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 and B 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. 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) 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
UltraBayUltraBay type Featured in Available devicesUltraBay355, 360, 370C, 750, 755C, 755CE, 755Cs, 755CSE, 755CV, 755CX, 760C, 760L, 760EHDD, FDD, Battery, PCMCIA-cartridge, IBM Wireless Modem.UltraBay Thick755CD, 755CDV, 760CD, 760E, 760ED, 760EL, 760ELD, 760LD, 760XD, 760XL, 765SelectaDock I, SelectaDock IIHDD, FDD, CD, Battery, PCMCIA-cartridge, IBM Wireless Modem.UltraBay II770SelectaDock IIIHDD, FDD, ZIP-100, ZIP-250, CD, DVD, BatteryUltraBay FX390, i-Series 1720, i-Series 1721HDD, FDD, CD, DVD, BatteryUltraSlimbay600Ultrabase (570), Portable Drive BayHDD, FDD, ZIP-100, ZIP-250, CD, DVD, BatteryUltraBay 2000T20, T21, T22, T23 A20, A21, A22, A30, A31Dock 2631, Dock II, UltraBase X2,Portable Drive Bay 2000HDD, FDD, LS-120, LS-240, ZIP-100, ZIP-250, CD, CD-RW, DVD, Combo, Multi, BatteryUltraBay PlusR30, R31, R32, R40T23, T30A30, A31Ultrabase X3HDD, FDD, LS-120, LS-240, ZIP-100, ZIP-250, CD, CD-RW, DVD, Combo, Multi, Battery, PDA-Cradle, NumPad.UltraBay SlimT40, T41, T42, T43, T60, T61T40p, T41p, T42p, T43p, T60p, T61pZ60t, Z61tThinkPad X4 Dock,UltraBase X4, UltraBase X6,UltraBase X6 TabletHDD, DVD, Combo, Multi, Battery, Serial-Parallel Port Adapter (T60–61, some R60–R61).UltraBay EnhancedR50, R51, R52, R60, R61Z60m, Z61m, Z60p, Z61pThinkPad Advanced DockHDD, DVD, Combo, Multi, BD-RW, BatterySerial UltraBay SlimT500, T400, T400s, T410, T410s, T420s, T430sW500X200 UltraBase, X220 UltrabaseHDD, DVD, Combo, Multi, BD-RW, Battery (UltraBay Slim-Battery).Serial UltraBay EnhancedR400, R500 T510/T510i, T520, T420, T530, T430W700, W510, W520, W530 HDD, DVD, Combo, Multi, BD-RW (3mm gap visible).Fixed Serial UltraBay EnhancedL510, L410, SL510, SL410, L512, L412, L520, L420, L530, L430DVD, Combo, Multi, Travel Cover, HDD (with UltraBay-Adapter for Third-party source).Fixed Serial UltraBay SlimL440, L540T440p, T540pW540, W541 P70, P71, P72HDD, DVD, Combo, Multi, Travel Cover.
See also Disk enclosure Caddy (hardware)
References