Ultrabay

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UltraBay drives

IBM UltraBay

UltraBay1 is IBM's name for the swapable drive slot. With IBMs words: "The ThinkPad UltraBay, also standard with the system, is an intelligent bay that switches its pinout signals to allow the installation of standard and optional features in what would normally be just the FDD bay." 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 an overview of the different UltraBay types, in which models they occurred and what drives are available for them. Note that the optical drive bay in G series Thinkpads is not an UltraBay in that the drives are fixed and not removable.

On the media side different UltraBays relate to the form factor of the drives they accept, e.g early A, T and X series models can accept UltraBay devices up to 12.5mm in thickness, whereas current T and X series machines are limited to devices no more than 9.5mm thick.

Overview over UltraBay types and available devices
UltraBay Type featured in available drives (see UltraBay Devices for details)
Icon20 ultrabay.png UltraBay 355, 355C, 355CS, 360, 360C, 360CS, 360P, 360CE, 360CSE, 360PE, 370C, 750, 750C, 750CS, 750P, 755C, 755CE, 755CS, 755CSE, 755CV, 755CX, 760C, 760L, 760E Floppy Drive Harddisk Drive Adapter Battery, 2.88 MB diskette, PCMCIA Cartridge, IBM Wireless Modem ARDIS, IBM Wireless Modem
Icon20 ultrabay.png UltraBay Thick 755CD, 755CDV, 760CD, 760E, 760ED, 760EL, 760ELD, 760LD, 760XD, 760XL, 765D, 765L Floppy Drive CD-ROM Drive Harddisk Drive Adapter Battery, 2.88 MB diskette, PCMCIA Cartridge, IBM Wireless Modem ARDIS, IBM Wireless Modem
Icon20 ultrabayii.png UltraBay II 770, 770E, 770ED, 770X, 770Z, SelectaDock III Floppy Drive 100MB Zip Drive 250MB Zip Drive CD-ROM Drive DVD-ROM Drive Harddisk Drive Adapter Battery
Icon20 ultrabayfx.png UltraBay FX 390, 390E, 390X, i Series 1720, i Series 1721 Floppy Drive CD-ROM Drive DVD-ROM Drive Harddisk Drive Adapter Battery
Icon20 ultraslimbay.png UltraslimBay 600, 600E, 600X, UltraBase, Portable Drive Bay Floppy Drive SuperDisk LS-120 Drive 100MB Zip Drive CD-ROM Drive DVD-ROM Drive Harddisk Drive Adapter Battery
Icon20 ultrabay2000.png UltraBay 2000 A20m, A20p, A21e, A21m, A21p, A22e, A22m, A22p, A30, T20, T21, T22, T23, Dock, Dock II, UltraBase X2, Portable Drive Bay 2000 Floppy Drive SuperDisk LS-120 Drive SuperDisk LS-240 Drive 100MB Zip Drive 250MB Zip Drive CD-ROM Drive DVD-ROM Drive CD-RW Drive CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo Drive DVD Multi-Burner Drive Harddisk Drive Adapter Battery
Icon20 ultrabayplus.png UltraBay Plus A30, A30p, A31, A31p, R30, R31, R32, R40, T23, T30, UltraBase X3 Floppy Drive SuperDisk LS-120 Drive SuperDisk LS-240 Drive 100MB Zip Drive 250MB Zip Drive CD-ROM Drive DVD-ROM Drive CD-RW Drive CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo Drive DVD Multi-Burner Drive Harddisk Drive Adapter Battery, WorkPad Cradle, Numpad
Icon20 ultrabayslim.png UltraBay Slim T40, T40p, T41, T41p, T42, T42p, T43, T43p, Z60t, UltraBase X4, ThinkPad X4 Dock DVD-ROM Drive CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo Drive DVD Multi-Burner Drive Harddisk Drive Adapter Battery
Icon20 ultrabayenh.png UltraBay Enhanced R50, R50p, R51, R52, Z60m ThinkPad Advanced Dock DVD-ROM Drive CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo Drive DVD Multi-Burner Drive Harddisk Drive Adapter Battery
Compatibility Matrix (read columns as slots with rows as devices that are compatible)
Slots
Devices
Icon20 ultrabay.png
UltraBay
 
