Installing a SATA SSD in a Lenovo x270 (shielding vs no shielding)
Hi all,
Has been a while :)
I'm having an issue with upgrading an SSD on a Lenovo x270 and thought I'd reach out for some advice.
I'm installing a SATA SSD (Crucial BX500) but the original caddy in the laptop is for a NVME M.2 PCIe SSD. The only part I can use of the original caddy is the plastic shielding that can fit around the new drive.
The issue is, now I have no shielding. The new drive will fit in the 2.5 inch slot the old drive was in but it rests on top of only two small pieces of foam glued to the board. Do you think this is an issue? Should I shield it somehow? Perhaps EMI tape? If so, should I shield both the top and bottom of the drive? There's no caddy I can find for this use case in Europe.
Any help would be appreciated.
p.s I am following this article: https://techblog.paalijarvi.fi/2020/01/02/32gb-ram-for-thinkpad-x270-and-other-pimp-ups/
As you can see, in their case, some metal foil (an EMC cover?) came with the eBay cable they bought to support the SATA connection. I'm wondering if that's nesscary.
Your imgur link has an extra character -- https://imgur.com/P8imGDk
quick edit: I could be wrong, but wouldn't the shielding only be for a spinny hdd?
I'd recommend the official Lenovo maintenance manual, rather than some random blog:
https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/x270_hmm_en_sp40j65511.pdf
specifically you want section 1050 starting on page 69
it looks like the NVMe drive had a sort of internal caddy that allowed it to fit in the 2.5" case?
I think that external 2.5" caddy should be fine, bear in mind the SSD case itself will also have some degree of padding and shielding.
are you mainly doing this upgrade for size, rather than speed? that BX500 may be less expensive per GB than NVMe but you'll be taking a performance hit due to using SATA instead of NVMe.
Appreciate your reply. Will take a look at the manual now. The blog seems reputable but I take your point.
Performance will take a hit but it's not for dev work, just a personal machine. NVMe probably isn't worth it in my case. As SSD is cheaper per GB of storage I thought that'd be the better option.
The issue with the caddy is, you have to remove it completely to fit the SATA SDD, you can only use the plastic casing; the metal that sat above and below the original NVMe drive will now no longer fit. This is where my concerns re the shielding came in.
I agree. FWIW, I think any modification invalidates the laptop's original certification. But the new SSD had to pass its own certification. While not precisely the same thing, you don't hear about people who built their own PCs having EMI problems very often.
Don't worry about shielding, it's not going to be an issue. I've done a lot of janky HDD to SSD swaps on laptops and there's never been an issue.
Appreciate the reply :) Have updated the link. I'm not sure if shielding is only relevant for HDD's. The OP of the above x270 upgrade link was installing an SSD. I'm not sure of his reasoning for the shielding. Do you have any insight if forgoing that might cause any issues?
The shielding is very likely just for regulatory compliance. Many countries will test for radio interference and it's possible they used an electrically noisy SSD that required shielding to pass radio emissions tests. Unless you're using it in the same room as sensitive radio experiments or something like that I doubt it'll make any difference.
Ok perfect, this is the information I was looking for. I really appreciate it.