Replace X1 Carbon Gen 3 wwan with NVME/SSD

[o9o]

Hi,
I have an X1 Carbon Gen 3. Soon after I got it I read somewhere that you could remove the wwan card and use the slot to connect an SSD drive or possibly an NVMe drive.

At the time, I removed the wwan card, but I never got around to buying and installing a second drive. I can't find the original post that explained how to do this and which type of drive to use exactly.

Searching here only shows posts talking about upgrading the existing drive.

Actually, many are talking about the fact that the Gen 3 can't boot from an NVMe, (which is weird, because mine came with a Samsung NVMe and boots fine).

Does anyone have any information about whether you can add a second NVMe/SSD drive on the Gen 3?

And if not, did Lenovo eventually upgrade the BIOS to allow NVMes? If so, can anyone suggest a 1TB NVMe that is compatible?

Thanks

[BillMorrow]

hello, welcome to the forum..
i am NOT up to date on the gen3, i DO have one, maybe 2, and several X1 extremes gen 2 or 3 or something..
4k touch displays..
dinner time comes so must just do a memory dump for now..
i use samsung SSD's, the extremes use a different SSD, different slot pinout..
the extremes also have two SSD slots, boot from either and maybe run two parallel SSD's (nomenclature escapes just now, sorry)..
suggest you check out the manual for the x1carbon gen3, see above..
also have a gen2 with the terrible keyboard which i gave my wife to use
suggest you find a good used X1 extreme, it is SO MUCH more capable, but bigger IMHO..
and finally, i don't think you can stuff an SSD (NVMe) in and but the designated slot..
finally ver2, i have two different external NVMe external drive housing i use when cloning to backup the system when i rarely back anything up..

[o9o]

Thanks for the advice Bill. I love my X1, but yeah, it's starting to show its age.

[axur-delmeria]

AFAIK the X1 Carbon Gen 3 doesn't support NVMe at all. It sits in the very brief transition period where M.2 SSDs with PCIe connectivity were coming out, but the NVMe standard wasn't ready yet, so the stopgap measure was an M.2 PCIe SSD that supports the AHCI protocol like the Plextor M6e.

Addendum: an NVMe SSD will work, but you cannot boot from it due to the BIOS/UEFI lacking NVMe support. There is a workaround that involves booting a USB flash drive that has the Clover bootloader installed.
As for an SSD in the WWAN slot, I've yet to encounter a report of success.

[BillMorrow]

Thanks for the advice Bill. I love my X1, but yeah, it's starting to show its age.

X1 was/is a pretty nice thinkpad, especially when compared to the IBM 700, 750/755 series amd for really bad keyboards the 760 was stellar.. that was probably someone in Yamato or RTP north carolina's brainchild but forget not the original RTP brain child the 701 (for which, amazingly, i still have a dozen or so NOS keyboards)..
[END: thread drift, jump to topic]
don't really know where you are but if in the UK it might be harder to find a good used X1 extreme, norway might be different IRT availability, cost and import taxes..
when i WAS buying memory (SSD's) i used amazon a lot..

i still keep my X1 gen3 charged/ready because i have half a dozen programs installed i want to use on occasion and it IS a very nice thinkpad..
old thinkpads with old programs that all work just fine and plenty fast enough and enough storage to do what is needed the one time a month or year i want to use it..

EDIT: If it were me i would not spend the money on upgrading but look for a good used X1 which just might come WITH the upgrade you seek on a faster, newer thinkpad..

please correct your location field.. thanks

[o9o]

AFAIK the X1 Carbon Gen 3 doesn't support NVMe at all. It sits in the very brief transition period where M.2 SSDs with PCIe connectivity were coming out, but the NVMe standard wasn't ready yet, so the stopgap measure was an M.2 PCIe SSD that supports the AHCI protocol like the Plextor M6e.

Addendum: an NVMe SSD will work, but you cannot boot from it due to the BIOS/UEFI lacking NVMe support. There is a workaround that involves booting a USB flash drive that has the Clover bootloader installed.
As for an SSD in the WWAN slot, I've yet to encounter a report of success.

Thanks Axur. Yeah, I've read that before. The weird thing is that my reconditioned G3 came with hardware reported as : Model: SAMSUNG MZVLB512HAJQ-000L7 (nvme) Disk /dev/nvme0n1. It was running Windows 11 and standard Lenovo BIOS/UEFI. It booted fine and I wiped windows and I've installed Linux and Windows 10, no problems booting at all. I've also updated the bios a couple of times with no hassle. So, I have some kind of exceptional G3.

