Question about the advanced dock Part#250410U

I'm wanting to fit out the advanced dock I just bought. It's the larger of the two that has pci slot for the additional graphics card. What I'm want to do is add a bluray player in the ultrabay slot and maybe a expansion card with an esata connector to use with a NAS system. I'm using it with a W500 so I don't really need the additional graphics. I doubt it would support a graphics card big enough to top the onboard card in the laptop.

This is what I've been able to figure out thus far. The ultrabay has a 12.7mm pata interface which will make it difficult but not impossible to find a corresponding bluray burner. What I haven't been able to ascertain is the specifics on the expansion slot. The page on thinkpadwiki is not entirely clear to me.

 

R61 had the ultrabay enhanced blu-ray burner, which is what you are after.

Lenovo Support & downloads - ThinkPad Ultrabay Enhanced Blu-ray Burner - Overview

the spec and part number is listed in the above link.

Regarding pci-express expansion slot only operates at 1.0x speed. But people have successfully got a ATI 5770 working, which is faster than the graphics card on the W500.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/len...etting-radeon-5770-working-advanced-dock.html

 

So the slot is PCI express 1.0x? I'm more interested in having an expansion card with esata or usb 3.0 ports for external storage array but that project definitely gives me something to think about.

 

it is x16 format running at x1 speed.

not sure whether it works with the cards that you mentioned, it probably will but there is not guarantee.