Ultrabay

IBM/Lenovo Ultrabay Ultrabay was IBM's, now Lenovo's name for the swappable drive slot. With IBM's definition: "The ThinkPad UltraBay1, also standard with the system, is an intelligent bay that switches its pinout signals to allow the installation of standard and optional features in what would normally be just the FDD bay." Introduced back in the times of the ThinkPad 750, this technology has gone through several redesigns with almost every new generation of ThinkPad models, possibly leading to some confusion that is hopefully cleared up here. The following table gives an overview of the different Ultrabay types, in which models they came from and what drives are available for them.

Over the course of time, a number of different form factors have been used for the Ultrabay. These are usually not cross-compatible, but see below for more details. Current ThinkPads use either the Serial Ultrabay Slim (accommodates drives up to 9.5 mm high) or the Serial Ultrabay Enhanced (accommodates drives up to 12.7 mm high). See Ultrabay Devices for a list of all Ultrabay devices.

Keep in mind that not all Ultrabays are made equal, as some lack an eject mechanism or pins that are needed to charge and discharge an Ultrabay battery. These crippled Ultrabay variants are generally found on the low-end models, although they can also be rarely found on a high-end model.

Compatibility

Overview over Ultrabay types and available devices

Ultrabay Type	featured in	available devices
UltraBay	355, 355C, 355CS, 360, 360C, 360CS, 360P, 360CE, 360CSE, 360PE, 370C, 750, 750C, 750CS, 750P, 755C, 755CE, 755CS, 755CSE, 755CV, 755CX, 760C, 760L, 760E	, 2.88 MB diskette, PCMCIA Cartridge, IBM Wireless Modem ARDIS, IBM Wireless Modem
UltraBay Thick	755CD, 755CDV, 760CD, 760E, 760ED, 760EL, 760ELD, 760LD, 760XD, 760XL, 765D, 765L, SelectaDock I, SelectaDock II	, 2.88 MB diskette, PCMCIA Cartridge, IBM Wireless Modem ARDIS, IBM Wireless Modem
UltraBay II	770, 770E, 770ED, 770X, 770Z, SelectaDock III
UltraBay FX	390, 390E, 390X, i Series 1720, i Series 1721
UltraslimBay	600, 600, 600E, 600X, UltraBase, Portable Drive Bay
Ultrabay 2000	A20m, A20p, A21e, A21m, A21p, A22e, A22m, A22p, A30, A30p, A31, A31p, T20, T21, T22, Dock, Dock II, X2 UltraBase, Portable Drive Bay 2000
Ultrabay Plus	A30, A30p, A31, A31p, R30, R31, R32, R40, T23, T30, X3 UltraBase	, WorkPad Cradle, Numpad
Ultrabay Slim	T40, T40p, T41, T41p, T42, T42p, T43, T43p, T60, T60p, T61, T61p, Z60t, Z61t, X4 UltraBase, X4 Dock, X6 UltraBase, X6 Tablet UltraBase	, Serial/Parallel Port Adapter (T60/T60p)
Ultrabay Enhanced	R50, R50e, R50p, R51, R51e, R52, R60, R60i, R60e, R61, R61i, R61e, G41, G50, Z60m, Z61e, Z61m, Z61p, Advanced Dock
Serial Ultrabay Slim	T400, T400s, T410, T410i, T410s, T410si, T420s, T420si, T430s, T430si, T500, W500, X200 UltraBase, UltraBase Series 3	(Ultrabay Slim battery, see Characteristics), Blu-ray drive
Serial Ultrabay Enhanced	R400, R500, T420, T420i, T430, T430i, T440p, T510, T510i, T520, T520i, T530, T530i, T540p, W510, W520, W530, W540, W541, W700, W700ds, W701, W701ds	(see Characteristics), Blu-ray drive

Compatibility Matrix (read columns as slots with rows as devices that are compatible)

Bay Device	UltraBay	UltraBay Thick	UltraBay II	UltraBay FX	UltraslimBay	Ultrabay 2000	Ultrabay Plus	Ultrabay Slim	Ultrabay Enhanced	Serial Ultrabay Slim	Serial Ultrabay Enhanced
UltraBay	yes	yes	Adapter	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
UltraBay Thick	-	yes	Adapter	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
UltraBay II	-	-	yes	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
UltraBay FX	-	-	-	yes	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
UltraslimBay	-	-	-	-	yes	-	-	-	-	-	-
Ultrabay 2000	-	-	-	-	-	yes	yes	-	-	-	-
Ultrabay Plus	-	-	-	-	-	-	yes	-	-	-	-
Ultrabay Slim	-	-	-	-	-	Adapter	Adapter	yes	yes	-	-
Ultrabay Enhanced	-	-	-	-	-	Adapter	Adapter	-	yes	-	-
Serial Ultrabay Slim	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	yes	yes
Serial Ultrabay Enhanced	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	yes

Characteristics

UltraBay 

no support for hot swapping

UltraBay Thick 

identcal to the original UltraBay, it's just thicker to support a CD-ROM drive

UltraBay II 

supports hot swapping

UltraBay FX 

no support for hot swapping, only warm swapping²; combined floppy drive and optical drive found in the 390, 390E, and the 390X

UltraslimBay

supports hot swapping; frame, rectangular bezel with beveled lower edge

Ultrabay 2000 

supports hot swapping (except in ThinkPad Dock I); frame, cutout lower right corner of the bezel

Ultrabay Plus 

identical to Ultrabay 2000, but can take the Ultrabay Plus Device Carrier which in turn can hold the Ultrabay Plus Cradle for the WorkPad C500 or the Ultrabay Plus Numeric Keypad

Ultrabay Slim 

supports hot swapping, also uses a proprietary 50-pin connector which isn't compatible with any standard IDE JAE50 optical drive; frame cutout lower right corner of bezel. earlier parts have beveled lower edge, and has a different battery connector from the 'Advanced' Lenovo 60 series

Ultrabay Enhanced 

identical to Ultrabay Slim, it's just thicker (12.7 mm compared to 9.5 mm for Ultrabay Slim)

Serial Ultrabay Slim 

identical to Ultrabay Slim, uses a MicroSATA connector; supports Ultrabay Slim battery, but not in models supporting slice battery attached to the bottom of the laptop, e.g. T410/T510 (even then there seems to be some mechanical difficulties—see discussion); some versions with a flat bezel, some versions with beveled lower edge

Serial Ultrabay Enhanced 

identical to Ultrabay Enhanced, uses a MicroSATA connector; Serial Ultrabay Slim devices do work fine, but they don't fit properly and (may) disconnect upon movement; see the Serial Ultrabay Slim notes about battery

See also

• Ultrabay Devices
• How to build your own Ultrabay drive
• How to hotswap Ultrabay devices

Linux support

The pinout switching is done by the BIOS and hardware, so that it is completely transparent to the operating system.

• Floppy drives are supported by the standard floppy driver.
• ZIP drive support is possible through the ide-disk driver.
• IDE hard disks and optical drives are supported by the ata_piix or older ide-disk driver in the linux kernel.
• Batteries are automatically handled by the hardware, but can be controlled further by using tp_smapi.
• UltraBay Plus devices should be handled by the USB subsystem, but if the actual devices are is not known.

External sources

• IBM's page on using a second hard drive adapter in the Ultrabay 2000 slot under Linux

FOOTNOTES [Δ]

1. IBM originally used the spelling "UltraBay" with a capital letter 'B' but later switched to "Ultrabay" with a lower-case 'b'.
2. According to IBM, warm swapping is basically hot swapping but instead, it has to be done in Suspend mode under Windows 95 or 98.