I4U decided that an aging Thinkpad X40 could use an upgrade to an SSD for both the performance enhancements and the noise reduction it would bring.  Specifically, they picked a KingSpec SSD which will supposedly just drop in and work.  It’s a 1.8″ MLC SSD that claims average access times of 0.2ms, sustained read of 65MB/S and write at 47MB/S.  While i4U didn’t get around to benchmarking the drive, they did prove just how easy it is to get a lot more from your X40, X41 or X41T.

“There are only a few notebooks that age well. The IBM Thinkpad X40 would definitely be one of them if it weren’t for the very slow and noisy (clack, clack, clack) 1.8 inch 20GB HDD. Since SSD became affordable I was looking into finding a SSD that would work in my 5 year old Thinkpad X40. There have been solutions for a while that required you to do some soldering or buy a PATA adapter that works in conjunction with ZIF type 1.8 inch SSD. I am just not into soldering at all. Now a Chinese company called KingSpec is offering drop-in replacement SSD for the IBM Thinkpad X40, X41, and X41T. There are 32GB and 64GB SSD available to choose from. I got the 32GB 1.8 inch SSD that sells for $170. The 64GB SDD for the X40 sells for $260. The SSD drives are offered from a Chinese vendor named ventures_cn1 on eBay. I received my KingSpec SSD a little over a week directly from China after ordering it on eBay. ”

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