Ultrabay
|
IBM/Lenovo UltrabayUltrabay was IBM's, now Lenovo's name for the swappable drive slot. With IBM's definition: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 ThinkPads with an Ultrabay have a mechanism to eject the Ultrabay device from it, some don't even have one. Those models that do not have such a mechanism, would require manual intervention to eject the drive.
Compatibility
| 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
- a thicker version of the original UltraBay 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
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
| FOOTNOTES [Δ] |
- IBM originally used the spelling "UltraBay" with a capital letter 'B' but later switched to "Ultrabay" with a lower-case 'b'.
- According to IBM, warm swapping is basically hot swapping but instead, it has to be done in Suspend mode under Windows 95 or 98.
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