Post-CES Odds and Ends
I realize that I had promised more from CES and I never got around to posting. Today’s post is going to be another amalgamation of disjointed topics in the interest of expediency.
ThinkPad X301 Disassembled from CES
I had mentioned that we took apart a ThinkPad X301 like Business Week did for their cover story last year. A reader had asked for some pictures of the disassembled system. For your viewing enjoyment, here they are.
ThinkPad X301 Bottom Cover
ThinkPad X301 Parts
Here’s a side view of all of the disassembled parts – at least the major components. We didn’t think it interesting to show each and every screw (and, speaking as someone who disassembled the system, there were a lot of them.)
ThinkPad X301 System Board
The main system board itself is extremely tiny – not much bigger than an old ISA card. The mini PCIe cards are the WWAN and Wi-Fi card. Off to the right (cut off) are the SDD and optical drives.
ThinkPad X301 Roll Cage
Here is the Roll Cage assembly which surrounds all of the components. When attached to the bottom cover, one can see why the system itself feels so solid in your hand.
Defragging an SSD
Long ago I promised to post on why defragging an SSD is still relevant and necessary. It’s true that with an SSD there are no physical platters that have to spin into place and no read/write arms that have to move wildly across the surface of a disk. For this reason, it seems like defragging is a waste of time. You could also argue that since SSDs eventually wear out, you should not waste rewrite cycles on something as simple as defragging your disk.
One of the facts about NAND flash memory technology used in SSDs is that writing data takes much longer than reading data. When a file is erased, much like standard hard disk technology, only the directory information is erased and the data cells are marked “usable” again. The data itself is still intact until something new overwrites it.
This means that if the memory space is in use with a “deleted” file, it must first be erased before it can be reprogrammed. If the free space is fragmented, a new file must be broken into several small write commands instead of one larger write command. This will cause a performance decrease for SSDs because write speed is slow, especially for small block write transfers. Yes, cache memory helps mask this performance issue, but no matter what the technology, one long write command is always better than multiple short write commands.
Net, defrag your disk regularly if you want maximum performance.
Online Backup
I’ve got a post teed up in the next day or two on online backup. We’ve entered that realm with a recent Lenovo offering. I’m going to tie into it my thoughts on storing data in “the cloud.” While online data backup isn’t cloud storage in a strict sense, it does start to go that way. I’m hoping you all have thoughts that you’ll share when the post goes up. Start mulling it over, if you please.
ThinkPad W700ds Video
Finally, for your viewing enjoyment, here’s a short video on the ThinkPad W700ds. Fans of The Office will be particularly pleased.
January 21st, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Yessssssss, i like that. She’s niceeee.
This is better than indian or chinese humor. Go ahead lenovo.
January 21st, 2009 at 9:01 pm
matt – i’m looking forward to your writeup on the OLDB service. i signed up for the unlimited data service on saturday and am still waiting for my CC to be charged and activation info to be sent. my soon-to-be-former online data backup provider had me going within an hour of account creation (close to midnight on a sunday nearly two years ago) so i’m a bit surprised things have taken this long. hopefully it’s just growing pains.
other than the delay, the trial service impressed me enough to switch services and endure the long, painful wait of uploading 1.2TB of data from my thinkstation. i just wish i could have started the process five days ago…
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:21 am
I can’t believe you spent money damaging Lenovo’s reputation with that video!!!
January 22nd, 2009 at 6:46 am
Girl: At least I can carry my laptop with my 2 finger
.
January 22nd, 2009 at 6:59 am
[...] Lenovo W700d dual screen laptop advert where “geeks and sex mixes” A new advert of Lenovo’s W700d dual screen laptop is all about geeks and sex mixes with each other just [...]
[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The comment’s actual post text did not contain your blog url (http://lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=191) and so is spam.
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:58 am
@SouthPaw: i’m agree with you. IBM’s videos were definitely better but i prefer this video instead of chinese or indian “videos” who are “humoristics”
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:03 am
I thought the video was hilarious!
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:30 am
IMO the ad is little racy.
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Diskeeper came out with a new product cslled HyperFast to optimize SSDs. Because, “SSDs is that writing data takes much longer than reading data,” this optimizer “premptively defrags” the free space so you can write to the drive faster and it claims it limits the excessive erase-write cycles you discuss. Just a little food for thought, its the first product I’ve seen thats does this.
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:43 pm
The thought of online storage provided by manufacturers sounds like a promising thing. What will make or break an online storage service I think will come in the form of its implementation and interface strategy. While I’m probably sure that Lenovo’s been working on their strategy already, services like Dropbox can give a glimpse of what advanced network storage services can offer.
