T400s - what size HD fits in the Ultrabay adapter?

What size drive fits in the Ultrabay of the T400s, 1.8 or 2.5"? Also, if the Ultrabay holds a SATA drive, does it make sense to have a SSD as the main drive and a SATA as the secondary? I ordered a T400s w/ a 128gb SSD and was planning on putting a 640gb 2.5" SATA drive in the Ultrabay slot.

 

normal is 2.5. using an adaptor you can put a 1.8 in.

 

yeah you can do that, you just need the HDD adaptor. Either buy from ebay or lenovo.

 

So does it make sense to put a single larger SSD drive (256gb maybe) in primary drive slot rather than a smaller SSD drive as primary and a SATA drive in the ultrabay slot? I think the performance degradation from having to read data from a SATA drive would make it almost useless having a SSD as the primary drive (w/ OS & apps). Is my thinking incorrect?

 

I think hybrid storage is a great idea. A good SSD (the 128GB Samsung is fine) and the cheapest most efficient HDD you can find (most likely 5400RPM with two 320GB platters) would be my recommendation.

A relatively small SSD (128GB easily, but even 32GB should be adequate) can hold your OS, all your programs, and your document files. These items consist of lots of small files and get great performance gains from the improvements in random access and throughput on small random reads/writes that an SSD provides.

Files that are only accessed occasionally, tend to be large, and/or are accessed in a sequential manner over a period of time are very well suited to hard drives due to the lower cost per GB. This includes almost all media (videos, music, photos) as well as big files like ISOs. These files don't need the performance offered by an SSD and are thus better on a cheap HDD.

I would do the SSD/HDD setup on my x200 Tablet if I had the option. Instead I just use a small SSD (64GB) and 2TB+ storage on my desktop tower that I access over 802.11N. On the T400s I think that the SSD+HDD setup is definitely the way to go if you want more than 100GB of available space (large SSDs are expensive and most people only have 20-50GB that would really benefit from SSD performance improvements).

One other word of advice, if playing back a video file while on battery it may make sense to transfer it from the HDD to the SSD first. SSDs tend to have a much lower active power consumption figure than HDDs and letting the HDD spin down during video playback can add a decent bit of battery life.

 

the T400s Ultrabay can only take a 2.5 inch hdd with a thickness of 9.5 mm.

 

Is the Ultrabay adapter that fits in the W500 the same as the adapter for the T400s? Saw this on eBay and would like to confirm.

 

They will both work. However, if you use the older style (w500, T400, T61, et. al.) adapter with the T400s the bezel won't quite match. There is one specifically for the T400s (I believe Ultrabay Adapter III).

 

Buy the Ultrabay Adapter III from Lenovo. I bought a replica from ebay and it got stuck in my Ultrabay and wouldn't eject. I had to send it to Lenovo to get it out.

 

the T61 adapter won't work in the T400, T500, W500, etc because it use a pata interface, whereas the recent machines use a SATA interface.

 

You sure about that? I thought the SATA bay is only internally (i.e. on the board) bridged via PATA (and back)?

 

Anyone have a link to the Ultrabay HD adapter for the T400s, either from Lenovo or eBay? Anyone have a reservation about using an adapter purchased from eBay? I have an adapter from eBay for my W500 that the T400s won't recognize when inserted. Incompatibility or could I be doing something wrong? thanks

 

I think this is what you're looking for:

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/...1FB0B45CBB39F45EB5B2B986E&&hide_menu_area=yes

search for 43N3412 on eBay

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/For-Lenovo-43N3...C_Drives_Storage_Internal?hash=item3356b66950

Found the above item on eBay. Question is why is that also compatible with the W500 and the adapter that I have currently with my W500 doesn't get recognized in the T400s?