Question about Advanced Dock and Ultrabay devices

[wallybear]

I'm wondering about the compatibility (interoperability) of devices between the Ultrabay Slim bay (of the T60) and the Ultrabay Enhanced bay (of the Advanced Dock for the T60/Z60). Here are my questions:

1- Can I use the DVD drive that came with my T60 ("Slim" bay) in the Ultrabay Enhanced bay of the Advanced Dock?

2- I also want to buy a HDD SATA adapter for use in the Ultrabay Enhanced bay of the Advanced Dock. But, will that adapter fit in the Slim bay of my T60?

I want to interchange devices (Ultrabay HDD and DVD) between the T60 and the Advanced Dock.

Thanks in advance for any information. (I've searched Lenovo's site but to no avail.)

[wallybear]

If anyone is interested, I have learned the answer to my own question simply by ordering the hardware and checking it out myself. (I will say that I did an extensive search on Lenovo's site and wasn't able to prove the answer to the question directly).

The answer is, yes, the ThinkPad Serial ATA Hard Disk Drive adapter will work in both the Advanced Dock and the T60. The bezel is the same. The DVD-RAM drive that shipped with the T60 will also fit fine in the Advanced Dock's Media Bay.

In short, PROBLEM SOLVED.

However, the "blank" plastic insert that shipped with the Dock will not fit completely into the Media Bay on the T60 (meaning, you can't use it to travel with nothing in the Media Bay).

[WirelessAndy]

Wally,

Can you tell if there is a performance hit by installing a HD in the Ultrabay (vs. in the normal spot under the right palm rest)?

[wallybear]

I have ordered a new Hitachi 7200 HDD (80GB) to replace the 5400 HDD (80GB) that shipped with my T60. I plan to put the 5400 in the Dock and the new 7200 in the T60. I decided the extra money for the 7200 was justified and I don't need more than 150GB online at once (I have an outboard 300GB Maxtor on which I store music, videos, backups, etc).

I'll do some testing of the 5400 drive before I move it from the T60 to the Dock and afterwards.

Is this the comparison you wanted?

[WirelessAndy]

Wally,

Yeah, that's it.

In my own experience, I took the 5400 RPM Travelstar (ATA, not the newer SATA drives) in my Dell Latitude D600and moved it to the CD-ROM "Media Bay" with an HD caddy from eBay. I bench marked the same HD in the normal location vs. the "Media Bay" slot using HD Tune (link).

I found no noticable difference, apart from random variations in testing. I did find that the wrist pad was MUCH cooler, and I swear the HD runs a little quieter in the "bay" slot.

So I'm curious: Does a HD in the Ultrabay suffer a performance hit, or just an urban myth?

[matthewjheaney]

However, the "blank" plastic insert that shipped with the Dock will not fit completely into the Media Bay on the T60 (meaning, you can't use it to travel with nothing in the Media Bay).

Do you know what one is supposed to do with the plastic insert? Am I supposed to explicitly remove it somehow (how?), or does it move out of the way automatically when you attempt to insert an HDD adapter into the media bay slot?