Matt, take a look at a video of what Dropbox can do (www.getdropbox.com) to give you an idea. Since these guys are tackling the corporate and enterprise realm as we speak, perhaps Lenovo should get in touch with them and start some sort of pilot program. Some custom interface and ‘Lenovo’ tweaks could make the whole process easier compared to a ‘build up from scratch’ approach. Look forward to your post and Go Gators! -James
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:24 pm
james – i would suggest downloading and trying lenovo OLDB. it’s not exactly like dropbox but it’s darned close. in fact, lenovo’s software alone was enough to get me to switch from the provider i’ve had for the last 23 months.
matt – rita called me this afternoon to get things straightened out with my OLDB account. i was away from my email this morning so it was nice to get a phonecall. it looks like i’ve uncovered a few bugs and will be working with the team to get them smashed asap. my system configuration is somewhat unique so i don’t expect these bugs to affect many users. so, thanks for the follow-up on this. i truly appreciate it.
i’ll post my experiences with the service itself (which so far are very positive) in your upcoming blog post when it goes live.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:38 am
Matt, can you comment your edit? I’d like to know why particularly you erased the video link. Personally i was shocked by the ad. Not that undressing women scare me, but i could not trust my eyes that Lenovo tries to sell their products with soooo cheap tricks.
btw the granny-proof ad is a great example for intelligent humor in ads.
Concerning online storage, i’d like to know about security of data transfer and storage. How do you convince the customer that there is no one at your place reading ones files? I mean, despite some contract paragraphs saying your not allowed to.
Is there a possibility to encrypt the data before uploading and still being able to search for files in the remote directories?
cheers
Hecke
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:11 am
hecke – you might find the OLDB features and FAQ pages helpful. the data is encrypted with a 256-bit AES key before transmission and the connection between you and the server uses 128-bit SSL. as long as you use a strong password for your OLDB web account, there should be no issues with securing your data.
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Hecke – most standard services like OLDB and Dropbox use 256 bit AES encryption when transferring data.
Erik – How much is their service and how much space do you get through Lenovo’s OLDB? I would consider switching if the service gives me more value compared to dropbox. A free dropbox acct has is 2 gigs, the subscribed one is 50 gigs per year for 99 bucks.
As much as I try to support the ThinkPad and Lenovo brand… with how amazing Dropbox is, I dont see myself swithcing over anytime soon. Cant beat the multi OS compatibility (Linux, Windows, OSX), the collaborative shared folders, soon to come password folder capability, and the great web interface.
Erik, keep us updated on your experiences with OLDB, as I’m always looking for better things out there.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:28 pm
james – my account has unlimited storage. prices range from $25/year for 10GB to $99/year for unlimited storage. this link will take you to the US OLDB offerings. dropbox charges $99 for 50GB where lenovo charges $99 for unlimited storage on notebooks, desktops, and workstations. i have 1.2TB of data to back up so dropbox isn’t even an option for me.
about the only feature OLDB doesn’t seem to have that dropbox does is the multiple OS integration GUI. what i don’t know right now is if the OLDB software can be set up on two systems to get them to synchronize. i plan to test this between my thinkstation and thinkpad.
dropbox looks to have a promising future. admittedly, i do like its GUI and methodology. however, i don’t like that it’s provided “as-is” with no warranty — where lenovo OLDB is backed by EMC with 24/7/365 support. until dropbox grows and is backed by a proper datacenter with full-time support and larger storage capacity, i don’t see it being a viable solution for business users.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:31 pm
sorry for my ignorance. I did not pay much attention on remote storage as we have our own high availability file server in the institute that i can access via vpn from anywhere…
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Lenovo please focus on quality today i seriously thought of buying a T400 i got a good deal i already have a T500 and not very happy with the quality anyhow i was reading some customer reviews and i was really saddened. http://www.notebookreview.com/.....pid=164761
January 24th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Hecke — I was asked to take the video down. The request came from a reasonable person who made a request, not a demand, that I take it down. I complied as it was just a throwaway at the end of an otherwise unremarkable blog post.
Corporate blogging is a strange beast. I have a lot of freedom to write about what I want. To my company’s credit, Lenovo has a very liberal blogging policy. There have been some times over the years where I’ve had to scratch my head and go “what?” when I’ve been asked to do something or not do something. However, since I’m still in their employ (and want to remain so), such memoirs of “I Was a Corporate Blogger” will have to stay out of print for now. If anyone in Hollywood wants to offer me money for my story, please send lots of unmarked hundred dollar bills. Put them under the old oak tree. And come alone.
(The video still lives on Youtube, by the way.)
January 24th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
[...] All of the usual Lenovo durability features are here. Unlike the IdeaPad and ThinkPad SL series, the X200 comes with the same Roll Cage and other durability features as the T-series. You can see the Roll Cage and some other interesting bits in this post over at Inside the Box. [...]