Reddit reviews Transcend 512GB SATA III 6Gb/s MTS400 42 mm M.2 SSD Solid State Drive (TS512GMTS400)

RAM - No.

Hard Drive - Yes. It uses a M.2 42mm solid state drive. The SSD would look like this:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YDHKIMG

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016W1PP5K

> 512GB models have been announced and should be appearing soon

Not quite true, 512GB models are already available:

www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Z8BYOWG

http://www.amazon.com/Transcend-Information-512GB-MTS400-TS512GMTS400/dp/B016W1PP5K

There are a few choices for 256gb, especially https://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/mydigitalssd-256gb-super-boot-2-sb2-42mm-2242-sata-iii-6g-m.2-ngff-ssd-solid-state-drive-mdm242-sb2-0256/

But for 512gb there's the Transcend MTS 400 and nothing else. It's quite expensive https://camelcamelcamel.com/Transcend-512GB-MTS400-Solid-TS512GMTS400/product/B016W1PP5K especially now that it's temporarily out of stock from Amazon so only third party buyers above 420 USD (!) are showing. Even so, 343 USD for a half tera SATA drive is not nice.

Right on - in a T460p you can install a 42 mm M.2 SSD. I have this going these days:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016W1PP5K

laptop supports 2x16GB DDR4 SODIMM (total of 32GB)

2x16GB DDR4 sodimm had a huge drop in price. I paid $180 in March, now it's $120 (!!!)

For the main slot, you can choose ONE of: 2.5", m.2 SATA 2280 or m.2 PCIe 2280 SSDs. PCIe is the fastest, but I think it only goes up to 1TB so far

In addition, the WWAN slot supports SATA m.2 2242. Must be 2242 (not 2280). No one has tried m.2 PCIe 2242, only SATA

Currently, this is the largest capacity for m.2 2242 (512GB Transcend). I was able to boot off the WWAN slot, but some people can't for some reason

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016W1PP5K/

// owns a E5470 with 32GB + 2.5" SSD + WWAN m.2 2242 MTS400 ssd above

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016W1PP5K/ - Transcend 512GB SSD

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015YPB8ME/ - Crucial 32GB RAM

https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B016W1PP5K

You only get 2 drive bays in a T480 (assuming that it is the same as the T470). You get one 2.5 inch SATA Express bay, that is PCIe Capable (might be 2X or 4X, I'm not sure). And you get one 2242 M.2 slot that is mutually exclusive with WWAN (no cell service if you put a drive here). The WWAN slot is also PCIe 2X capable, and there is one NVMe drive out there.

You can use something like this to convert that 2.5" drive to Two m.2 slots.

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Adapter-Converter-Support-25S22M2NGFFR/dp/B018AOZ9QM/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1519865090&sr=1-1&keywords=2.5+inch+to+m.2+adaptor


The cheapest m.2 SSD is also 2 TB. So you could buy two of these for $1000, and then put something in the 2244 slot.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/CXvbt6/western-digital-blue-2tb-m2-2280-solid-state-drive-wds200t2b0b


I think this is the largest 2242 M.2 drive, at 512 GB.

https://www.amazon.com/Transcend-512GB-MTS400-Solid-TS512GMTS400/dp/B016W1PP5K

So with those 3 you could get to 4.5 TB of NAND flash, which is just a little short of your goal.


Otherwise, you are stuck at 2 TB HDDs. Those are all that are offered in the 7mm 2.5 inch variety. Offering you a max of 2.5 TB total.

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-BarraCuda-2-5-Inch-Internal-ST2000LM015/dp/B01LX13P71?th=1

Your other option is to buy a P51 or P52, which has room for up to 4 drives. One 2.5" SATA III slot. One combo, 2.5" SATA III or 2 2280 M.2 dirves, and one 2242 M.2 drive.

Hello,

As ArthurRemington noted, the system as originally sold was configured to use the 16GB M.2 SATA SSD as a cache to offset the slow 1TB 5400RPM HDD using either Lenovo's [ExpressCache] (http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds104444)† software or Intel's Smart Response Technology software. If you did not install one of those after setting up the system then that the reason the computer is slow. It is loading everything off the hard disk drive and not taking advantage of the cache drive at all.

