Ultrabay

IBM/Lenovo Ultrabay Ultrabay is IBM's, now Lenovo's, name for the swappable drive slot. With IBM's words: "The ThinkPad UltraBay,1 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 750 ThinkPads, this technology has gone through 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 occurred and what drives are available for them. Note that the optical drive bay in G series ThinkPads is not an Ultrabay in that the drives are fixed and not removable. On the media side different Ultrabays relate to the form factor of the drives they accept, e.g early A, T and X series models can accept Ultrabay devices up to 12.5mm in thickness, whereas current T and X series machines are limited to devices no more than 9.5mm thick.

Overview over Ultrabay types and available devices

Ultrabay Type	featured in	available drives (see Ultrabay Devices for details)
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, 600E, 600X, UltraBase, Portable Drive Bay
Ultrabay 2000	A20m, A20p, A21e, A21m, A21p, A22e, A22m, A22p, A30, T20, T21, T22, T23, 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, Z61p, X4 UltraBase, ThinkPad X4 Dock, X6 UltraBase, X6 UltraBase Tablet	, Serial/Parallel Port Adapter (T60/T60p)
Ultrabay Enhanced	R50, R50e, R50p, R51, R52, R60, Z60m, Z61m, ThinkPad Advanced Dock
Serial Ultrabay Slim	T400, T500, W500, W700, X200 UltraBase	(Ultrabay Slim battery), Blu-ray drive
Serial Ultrabay Enhanced	R400, R500	, Blu-ray drive

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

Slots Devices	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

Link title

Characteristics

• UltraBay: no hot swapping
• UltraBay Thick: thicker version of UltraBay to support CD-ROM drive
• UltraBay II: supports hot swapping, blending has cut out edge on the right
• UltraBay FX: the combined floppy drive and CD-ROM, DVD or CDRW mechanism found in the 390/390E/390X
• UltraslimBay: supports hot swapping; frame, rectangle like blending
• Ultrabay 2000: supports hot swapping; frame, blending has cut-out edge on the right
• Ultrabay Plus: same as 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; thinner (9.5 mm) than the Ultrabay 2000; cut-out right edge in blending
• Ultrabay Enhanced: supports hot swapping; thicker (12.7 mm) than Ultrabay Slim, but accepts Ultrabay Slim devices
• Serial Ultrabay Slim: supports hot swapping; same dimensions as the Ultrabay Slim; curved panel; supports Ultrabay Slim battery
• Serial Ultrabay Enhanced: supports hot swapping; same dimensions as the Ultrabay Enhanced

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.

Unofficially compatible

A CDRW/DVD-ROM Superdrive (scavenged from a Mac iBook) will fit in an Ultrabay 2000. The original face won't fit in the bay, leaving a bare metal front. When the drive spins up, it blows a lot of air out. Maybe that's an anti-dust measure?

In general, Ultrabay 2000 CD drives have a standard connector, and can therefore be replaced by most other 12.7 mm drives. You might have to do some cutting of the plastic face plate.

The Ultrabay Slim CD drives however, have a proprietary connector. You can not replace them with any 9.5 mm CD drive.

Hotswapping

See also How to hotswap Ultrabay devices.

External sources

• IBMs 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 bee but later switched to "Ultrabay" with a lower-case bee.