Thinkpads Forum

I just bought a Thinkpad X301, and I plan to change out the optic drive for a 2nd hard drive caddy and a 2.5 inch hard drive for additional storage. Will there be any problems in doing this?

It has been done many times by members of this forum including me. Run a search for X301 caddy or Ultrabay and you will find them and a procedure as I remember. I had to change the Bios to Compatibilty from AHCI .
I used the WD Scorpio Blue 7mm drive and haven't had any problems

Feedback is mixed.

My adapter worked without problems (see more details in the post linked by automobus), but I can't hotswap, which was no deal breaker for me...

automobus wrote:Either use PATA, or prepare to enter realm of double-bridge failure.

I have to use a PATA hard drive instead of SATA? I thought that PATA hard drives were virtually obsolete. Why would a relatively new computer still use that?

So the issue is that the Intel ICH9M southbridge (part of the GM45 chipset) on the X301 is SATA only, but they had to use the X300's PATA optical drive, so they put a SATA-IDE bridge chip.

The 2nd hard drive caddy also has a SATA-IDE bridge, and having two bridge chips connected like that doesn't work 100% of the time.

I feel that sooner or later someone will do an X301 SATA mod.

axur-delmeria wrote:So the issue is that the Intel ICH9M southbridge (part of the GM45 chipset) on the X301 is SATA only, but they had to use the X300's PATA optical drive, so they put a SATA-IDE bridge chip.

The 2nd hard drive caddy also has a SATA-IDE bridge, and having two bridge chips connected like that doesn't work 100% of the time.

I feel that sooner or later someone will do an X301 SATA mod.

Sorry, but I'm just about totally tech challenged, so this is all Greek to me. Hopefully, when the laptop arrives, I'll be able to find someone locally who can help me out with whatever difficulties come up.

Let's try this with figures.

Here's how it goes

On the X300:

X300 IDE/PATA port === IDE/PATA DVD drive
Direct connection is the best solution.

The X301 has no IDE port, but it uses the same DVD drive as the X300, so a bridge chip is used to translate SATA to IDE:

X301 SATA port === [bridge chip] === IDE/PATA DVD drive
This works fine.

But, when you replace the DVD drive with a SATA HDD, this is what happens:

X301 SATA port === [bridge chip] === [bridge chip on the caddy] === SATA HDD
Having two bridge chips is what's causing the problem. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

If there was an easy way to bypass the bridge chip on the X301, a direct connection can be made, resolving all issues.

axur-delmeria wrote:I feel that sooner or later someone will do an X301 SATA mod.

The SATA-PATA chip Marvell 88SA8052 in the X301 has identical pinout to the Marvell 88SA8040 as used in R52/T43.
Only difference: xx8052 is SATA-II and xx8040 is SATA-I.
I don't have an X301 open, but maybe someone does, and could take a close-up picture of that Marvell chip and its surroundings on the top part of the mobo (and then post it).
Should be somewhere under the black plastic sheet near where the Ultrabay connector sits.
Chip itself looks like this:

To connect to an Ultrabay SATA-unit requires only 4 wires from that chip and +/- wires (6 wires total).
Finding a SATA Ubay connector to replace the old PATA Ubay connector is a whole different story...

RealBlackStuff wrote:Finding a SATA Ubay connector to replace the old PATA Ubay connector is a whole different story...

But isn't the SATA Ultrabay Connector just a regular ODD SATA connector?

RealBlackStuff wrote:

axur-delmeria wrote:I feel that sooner or later someone will do an X301 SATA mod.

The SATA-PATA chip Marvell 88SA8052 in the X301 has identical pinout to the Marvell 88SA8040 as used in R52/T43.
Only difference: xx8052 is SATA-II and xx8040 is SATA-I.
I don't have an X301 open, but maybe someone does, and could take a close-up picture of that Marvell chip and its surroundings on the top part of the mobo (and then post it).
Should be somewhere under the black plastic sheet near where the Ultrabay connector sits.
Chip itself looks like this:

To connect to an Ultrabay SATA-unit requires only 4 wires from that chip and +/- wires (6 wires total).
Finding a SATA Ubay connector to replace the old PATA Ubay connector is a whole different story...

