Thinkpads Forum

I'm talking about the little adapter you put a hard disk in an replace your optical drive with (for those who need the explanation).
Lenovo wants $50 for one, I can find a real one on eBay for $40 but I can get one from Hong Kong (eBay, again) for $20. It's obviously a knock off (the labeling is different) but it's just some connectors and plastic and metal so what is there to go wrong?

Any one have any suggestions/comments? Should I spend the extra $20 or risk it? I could put the $20 towards a bigger faster HDD

I have several of those "knock-off" hard drive caddies, both PATA and SATA. They work just fine. But if you want to spend an extra $20 just for a label, I think I have a nice bridge to sell you.

Good to know. I didn't think it'd matter going the cheap road.

I used one of those also in my T30. It worked fine. Yes I agree if you want the more costly one for the name it's up to you.

I bought one (SATA adapter for a T61) as well, but I'm not too happy with it. The speed is limited to about 30MB/s.

I don't know if the original ones or even other knockoffs use the same crappy Marvell SATA to PATA bridge (T61's don't have ultrabay SATA connections).