[o9o]

Thanks for the advice Bill. I love my X1, but yeah, it's starting to show its age.

X1 was/is a pretty nice thinkpad, especially when compared to the IBM 700, 750/755 series amd for really bad keyboards the 760 was stellar.. that was probably someone in Yamato or RTP north carolina's brainchild but forget not the original RTP brain child the 701 (for which, amazingly, i still have a dozen or so NOS keyboards)..
[END: thread drift, jump to topic]
don't really know where you are but if in the UK it might be harder to find a good used X1 extreme, norway might be different IRT availability, cost and import taxes..
when i WAS buying memory (SSD's) i used amazon a lot..

i still keep my X1 gen3 charged/ready because i have half a dozen programs installed i want to use on occasion and it IS a very nice thinkpad..
old thinkpads with old programs that all work just fine and plenty fast enough and enough storage to do what is needed the one time a month or year i want to use it..

EDIT: If it were me i would not spend the money on upgrading but look for a good used X1 which just might come WITH the upgrade you seek on a faster, newer thinkpad..

please correct your location field.. thanks

Sorry, corrected location now. Nice to get advice from the founder of Thinkpads.com!! Yeah, I may look into another Thinkpad, but this one is still pretty perfect for my needs apart from the storage limitation.

[axur-delmeria]

Thanks Axur. Yeah, I've read that before. The weird thing is that my reconditioned G3 came with hardware reported as : Model: SAMSUNG MZVLB512HAJQ-000L7 (nvme) Disk /dev/nvme0n1. It was running Windows 11 and standard Lenovo BIOS/UEFI. It booted fine and I wiped windows and I've installed Linux and Windows 10, no problems booting at all. I've also updated the bios a couple of times with no hassle. So, I have some kind of exceptional G3.

That's surprising. It's possible that the BIOS/UEFI was later updated to support NVMe, but I don't remember it being mentioned in the BIOS/UEFI release notes.
The WWAN slot SSD is probably a no-go, unless the schematics (which I've yet to see) prove otherwise.

[o9o]

Thanks Axur. Yeah, I've read that before. The weird thing is that my reconditioned G3 came with hardware reported as : Model: SAMSUNG MZVLB512HAJQ-000L7 (nvme) Disk /dev/nvme0n1. It was running Windows 11 and standard Lenovo BIOS/UEFI. It booted fine and I wiped windows and I've installed Linux and Windows 10, no problems booting at all. I've also updated the bios a couple of times with no hassle. So, I have some kind of exceptional G3.

That's surprising. It's possible that the BIOS/UEFI was later updated to support NVMe, but I don't remember it being mentioned in the BIOS/UEFI release notes.
The WWAN slot SSD is probably a no-go, unless the schematics (which I've yet to see) prove otherwise.

Bill, Axur, sorry guys, mystery solved, I am an idiot.
Everything else I said was accurate, but it's not a Carbon, it's a Yoga . I always forget about the touchscreen....

With that said, do you have any updated advice regarding adding a second drive to the WWAN slot? Or would this question be better to ask in the Yoga section (although AFAIK, this "Yoga" is more like a Carbon than typical Yogas)?

[axur-delmeria]

So... it's an X1 Yoga Gen 3? IIRC its WWAN slot supports the same type of NVMe SSD as the T480: 2242 B+M key PCIe x2. But those are rare these days, superseded by M-key 2230 and 2242 PCIe x4 SSDs. But since the WWAN slot is B-keyed, you'll have to resort to modding either the slot or the SSD itself, or use a 2230 NVMe SSD (becoming common due to the Steam Deck) plus a low-profile B-key to M-key adapter (though I don't know if one exists).

[o9o]

So... it's an X1 Yoga Gen 3? IIRC its WWAN slot supports the same type of NVMe SSD as the T480: 2242 B+M key PCIe x2. But those are rare these days, superseded by M-key 2230 and 2242 PCIe x4 SSDs. But since the WWAN slot is B-keyed, you'll have to resort to modding either the slot or the SSD itself, or use a 2230 NVMe SSD (becoming common due to the Steam Deck) plus a low-profile B-key to M-key adapter (though I don't know if one exists).

Ok, thanks for the help, I appreciate it!