Hell, all I wanted was a relatively light weight laptop to replace my T400. I almost never use the optic drive, so I always replace it with the extra hard drive. This is beginning to look like a major modification that will cost more than I paid for the [censored] machine IF I can find someone to do the work for me. What happened to the legendary Thinkpad quality, dependability, and simplicity that I've always heard of, and have experienced with my previous T43 and T400? Why wasn't any of this mentioned in all of the glowing reviews of X301's that I read all over the internet? I'm beginning to think that the great deal that I thought that I was getting on this laptop was just the kiss before getting screwed.

Thanks, folks, for all your input, suggestions, explanations, and patience with a man who spent most
of the computer age in a cave. I guess that I'll just have to chalk this one up as a learning experience unless a miracle happens, and mine is one of the rare X301's that will accept a second hard drive without protest.

Anyone got a nice cheap used Dell you wanta sell?

I think it may depend what you intend to do, in one of my X301's I have a mSata SSD + HDD in caddy combination, The SSD has 256GB capacity, what gives me more than enough space for OS and programs, so the HDD doesn't need to have warp speed in my case, it's only used to storage big files I don't need/want in the SSD.

The caddy up to today worked without any incident, nor do I experienced crashes or performance lags.

I'm happy with that solution, it works fine for me. I think the speed issue referring here may impact users copying large files either very often or almost continuously.

My 2 cents only...

^ It depends more on how well the two IDE-SATA bridges talk to one another.

From what I've read, having the same brand/model of bridge chip on both sides yields the best chance of success, but it's better to cut out the two middlemen, right?

Tasurinchi wrote:I think it may depend what you intend to do, in one of my X301's I have a mSata SSD + HDD in caddy combination, The SSD has 256GB capacity, what gives me more than enough space for OS and programs, so the HDD doesn't need to have warp speed in my case, it's only used to storage big files I don't need/want in the SSD.

The caddy up to today worked without any incident, nor do I experienced crashes or performance lags.

I'm happy with that solution, it works fine for me. I think the speed issue referring here may impact users copying large files either very often or almost continuously.

My 2 cents only...

The laptop that I have ordered has only an 80 gb drive, so I want the 2n drive to store my records, mostly videos, audio books, photos, and the like. On the idea that bigger is better, I planned on using a 1tb drive. That's still my plan, but some of the comments that I have received here are leading me to think that an external drive may be my best, or only, option, even though it is not what I want.

I repeat. My combo is working with no problems.

I haven't run any test benchmarks and I'm quite sure if I do it will probably not win any speed contest. But it works fine so far... I have a 500GB HDD IIRC...

white avenger wrote:
The laptop that I have ordered has only an 80 gb drive, so I want the 2n drive to store my records, mostly videos, audio books, photos, and the like. On the idea that bigger is better, I planned on using a 1tb drive. That's still my plan, but some of the comments that I have received here are leading me to think that an external drive may be my best, or only, option, even though it is not what I want.

I have a Toshiba 500gb hard drive, MQ01ABF050. Does anyone know if this will work as my 2nd hard drive, or am I going to be better off buying a different drive. Also, if this one won't work, will it be easier to make a solid state or hybrid drive work as opposed to a regular hard drive. Speed isn't my concern here, satorage capacity is.

Go for just the regular spinning HD. My X301 uses the 500 GB WD Scorpio Blue and I echo the same comments as " Tasurinchi "

white avenger wrote:I have a Toshiba 500gb hard drive, MQ01ABF050. Does anyone know if this will work as my 2nd hard drive

According to the specs I found in internet that's a drive with 7mm height, so it should fit in the caddy and it should work fine.