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. Some Ultrabays might also not support hot and/or warm swapping, even if they are capable of doing so in a different ThinkPad (e.g. the T30 supports hot, warm, and cold swapping, but the R32 only supports cold swapping despite having the same Ultrabay type). These crippled Ultrabay variants are generally found on the low-end models, although they can also be rarely found on high-end models.

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	Template:P70, Template:P71, W510, W520, W530, W540, W541, W700, W700ds, W701, W701ds, T420, T420i, T430, T430i, T440p, T510, T510i, T520, T520i, T530, T530i, T540p, R400, R500	(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 or warm swapping, only cold swapping
  • the drive bezel is a flat rectangle with no cut-outs; no bevels
  • this is the original UltraBay that started it all (15 mm height)
• UltraBay Thick
  • no support for hot or warm swapping, only cold swapping
  • the drive bezel is a flat rectangle with a cut-out on the bottom right corner; no bevels
  • a thicker version of the original UltraBay, exclusively supports an optical drive (19 mm height)
• UltraBay II
  • supports hot, warm, and cold swapping
  • the drive bezel is a flat rectangle with a cut-out on the bottom right corner; no bevels
  • an updated bay, has more device options (19 mm height)
• UltraBay FX
  • no support for hot swapping, only warm and cold swapping
  • the drive bezel is a wedge with a cut-out on the top right corner; no bevels
  • an unusual bay with the the capability of accepting a FDD+ODD combo (19 mm height)
• UltraslimBay
  • supports hot, warm, and cold swapping
  • the drive bezel is a flat rectangle with no cut-outs; has a beveled bottom
  • a slim bay (12.7 mm height)
• Ultrabay 2000
  • supports hot, warm, and cold swapping
  • the drive bezel is a flat rectangle with a cut-out on the bottom right corner; has a beveled-to-flat bottom
  • a slim bay made mainstream for most models (12.7 mm height)
• Ultrabay Plus
  • supports hot, warm, and cold swapping
  • the drive bezel is a flat rectangle with a cut-out on the bottom right corner; has a beveled-to-flat bottom
  • an Ultrabay 2000 with USB 1.1 capabilities, exclusively supports the Device Carrier which can either hold a Numeric Keypad or a Cradle for the WorkPad C500 (12.7 mm height)
• Ultrabay Slim
  • supports hot, warm, and cold swapping
  • the drive bezel is a flat rectangle with a cut-out on the bottom right corner; has a beveled bottom for blue-button drives, no bevels for grey-button drives
  • has a proprietary 50-pin connector, also has a different battery connector which makes it unable to use any 'Advanced' Ultrabay batteries meant for the T6x/R6x/X6x/Z6x and the newer models (9.5 mm height)
• Ultrabay Enhanced
  • supports hot, warm, and cold swapping
  • the drive bezel is a flat rectangle with a cut-out on the bottom right corner; has a beveled bottom for blue-button drives, no bevels for grey-button drives
  • a thicker version of the Ultrabay Slim (12.7 mm height)
• Serial Ultrabay Slim
  • supports hot, warm, and cold swapping
  • the drive bezel is a flat rectangle with a cut-out on the bottom right corner; has a beveled bottom (some odd drive bezels from the same era may not have a beveled bottom)
  • an Ultrabay Slim that has a standard MicroSATA connector, has the capability to accept newer 'Advanced' Ultrabay batteries as the battery connector matches³ (9.5 mm height)
• Serial Ultrabay Enhanced
  • supports hot, warm, and cold swapping
  • the drive bezel is a flat rectangle with a cut-out on the bottom right corner; has a beveled bottom (some odd drive bezels from the same era don't, they're just wedges with no bevels)
  • a thicker version of the Serial Ultrabay Slim, it's supposed to accept Serial Ultrabay Slim batteries without an issue, but has problems with it fitting and may disconnect upon movement³ (12.7 mm height)

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.
3. Most or some models that are able to use slice batteries, may have problems that causes it to not fully slide in, see this discussion here for more information.