Ultrabay

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Revision as of 18:25, 18 March 2005 by 84.64.30.128 (Talk) (IBM UltraBay)
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UltraBay drives

IBM UltraBay

UltraBay is IBMs name for the swapable drive slot. Introduced back in the times of the 770 Thinkpads, this technology has gone through redesigns with almost every new generation of Thinkpad models, possibly leading to some confusion that is hopefully cleared up here. The following table gives and overview of the different UltraBay types, in which models they occured and what drives are available for them. Note that the optical drive bay in G series Thinkpads is not an UltraBay but that the drives are fixed here.

On the media side UltraBay means basically just a mechanical form factor for drives. Up to the UltraBay Plus this means that the drives came within a special frame which included an interface adaptor as well. UltraBay Slim drives do not have neither the frame nor an interface adaptor anymore.

Overview over UltraBay types and available devices
UltraBay Type featured in available drives
Icon20 ultrabay.png UltraBay II 770, 770E, 770ED, 770X, 770Z Icon20 floppy.png Icon20 cdrom.png Icon20 dvd.png Icon20 hdd.png Icon20 battery.png, ZIP-100, ZIP-250
Icon20 ultraslimbay.png UltraSlimBay 570, 570E, 600, 600E, 600X Icon20 floppy.png Icon20 cdrom.png Icon20 cdrw.png Icon20 dvd.png Icon20 hdd.png Icon20 battery.png, ZIP-100, ZIP-250
Icon20 ultrabay2000.png UltraBay 2000 A20, A21, A22, T20, T21, T22, X20, X21, X22, X23, X24 Icon20 floppy.png Icon20 cdrom.png Icon20 cdrw.png Icon20 dvd.png Icon20 combo.png Icon20 multiburner.png Icon20 hdd.png Icon20 battery.png, ZIP-100, ZIP-250
Icon20 ultrabayplus.png UltraBay Plus A30, A30p, A31, A31p, R30, R31, R32, R40, T23, T30, X30, X31 Icon20 floppy.png Icon20 cdrom.png Icon20 cdrw.png Icon20 dvd.png Icon20 combo.png Icon20 multiburner.png Icon20 hdd.png Icon20 battery.png, ZIP-100, ZIP-250, WorkPad Cradle, Numpad
Icon20 ultrabayslim.png UltraBay Slim R50, R50p, R51, R51p, T40, T40p, T41, T41p, T42, T42p, X40 Icon20 dvd.png Icon20 combo.png Icon20 multiburner.png Icon20 hdd.png Icon20 battery.png

mechanical Characteristics

  • UltraBay FX: The combined floppy drive and CD-ROM, DVD or CDRW mechanism found in the 390/390E/390X.
  • UltraSlimBay: Frame, rectangle like blending
  • UltraBay 2000: Frame, blending has cut out egde on the right
  • UltraBay Slim: notably thinner than UltraBay 2000, cut out right edge in blending

Linux Support

Since the UltraBay interface is merely an IDE controller, all drives are supported by the IDE driver in the linux kernel. Hotswapping is supposed to be supported as well, using hdparm to (un)register devices. NOTE: This seems to be broken with 2.6 kernels. If UltraBay Plus devices are supported is not known.