooling pad for my y50 that requires the bottom panel to be taken of and directly cools the inner components and even takes the hot air away from the laptop. It will use two 120mm fans to directly cool the components and three 80mm fans to take the warm air away from the laptop. I even learned how to use sketchup to discuss this project with my father (he is an engineer).

[Captain_WD]

19 hours ago, Lawliet93 said:

~snip~

This sounds like a good and interesting plan. Make sure you understand the differences between positive and negative air pressure and the pros and cons of both Do make sure to post the results here or on the Air Cooling subforum .

 

Captain_WD.

[Lawliet93]

1 minute ago, Captain_WD said:

This sounds like a good and interesting plan. Make sure you understand the differences between positive and negative air pressure and the pros and cons of both Do make sure to post the results here or on the Air Cooling subforum .

 

Captain_WD.

Well, the big challenge is the fact, that you need to cool the components (I might even add some heat-sinks on top of the heat-sinks of the laptop, like the ones that come with the arctic GPU-coolers, they are meant for VRMs, but with some tweaking, I can make them fit and work). The worst thing is to figure out the airflow and preventing hot air to be accumulated in the laptop and in the cooler itself.