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ThinkPad UltraBay

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UltraBay Slim with DVD drive

UltraBay is originally IBM's name for the swappable drive bay in the ThinkPad range of laptop computers. When the ThinkPad product line was sold to Lenovo, the concept and the name stayed. It is also used in some of Lenovo's own IdeaPad Y Series laptops.

Introduced with the ThinkPad 750 series in 1995, this technology has gone through redesigns with almost every new generation of ThinkPad, which may lead to confusion. The following table gives an overview of the different UltraBay types, in which models they occurred and which drives are available for them. Note that the optical drive bay in G series and R40e series ThinkPads is not an UltraBay in that the drives are fixed and not removable. It is however, mechanically, an UltraBay 2000-device without the surrounding "caddy".

On the media side different UltraBays relate to the form factor of the drives they accept; Some machines can accept UltraBay devices up to 12.5 mm thick, whereas others are limited to devices no more than 9.5mm thick.

The IdeaPad Y400 and Y500 laptops have an UltraBay slot which can be swapped for another hard drive, another fan or another Nvidia GT650M (or GT750M)[1] GPU which will work in SLI with the system's primary video card for increased graphics performance. Existing orders for the UltraBay Y500 DVD Burner (no built in optical drive) were cancelled in early June, 2013.[citation needed]

Ultrabay with HDD

Starting in 2014, Lenovo changed the design of the ThinkPad bay adapter and dropped the "UltraBay" terminology from use. What remained (in the ThinkPad W540 product) was an option for a removable Serial ATA (SATA) "Caddy" accessory which, with a screw driver, allowed the optical drive to be replaced with a second 2.5 inch SATA storage device. Battery expansion in the caddy bay was no longer offered, and earlier hot-swap functionality was essentially rendered difficult if not impossible.

Nomenclature

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UltraBay
UltraBay type Featured in Available devices
UltraBay 355, 360, 370C, 750, 755C, 755CE, 755Cs, 755CSE, 755CV, 755CX, 760C, 760L, 760E HDD, FDD, Battery, PCMCIA-cartridge, IBM Wireless Modem.
UltraBay Thick 755CD, 755CDV, 760CD, 760E, 760ED, 760EL, 760ELD, 760LD, 760XD, 760XL, 765 SelectaDock I,
SelectaDock II
HDD, FDD, CD, Battery, PCMCIA-cartridge, IBM Wireless Modem.
UltraBay II 770 SelectaDock III HDD, FDD, ZIP-100, ZIP-250, CD, DVD, Battery
UltraBay FX 390, i-Series 1720, i-Series 1721 HDD, FDD, CD, DVD, Battery
UltraSlimbay 600 Ultrabase (570),
Portable Drive Bay
HDD, FDD, ZIP-100, ZIP-250, CD, DVD, Battery
UltraBay 2000 T20, T21, T22, T23 A20, A21, A22, A30,[a] A31[a] Dock 2631, Dock II, UltraBase X2,
Portable Drive Bay 2000
HDD, FDD, LS-120, LS-240, ZIP-100, ZIP-250, CD, CD-RW, DVD, Combo, Multi, Battery
UltraBay Plus R30, R31, R32, R40 T23, T30 A30, A31 Ultrabase X3 HDD, FDD, LS-120, LS-240, ZIP-100, ZIP-250, CD, CD-RW, DVD, Combo, Multi, Battery, PDA-Cradle, NumPad.
UltraBay Slim[b] T40, T41, T42, T43, T60, T61
T40p, T41p, T42p, T43p, T60p, T61p
Z60t, Z61t

ThinkPad X4 Dock,
UltraBase X4, UltraBase X6,
UltraBase X6 Tablet

HDD, DVD, Combo, Multi, Battery, Serial-Parallel Port Adapter (T60–61, some R60–R61).
UltraBay Enhanced

R50, R51, R52,
R60, R61

Z60m, Z61m, Z60p, Z61p ThinkPad Advanced Dock HDD, DVD, Combo, Multi, BD-RW, Battery
Serial UltraBay Slim[c] T500, T400, T400s, T410, T410s, T420s, T430s W500 X200 UltraBase,
X220 Ultrabase
HDD, DVD, Combo, Multi, BD-RW, Battery (UltraBay Slim-Battery).
Serial UltraBay Enhanced[c] R400, R500 T510/T510i, T520, T420, T530, T430 W700, W510, W520, W530 HDD, DVD, Combo, Multi, BD-RW (3mm gap visible).[2]
Fixed Serial UltraBay Enhanced

L510, L410,
SL510, SL410,
L512, L412,
L520, L420,
L530, L430

DVD, Combo, Multi, Travel Cover, HDD (with UltraBay-Adapter for Third-party source).
Fixed Serial UltraBay Slim L440, L540 T440p, T540p W540, W541
P70, P71, P72
HDD, DVD, Combo, Multi, Travel Cover.
  1. ^ a b left-sided
  2. ^ IDE interface
  3. ^ a b SATA interface, Serial UltraBay Enhanced is not compatible with batteries

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 Gaming Laptop". Archived from the original on 2014-12-13.
  2. ^ "Thinkpad T520 tech specs" (PDF). lenovo.com.