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On 21/07/2021 22:31, Roland Tarver via list wrote:
It lacks a suffix - let me guess, that's the least favourable one? lolAfter a quick poke about (I have no idea how to use Windows) the best info I can currently get about the ssd is that it is a Kingston drive with the folowing ?model number, SV300S37A240G. Googling that model number provides the following...https://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/hdd.php?hdd=KINGSTON+SV300S37A240G <https://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/hdd.php?hdd=KINGSTON+SV300S37A240G>Like I said, happy to spend a bit more. :-) Thanks very much.
Hi there Roly, apologies for the slow reply - busy week. https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Kingston-SSDNow-V300-240GB-vs-Crucial-MX500-250GB/1817vs3951I'd go ahead and order yourself a brand new 1Tb Crucial MX500 immediately especially as you're not worried about spending the extra £80 or so: over the lifetime of the laptop it's a one-off and very worthwhile investment. The Kingston is a creaky old budget model and will already be extensively wear-levelled. It's just a bottom of the barrel piece of crap basically that Lenovo cheaped out on. The comparison above doesn't even tell the whole story as it compares it with a 250Gb Crucial - the larger capacity units have different controllers and greatly increased performance so it will absolutely wipe the floor with the sad old Kingston. Replace immediately and enjoy it for the laptop's lifetime.
Evil empire link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-MX500-CT1000MX500SSD1-NAND-Internal/dp/B078211KBBIt's actually gone up £7 but is available from other suppliers of course - or just wait a few days and it'll go back down again. Track it here if you want to make sure you get the best price:
https://uk.camelcamelcamel.com/product/B078211KBBWith the extra space available you won't have to worry about partitioning the disk into two chunks for Windows+Linux as you'll have plenty. I seriously wouldn't bother if I was you to be honest though: you're a long time Linux user and the days of specifically needing Windows for *anything* are largely gone now outside of very specific niches. Even gaming is Linux friendly now. The laptop is powerful enough that you can even set up a Windows VM if you really need one later down the line - far less hassle than dual booting which you really want to avoid if at all possible.
One thing that leaps out is the license for your Win10 install being wrong - as you say, the laptop has Win10 Pro stickers all over it! This is going to be down to your refurbisher being lazy and probably just cloning a crappy default build onto it and punting it out of the door unconfigured. Is the laptop running in BIOS mode rather then UEFI mode by any chance? Normally what would happen is the laptop should be shipped in UEFI mode with secureboot on - you can then run any default Win10 installer on it and it will pick up the Pro license details baked into the UEFI from the factory which is a legal entitlement that stays with the laptop for life.
If I were you I seriously just wouldn't bother with it though. Blow it all away, reset the laptop firmware to UEFI and then install the Debian 11 OS you actually want on it fresh when the replacement SSD shows up. Debian 11 is already in hard freeze and due for release next month so you can just go ahead and install it slightly early with no problem, it'll be functionally equivalent to the gold master release anyway and apt dist-upgrade will take care of the rest for you.
My one tip is to install the Lenovo updater tool while you still have Windows running on it though - use it to automatically apply any and all firmware upgrades available for your unit because even in 2021 this is still much, much easier in Windows than Linux.
As for the model suffixes they are standard Lenovo ones: https://tech-fairy.com/what-thinkpad-laptops-model-numbers-series-mean-including-list-of-suffixes-explanation-for-the-t-x-l-w-p-e-edge-yoga-series/#SSuffixThink of them as (S)lim and (P)owerful with yours being the default "boring" one. Arguably it's the one you probably want as both S and P models are more expensive but for different reasons. The S is the fancy one that looks pretty and often has lower performance, the P is the "pro" one that inevitably I would buy. The no-suffix is the sane ordinary one that nearly everyone else buys so you did fine.
Hopefully that all makes sense, feel free to ask if it doesn't and enjoy your new laptop.
Oh, remember to buy a spare £10 USB caddy to throw the old Kingston in just so it doesn't go to waste.
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