From looking at the ThinkPad Yoga 460 FRU-BOM, the ThinkPad Yoga 460 is only offered with a M.2 2242 SSD, which means SATA and not NVMe as LocalHostRulez noted. Since M.2 2242 SSDs use single- or dual-chip NAND flash memory solutions, they are going to be slower than SSDs which use physically larger boards, like M.2 2280, because those contain morec hips across which the reads and writes can be spread. For this reason, I'd recommend against going with a 128GB M.2 2242 SSD, which are probably going to operate in the lower-300-400 MB/s speed range and instead go with a 256GB part, which should get you into the 400-500 MB/s speed range. Here some compatible replacements:

Manufacturer|Model|Capacity|Amazon.Com Link
:---|:---|:---|:---|
MyDigitalSSD|MDM242-SB2-0256|256GB|https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MXMQQ7Z/
Transcend|TS256GMTS400|256GB|https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KLTPUG4/
ZTC|ZTC-SM201-256G|256GB|https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YDHKIMG/

Transcend also has a 512GB model, but you are paying a premium. ZTC had a 512GB model as well, but I didn't see a listing for it on Amazon. If you can find one at a decent price, though, you might want to consider that.

Any good quality 2.5" SATA SSD (Samsung, Intel, etc.) would be even faster, though. However, that would mean giving up the 2.5" 1TB HDD.

When you're ready to perform the upgrade, download the Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 460 Hardware Maintenance Manual, which explains how to disassemble and reassemble the unit. I also found a YouTube video here of someone doing the same thing.

In the meantime, probably the best thing you can do to increase performance is to wipe both the SSD and HDD drives inside the ThinkPad Yoga 460 and reload the Windows 10 operating system using the Lenovo factory recovery media, which you should be able to download from the Lenovo Digital Download Recovery Service. Check to verify eligibility before you erase the drives, though. You will need a 16GB USB flash drive to create the recovery media.

With the recovery media, you will be able to get the system back to the way it was running when it first arrived. Ever since the SuperFish incident, Lenovo pretty much gave up on installing any third-party software on their systems (aka bloatware). You can read the announcement from their company here about that. By the way, it was never installed on any ThinkPads, just their consumer offerings. Lenovo still does load some non-Microsoft software, but it's for things which aren't natively-supported by the operating system (For example, if you bought a Lenovo computer with an Intel RealSense 3-D camera, it would have the Intel RealSense 3-D software on it, since Microsoft doesn't provide that software as part of Windows 10.), maybe a trial version of anti-malware software. You'll also see a couple of pre-loaded programs like Lenovo Settings (for managing the computer's hardware) and Lenovo Companion (for customer support), but those are Windows Apps from Lenovo, and can be easily removed. Oh, and maybe some Lenovo wallpaper. Traditionally, ThinkPads have not had much in the way of bloatware, anyways, since they are sold to enterprises for corporate use.

In the words of the Immortal Bard‡, you kind of played yourself by loading a vanilla version of the operating system instead of sticking with the factory pre-load, which was relatively bloat-free (maybe just uninstalling any third-party security program if you wanted to use Windows Defender).

Even if you do not plan on reinstalling the Lenovo pre-load of Windows 10 to the existing 16GB SSD + 1TB HDD, I would strongly suggest making the recovery media. That way when your replacement M.2 2242 SSD arrives, you can use that to perform a clean install of the factory pre-load, and get any Lenovo drivers or software needed for the machine to operate at full potential.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky


^†I ^believe ^Lenovo ^actually ^licenses ^it ^from ^Condusiv
^Technologies^.
^‡DJ ^Khaled.

Yes, m.2 2242 42mm is what you need.

https://www.amazon.com/Transcend-256GB-MTS400-Solid-TS256GMTS400/dp/B016W1PP5K/ref=sr_1_3_m?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1473744344&sr=1-3&keywords=m.2%2B2242

Plugs into the WWAN slot.

> M.2 2242 SSDs are quite limited

They are available in sizes up to 512GB. Am I right in assuming this would work for OP?


512GB would not be limiting for me. :-)

Similar setup here.

This is my SSD: https://www.amazon.com/Transcend-512GB-MTS400-Solid-TS512GMTS400/dp/B016W1PP5K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473760542&sr=8-1&keywords=transcend+m2+512gb

I have tracked down the service manual: https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/p40_yoga14_mt20fy_yoga460_hmm_en_sp40j47499_01.pdf
The information relevant to the existence of M.2 is pages 88-91 . The summary is that the laptop supports either an M.2 SSD OR an M.2 WWAN card (Although I have not seen a laptop with that configuration offered...) -- Since apparently the model shipping from Best Buy is using the 2.5" slot, it remains to be seen if the M.2 SSD slot is actually enabled.
I am closely investigating this laptop, and I will probably buy it. If I do, the first thing that I will have to do is upgrade the storage, and no point throwing out a perfectly good 256GB SSD when there is a perfectly better 512GB 42mm M.2 SSD for $190 (http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B016W1PP5K), so (if I remember...) I will post back and say what there is to say.