Thinkpads Forum

Do I need the rubber rails for any of the HD Adapters? Lenovo, Newmodeus, ect?

I have a W530 with Lenovo's HDD caddy. Rubber rails weren't required, but they did help fill the side gaps between the HDD and the caddy, as well offer a better fit (not sure about the newer thinkpads). I would recommend getting the rails, as they also help absorb shock.

indicium wrote:Do I need the rubber rails for any of the HD Adapters? Lenovo, Newmodeus, ect?

if you're buying the HD caddy or rubber rails newmodeUS at least supports the forum and just HAS to be a better source than lenovo..

i used to sell my own custom caddys with thinkpads.com engraved on them but i have not done so since i stopped selling new thinkpads.. about when lenovo bought the PC division from IBM (who really hated me!)..

BillMorrow wrote:...i have not done so since i stopped selling new thinkpads.. about when lenovo bought the PC division from IBM (who really hated me!)..

Is this why I see ThinkPads.com customer on underneath certain usernames?
Thats pretty cool that you had those caddies with the engraving.
IF I want to 'ruin' one of my ThinkPads with stickers, I'll def come up with a variant of the TPF logo... or use this oldschool google-ish one I see on top of the screen.

We're good to go now. I got the Lenovo Ultrabay adapter off Amazon and got some rails and the whole thing works like a charm. This is the second time, I have put a HD in the Ultrabay, the first time was with my 770ED and I used to swap out the CD/DVD a lot, so I quit doing that when I upgraded to the T40/41 and T410. However, I found myself not using the DVD on the T410 very often and decided that having 2 HDD's was better with the W530.

Just switched out my W520 and W530 SSDs.
Put new Samsung EVO 850 1TB SSD in W530 and returned older Crucial M4 512GB SSD back to W520.
Crucial M4 SSD fits nicely in W520 with rubber rails that came with original HD.
Samsung SSD is loose in W530 and appears to need rubber rails, but I don't recall receiving them with original HD, or using them when I had the Crucial M4 in the W530.
I am confused.
Do I need to buy rubber rails for the Samsung SSD?
If yes, does newmodeus sell them?
Thanks.

So I just got two W530's off ebay (both are great, I got the second cuz I wanted the K2000M graphics, the first one didn't have it).

One came without a disk (though the ebay seller kindly put a caddy in the open slot). The other came with with red plastic rails on the HDD that fit on the new SSD (Samsung 850 Pro) nicely, with no wiggle and no caddy. But no shock absorption either. I have a caddy and some 9mm rubber rails, which are pretty loose.

Are the hard plastic rails ok, or should I use a caddy plus rubber rails? If the latter, is it worth finding 7mm rails for the thin SSD?

Thanks!

I think I have this figured out, thanks to others on this site. The part number for the red plastic rails that adapt an SSD like a Samsung 850 Pro to my W530 are FRU 04W1641. These are hard red plastic, and are what Lenovo uses for SSDs, as they don't need shock absorption like HDDs. Think of it: your entire motherboard has SS devices on it, without a rubber shock mounting. Why does an SSD need shock mounting? Probably more important is thermal mgmt, in which case the small amount of rigid plastic allows heat transfer better than a caddy (with a plastic insulation sheet) and rubber rails.

I couldn't find them mentioned in any of the sites others here mentioned. I would have bought from those sites if I could have found what I needed. Then I found a seller on eBay, new-think, that has these 7mm to 9mm adapter rails. I bought two pair. I originally ordered the wrong thing, a 7mm rail that fits a 7mm slot, FRU 04W1717, from new-think. I wrote, explaining my problem and he is going to send me the right stuff. I'd have to say I have a good opinion about new-think right now about new-think. I'll confirm when I receive my stuff.

No connection, just satisfied so far.

If needed, I would still buy the 7mm tray/black rubber rails combo instead.
How are you going to remove your SSD with those red plastic pieces?
Using pliers? No thanks.

IMO, even when dealing with SSDs instead of hard drives, you can't have too much protection. Data can be very valuable. What I would love to see from new Thinkpads is a flexible SATA connector. That way, if the system falls onto the floor, the connector on the drive will be less likely to be damaged.

The SDD rails that work with the W530 arrived today. Good quality. Excellent packing. As I said, ebay seller "new-think" (no connection except I'm a satisfied customer) made sure I got the right rails. China to US economy shipping is very cheap, but pretty slow. I couldn't find these on the newmodeus site.