2nd Hard Disk Drive Adapter for Ultrabay Slim (HDD Exchange frame) for IBM Lenovo T40, T40p, T41, T41p, T42, T42p, T43, T43p, T60, T60p, T61, T61p, Z60t, Z61t, Z61p, X4 UltraBase, ThinkPad X4 Dock, X6 UltraBase, X6 UltraBase Tablet …

I use this bay for keeping a 1TB drive in my IBM/Lenovo T and X series machines. It was easy to set up and move between the machines which either have removable DVD bays and/or docking stations.

I decided to breathe some new life into my good ol' Thinkpad T60 (since I found out it works like a charm with Windows 7), so I was looking for this adapter, in order to re-install the original Hitachi Travelstar HDD that came with it (which I had already replaced a long time ago with a much larger and faster WD drive) in the Ultrabay, and prepare it for a possible upgrade to Windows 8.Unfortunately, I was not able to find the _original_ Lenovo/IBM ultrabay HDD adapter anywhere on the Web, and I also knew that the original part was extremely costly, for such a simple component; so, I decided to take the "cheap & compatible" route, also thanks to the positive reviews I found on Amazon, and order one of these cheap compatible adapters, instead.Luckily, in my case, too, this specific adapter fits _perfectly_ in my T60's Ultrabay slot, once the optical drive is removed, and it does not leave any considerable space around its frame, either, as it can happen with other, cheaper similar compatible products, apparently. The build is sturdy enough, with strong metal plates above and below the plastic frame, and the general quality of this component looks really high, apart from a _very_ flimsy plastic hinged "locking flap" inside (more on that below).Unfortunately, as another reviewer hinted in its review, too, in my case it was _impossible_ to insert my original Hitachi drive (an 80-Gb 5k160.6 unit, originally supplied with the Thinkpad) into the SATA connector of this adapter, at first: as a matter of fact, the SATA connector inside the adapter does not align perfectly with the SATA connector on my HDD, but it is shifted by approx. 1 mm horizontally, just enough to make the operation impossible.Luckily, I had already read about this also from other reviewers using similar non-genuine components, so I was prepared to solve the problem, which actually took just a couple of minutes and a file (no, not the digital kind, but a traditional, physical, metal one...;-)).As a matter of fact, in my case, I had to actually _file down_ the 2 small plastic tabs on the right internal side of the adapter, which are used to keep the drive in place, in order to be able to place the drive slightly more to the right and align it properly with the shifted SATA connector inside the adapter.Moreover, I also had to file down the plastic protrusions on the small, flimsy hinged plastic "flap" located at the outermost part of the adapter, which is used to press the drive against the SATA connector and avoid disconnection, once the drive is mounted inside.After that, I was able to finally insert my HDD and "lock" it properly, and the good news it that the adapter _works flawlessly_. I immediately tested it with huge file transfers between the 2 drives, which were completed withouth any problem. The adapter even includes a nice blue HDD activity led, similar to the optical drive one.The bad news is the procedure I had to apply is risky, since my drive is now _not_ in contact with _all the 4 side plastic tabs_ inside the the adapter, anymore, and there is a remote chance that, with very rough handling/strong bumps/etc., the drive might move slightly inside the adapter and make a bad connection. Moreover, the back locking flap now moves much more easily, and in case I should turn over the laptop too often or too roughly, in my opinion there is the risk that the flap might partially unlock and turn _inside_ the Ultrabay, and it might get partially stuck, making it difficult to remove the adapter...Luckily, the SATA port inside the adapter is _so_ sturdy, and it makes such a tight fit onto the HDD connector (I really had to push _HARD_ the HDD, in order to insert it onto the connector), that in my opinion the drive would not actually move at all even if I removed the back flap completely, unless I threw the laptop on the floor like a stone, of course... (And I am definitely NOT among those people who would drop a Thinkpad from a ceiling or throw it out of a window to test whether it still keeps working...! ;-))In the end, I was totally satisfied with this purchase, especially considering the price I paid: nevetheless, I do not know whether or how well other HDDs would fit inside this adapter without such modifications, since I only tested my old one; so, if you do not want to take any such chance, maybe you should buy the original Lenovo/IBM component, instead, provided you can find it and your pockets are deep enough! :-)

This product have a very low price, but it is fully functional. The built quality is not the best and I had to do some adjustments to get a good fit to the Ultrabay.

Was worried whether it would fit my T42p - but it turned out to fit perfectly.The 64GB SSD I used with this (a Crucial M4 9.5MM) was a tight (but snug) fit and it all worked first time around.

arrived on time and well packaged, ive put a caching ssd drive in my adapter and this has transformed my laptop.

Excellent

I used this with my Thinkpad X41 to put a SATA flash drive (SSD) into the docking station as the primary drive (keeping the internal HDD for backups), all running Debian Linux with kernel 2.6.32. It works fine once everything is up and running. When restoring from suspend, however, often there is some error in the IDE command exchange that causes it to hang for a while and then recover itself. This is a minor nuisance, but once restored the machine runs fine without any issues. Regarding speed, maybe it is not running at the maximum IDE speed, but that is easily made up for with the greater speed of the flash drive. Also there is no way to tell the drive to erase a sector over the bridge that I could find, so the flash drive will run suboptimally (keeping lots of junk data from deleted files). But this is not a major issue unless you fill your drive almost completely. So it is not perfect but for practical purposes it does the job and is reliable. I think it is likely the best you can expect from the X41's hybrid IDE/SATA design.

When I needed to upgrade my trusty old Lenovo T61 with Ultra Slim Bay HDD, I found out that local hardware stores had a LONG waiting time for my small adapter for DVD-to-HDD-case. Amazon UK delivered it to mee cheap & fast, and my laptop feels like new, for minimal investment I might add.Jarno Lyytinen, Finland