eBay Ultrabay adapter reporting SATA I with OEM Seagate 500gig HDD installed

I purchased -THIS- recently and when I installed it along with the OEM 500GB Seagate HDD (which is SATA II), RST is only reporting it as operating at SATA I (1.5 Gb/sec). I then removed the HDD from the adapter and put it back into the main spot and RST then correctly reported it as a SATA II drive.


Have any of you come across this when using similar eBay Ultrabay adapters? I am thinking about trying another one on eBay, but don't know if I want to take the chance or not. Has anybody purchased a Ultrabay adapter off of eBay and having it report the correct SATA interface for an OEM SATA II HDD?

BTW, I have a W520

thanks!

 

There are many variations of the third party Ultrabay adaptor on eBay so some may output different results to others.

I also bought a 12.7mm caddy but from a different seller with a different design. Yet it works perfectly, system reports SATA 3GB/s with my WD Scorpio Blue SATA II drive inside so I guess you're just unlucky obtaining a bad caddy.

 

In my searching I saw that post and I found that same seller and have his item being "watched". I may just try that one and see how it goes.

thanks!

 

I also purchased a 3rd party Ultrabay adapter from an UK seller on eBay, specifically this one. Installed today and my SATA II 3.0 Gb/s drive is being reported as SATA I 1.5 Gb/s. This is strange because I thought these adapters are passive devices! I'm now contacting the seller for a refund.

I'm going to buy the one from Digizon instead. I am weary about buying from international sellers (which is why I went initially for this UK seller) but considering Hearst is from the UK and has successfully imported this Ultrabay, I'm going to do the same. The build quality of the one I purchased is questionable so I don't mind paying an extra £10 to have the drive working at full speed.

 

UPDATE!

I received the one from Digizon and it's IDENTICAL to the one I had previously. The only difference is that the one from Digizon has a slightly different sticker on the right side and has 'ThinkPad" on it. I installed it along with my OEM 500gig Seagate HDD and it STILL is reported by RST to be running in 1.5 Gb/s mode. I then put my 6 Gb/s M4 SSD in it (which I didn't have at the time of testing the first adapter) and RST reports this one fine at 6Gb/s. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I then put the SSD in the first adapter and this one too is correctly reporting the 6Gb/s speed.

If I put the HDD in the normal bay it is reported fine at 3.0Gb/s. It's only when I put the HDD in the adapters that it's not being reported as 3.0Gb/s....even though the SSD will report 6.0Gb/s in both of the adapters.

 

That's strange. For a test I took out my Seagate Momentus XT 500GB from my R61e, placed it in the Digizon caddy and it reported SATA II speeds absolutely fine. What is the model of your Seagate drive?

 

Here is my drive info while inserted into the Digizon adapter: