ThinkPad UltraBay

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. Furthermore, it is 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 9.5 mm 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) 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.

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

Overview of UltraBay types and available devices

UltraBay Type	Featured in	Available devices
UltraBay	All 760s and 765s	FD, CD, Extra PCMCIA, HD, Battery, ZIP-100
UltraBay II	770, 770E, 770ED, 770X, 770Z	FD, CD/DVD, CD-RW/DVD, HD, Battery, ZIP-100, ZIP-250, LS-120
UltraBay FX	390, 390E, 390X	FD, CD/DVD, CD-RW/DVD, Battery, Second HDD
UltraSlimBay	570, 570E, 600, 600E, 600X	FD, CD/DVD, CD-RW/DVD, HD, Battery (600E&X Only), ZIP-100, ZIP-250, LS-120
UltraBay 2000	A20, A21, A22, A30, A30p, A31, A31p, T20, T21, T22, T23, T30, X20, X21, X22, X23, X24 w/ UltraBase X2, X30, X31, X32 w/ UltraBase X3	FD, CD/DVD, CD-RW/DVD, Multiburner, HD, Battery, ZIP-100, ZIP-250, LS-120, LS-240
UltraBay Plus	A30, A30p, A31, A31p, R30, R31, R32, R40, T23, T30	all UltraBay 2000 devices, WorkPad Cradle, Numberpad
UltraBay Slim	T40, T40p, T41, T41p, T42, T42p, T43, T43p, X4 UltraBase, X6 UltraBase	CD/DVD, CD-RW/DVD, Multiburner, PATA HD, SATA HD, Battery
UltraBay Enhanced	R50, R50p, R51, R52	CD/DVD, CD-RW/DVD, Multiburner, and all UltraBay Slim devices
Enhanced Ultrabay	Z60t, Z60m, Z61t, Z61m, R60, R61, R61i	CD/DVD, CD-RW/DVD, Multiburner, Blu-ray Burner, and all Ultrabay Slim / Slim Ultrabay devices
Slim Ultrabay	T60, T60p, T61, T61p	CD/DVD, CD-RW/DVD, Multiburner, SATA HD, Battery, Serial / Parallel Port Adapter, and all Ultrabay Slim devices
Serial Ultrabay Slim	T400, T500, W500, W700, X200 UltraBase	SATA HD Adapter, CD-RW/DVD, DVD Burner, Blu-ray Burner, Battery
Serial Ultrabay Enhanced	T420, T430, T520, R400, R500, W510, W520, W530, W700ds	DVD, CD-RW/DVD, DVD Burner, Blu-ray Burner and all Serial Ultrabay Slim devices (3mm gap visible)