Icon20 ultrabay.png
UltraBay
Thick
Icon20 ultrabayii.png
UltraBay
II
Icon20 ultrabayfx.png
UltraBay
FX
Icon20 ultraslimbay.png
UltraslimBay
 
Icon20 ultrabay2000.png
UltraBay
2000
Icon20 ultrabayplus.png
UltraBay
Plus
Icon20 ultrabayslim.png
UltraBay
Slim
Icon20 ultrabayenh.png
UltraBay
Enhanced
UltraBay yes yes Adapter - - - - - -
UltraBay Thick - yes Adapter - - - - - -
UltraBay II - - yes - - - - - -
UltraBay FX - - - yes - - - - -
UltraslimBay - - - - yes - - - -
UltraBay 2000 - - - - - yes yes - -
UltraBay Plus - - - - - - yes - -
UltraBay Slim - - - - - Adapter Adapter yes yes
UltraBay Enhanced - - - - - Adapter Adapter - yes

Characteristics

  • UltraBay: no hot swapping
  • UltraBay Thick: Thicker version of UltraBay to support CD-ROM drive
  • UltraBay II: supports hot swapping, blending has cut out edge on the right
  • UltraBay FX: the combined floppy drive and CD-ROM, DVD or CDRW mechanism found in the 390/390E/390X
  • UltraSlimBay: supports hot swapping; Frame, rectangle like blending
  • UltraBay 2000: supports hot swapping; Frame, blending has cut out egde on the right
  • UltraBay Plus: same as UltraBay 2000, but can take the UltraBay Plus Device Carrier which in turn can hold the UltraBay Plus WorkPad Cradle or the UltraBay Plus Numeric Keypad
  • UltraBay Slim: supports hot swapping; notably thinner than UltraBay 2000, cut out right edge in blending
  • UltraBay Enhanced: supports hot swapping; slightly thicker than UltraBay Slim, but accepts UltraBay Slim devices

Linux Support

The pinout switching is done by the BIOS and hardware, so that it is completely transparent to the operating system.

  • Floppy drives are supported by the standard floppy driver.
  • ZIP drive support is possible through the ide-disk driver.
  • IDE hard disks and optical drives are supported by the IDE or ata_piix driver in the linux kernel. SCSI emulation via ide-scsi is possible.
  • Batteries are automatically handled by the hardware (and can be controlled by using tp_smapi).
  • UltraBay Plus devices should be handled by the USB subsystem, but if the devices are is not known.

Hotswapping

Hotswapping is supposed to be supported as well, using hdparm to (un)register devices. People reported varying success with this (see below).

The IBM-ACPI kernel module (http://ibm-acpi.sourceforge.net) has an eject function ("echo eject > /proc/acpi/ibm/bay"). This only manages the ACPI calls to power down the device and the bay. It does not actually unregister the device from the IDE driver.

To unregister the device, try using the Debian hotswap package. This also allows the drive to be swapped as a normal user by default, which is useful. You should use hotswap to unregister the device and then "echo eject > /proc/acpi/ibm/bay" (though this does not appear to be necessary). This was reported to work on a ThinkPad T23 (kernel 2.6.14.2) and T42 (kernel 2.6.13), but fails on a ThinkPad T43 (kernel 2.6.14.3).

Only IDE devices (HDD's, optical drives, zip drives) need special treatment - batteries, floppies and other devices can just be pulled from the bay, provided they are not mounted or in use at the time.

External Sources


FOOTNOTES [Δ]
  1. IBM originally used the spelling UltraBay with a capital B and later switched to Ultrabay with a lower b. We are sticking with the capital B here.