ThinkPad Serial ATA Hard Drive Bay Adapter II (43R1980)

FYI, the Ultrabay hard drive adapter for the T400/T500's is now available to order, at least on the US lenovo.com. $39.96 through CPP with free shipping. Sorry if this is old news, I hadn't seen it mentioned.

This is the new version, part #43R1980. - the previous one (40Y8725) won't work as far as I know.

Shows a 9/22 ship date and we all know how accurate that tends to be.

 

Awesome, great find!

 

I already have one, I bought it from valleyseek.com and chose next day air. I know have 248 GB of Solid State goodness.

 

Is there a user guide that shows how to swap out the DVD drive with the HD adapter?

 

There's a switch on the side that you pull to swap out the dvd drive with the Adapter.

 

Great! My Dell inspiron 8500 uses the same ez pop out enclosure, glad to see I'll have the option of 2 physical HD on the thinkpad too.

Until I read this thread I just assumed the T500 did not have this option because I looked in the brouchure (albeit quickly) but couldn't find anything that said hard drive bay so I just assumed I'd have to live with one HD and do some partitioning if I wanted to have more than the OS paritition.

I wish I could afford SSD, lucky you.

 

FYI: When I ordered my adapter from lenovo.com on Friday, it had 9/19 as the estimated ship date.

I just got the "it's shipped" email tonight, and the order status page links to a valid UPS tracking number. Guess that "ships in 1-2 weeks" estimate is a bit pessimistic.

 

I made my order thru lenovo canada just now, also 2 week ETA. But I'm not in a hurry.

 

Sold out. :-(

 

Can you comment on the speed of the SSD? (Compared to 7200prm hdd) What brand are you using?
Where did you get them/how much?
Any battery/heat savings?

Thanks!

 

is it possible to use the 2 disks in raid-0 mode?

 

Just got my new drive. Was going to put the original one into one of these adapters. The adapter also wants to use those side mounts but neither the new drive nor the adapter came with them.

Also, anybody know if there's an external USB caddy/housing that I could put the DVD drive into so that I could still use it even when both hard drives are in?

 

I have not found an external housing for the DVD drive; I wish there was one, but I'm pretty sure there never will be one :-(

 

I bought an external USB optical housing kit for my X6 Ultrabase DVD-RW on Ebay for USD 10 a few months ago. However, I do not know if the X6 optical drives have the same interface (SATA or PATA) as the X200 optical drives have.

If they have the same interface the eBay external USB housing kits should do fine.

 

The brand of SSD's that I'm using is from Supertalent. The main drive is the 3rd generation ssd and the one in adapter is the second generation SSD. Here are the Hdtune and hdtach results for the 3rd generation: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=306345. I bought both drives from newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820609333. My notebook doesn't get hot when gaming, I get about 2.5 hours on a 4 cell battery. I would get more if I had a bigger battery installed. I think it's faster than a 7200 rpm drive probably faster than a raptor drive.

I don't know if it possible to raid the drives, I haven't tried it.

 

Dear Expertise,

I am planning to buy either one of the following two items from TigerDirect:

"Hitachi 320GB 2.5" Mobile Hard Drive - 5400, 8MB, SATA"

"Seagate 320GB 5400/8MB 2.5" Mobile Hard Drive - 5400RPM, 8MB, SATA-300, OEM"


I need these HD to use as secondary HD's in my Lenovo ThinkPad T400 via "ThinkPad Serial ATA Hard Drive Bay Adapter II".(Purchased from lenovo)

Please advice me whether these HD's are compatible with this adapter?

OR

Am I bound to buy HD from Lenovo too?

 

I ordered one too through Lenovo Canada EPP with additional 10% off. Came to $34 before taxes

 

Dear Expertise,

I would like to know about the compatibility issues of ultra bay adapter with Seagate HD & my T400.

I am planning to buy either one of the following two items from TigerDirect:

"Hitachi 320GB 2.5" Mobile Hard Drive - 5400, 8MB, SATA"

"Seagate 320GB 5400/8MB 2.5" Mobile Hard Drive - 5400RPM, 8MB, SATA-300, OEM"


I need these HD to use as secondary HD's in my Lenovo ThinkPad T400 via "ThinkPad Serial ATA Hard Drive Bay Adapter II".(Purchased from lenovo)

Please advice me whether these HD's are compatible with this adapter?

And whether this solution will work for my T400?

Dr Khan

 

As far as I know any 2.5" SATA laptop drive will work in the adapter. You do not have to buy the disk from IBM.

Although not absolutely necessary, it is nice to have the drive in a caddy like this one. Allows it to fit a little better; but no reason you can't make a couple shims out of a couple bits of folded paper or tape.

 

Dear Lew,

Thank you very much for your reply.

The reason I am asking it coz someone at lenovo technical support told me that only "Hard Drives" purchased from lenovo(ThinkPad) will work in my T400.

Coz IBM uses proprietary softwares, thats why if I purchase from other vendors, those HD will "FIT" physically in the ThinkPad Serial ATA Hard Drive Bay Adapter II. But those will not be installed/recognized by T400.

That's why I am confused & worried.

Are you positive that my Seagate or Hitachi or Western Digital that I purchase from TigerDirect or Amazon (Ofcourse 2.5 inches SATA) will work in T400 with this adapter?

Thanks

Dr. Khan

 

Yes they will work. Where do you think IBM gets there hard drives from? Seagate and Hitachi are their major suppliers. And buy the 7200 rpm hard drives. Their performance is much better. Don't cheap out. I'm sure you can afford it, doctor I recommend the Seagate 320 GB 7200.3 7200 rpm HDD.

 

LOL.....

I will.

Thanks.

 

I just got one of these adapters and am trying to install a Seagate 7200.1 SATA HD (100gb 7200 rpm) into it -- rescued from my dead T42
The connector on the adaptor is completely different from the pins on my HD. NOt sure what to do -- can some of you who have used this adaptor please give my some guidance
My T500 (with 64gb SSD as the main drive) has not yet arrived
thx

 

your old hard drive is probably uses a PATA/IDE connection. The new hard drives uses SATA. The new adapter for the T500 uses SATA connection so it cannot be used with your old hard drive.

 

My adapter is delivered & now I have to make a proper choice of purchasing HD that can be "recognized" by my T400.

Are there any chances of incompatibility issues/no recognition when using adapter "WITH" HD in my T400?

According to your experience, which brands in Hard Drives have a user friendly attitude with T400?

My regards

Dr.Khan

 

Will that caddy work with a T500?

 

Are 7200rpm HD more battery consuming & CPU consuming vs 5400rpm?

 

CPU should be no difference. Power varies between drives and manufacturers; used to be there was a difference worth noticing, now I'm not so sure. There is a comparison of speed/power/etc. between different drives over on the Toms Hardware site somewhere, I don't have the link handy but a little searching should locate it.

No idea. Can't imagine why it wouldn't, but since I don't have access to a T500 I can't help you there.

There's always some chance of something weird happening, but if you buy a name brand SATA laptop drive it should work just fine.

If you're truly that worried about whether what you get will work or not, then I strongly recommend you go to lenovo.com and order a hard drive from them. You'll pay more, but you'll be able to call them for help if something doesn't work just right.

 

Dear Expertise,

OK.

Now both Bay Adapter & Seagate 320GB are delivered.

I installed the hardware. But the Hard Drive is not showing up in my computer??

I need your advice.

Dr. Khan

 

Hi,

Lenovo W500 + Lenovo SATA Bay Adapter II + WesternDigital ScorpioBlue 500GB-5400rpm

Everything works perfectly.

Sincerely
BN