WTB: Ultrabay slim to USB converter (if they exist!)

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smugiri · #1 Post by **smugiri** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 3:44 pm

hi all

I am not sure if this exists but if it does, I want to buy one.

I am looking for an external drive enclosure with a USB port/plug that would let me slot in Ultrabay Slim devices (not Ultrabay 2000!).

Does anyone know what the IBM part number is or have one for sale if the exist?

Thanks all,

Ken Fox · #2 Post by **Ken Fox** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 5:11 pm

smugiri wrote:hi all

I am not sure if this exists but if it does, I want to buy one.

I am looking for an external drive enclosure with a USB port/plug that would let me slot in Ultrabay Slim devices (not Ultrabay 2000!).

Does anyone know what the IBM part number is or have one for sale if the exist?

Thanks all,

I have never seen anything like this sold as a part by IBM/Lenovo. The Ultrabay slim devices are not so wonderful that I'd buy such a product even if they sold it, and by the time you paid for it you'd be better off just buying or building USB or FW devices separately. External enclosures and IDE (or SATA) adapters to USB are readily available and cheap. You can buy better (certainly much faster) slim external optical drives (or the drives themselves and then a slim enclosure) to have a small form factor transportable drive.

I see the Ultrabay Slim as both a feature and a curse of Thinkpads. They allow you to swap devices in some models or docking stations, but the choice of devices is limited and they cost several times what they are worth. Proprietary connectors make it almost impossible to swap devices (such as buying a slim optical drive on the open market) and modifying it so that you can use it in an ultrabay). The sort of device you seek would have that last characteristic in common with the line; it would cost 2 or 3x what it was worth compared to equal or better alternatives.

#3 Post by **rkawakami** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 5:25 pm

smugiri wrote:I am looking for an external drive enclosure with a USB port/plug that would let me slot in Ultrabay Slim devices (not Ultrabay 2000!).

Perhaps if you provide the reasoning behind this request, we can figure out if there's another way to do what you want. After all, there's more than one way to "perform an epidermis removal upon a feline"

.

smugiri · #4 Post by **smugiri** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 10:46 pm

rkawakami wrote:
smugiri wrote:I am looking for an external drive enclosure with a USB port/plug that would let me slot in Ultrabay Slim devices (not Ultrabay 2000!).
Perhaps if you provide the reasoning behind this request, we can figure out if there's another way to do what you want. After all, there's more than one way to "perform an epidermis removal upon a feline" .

Quite simply put, I need more room in my Thinkpad to move video back and forth from Thinkpad to PC to which I have a huge amount of storage attached.

I am basically moving video from DVD to a 2.5' HD for onward movement to PC. I have a HDD caddy tray for the Ultrabay, ultrabay slim DVD writer and a 2.5' 80gb drive to dump data on. The PC does not have a DVD drive so I cannot copy on it. (Long story, but basically, it boils down to the fact that it is one of those HP ePCs so it uses some special slim DVD drive that costs a gazillion dollars)

The PC has ethernet but is at a location with no CAT5 and it is not wireless. I think that a wireless bridge/router to the PC's ethernet might work here but transmission rates would suck (equivalent of USB 1.1) so I rejected that approach.

I cannot attach the Thinkpad to the storage directly since i)USB 2.0 is broken and 2) the drives are at an inconvenient location (basement) - it would be hell having to go down there every time I needed to do a video pull.

This would all be easy if I could use a USB HDD drive in an enclosure (which I do have) but I am, unfortunately, 'cursed" with a T40p that is afflicted by the deadly USB 2.0 to USB 1.1 problem (aka "This device can perform faster on a USB 2.0 port). I use a PCMCIA card for USB 2.0 access but the card does not supply bus power so I cannot power a 2.5' USB enclosure or external 2.0 DVD drive.

I also have a dock with a CD RW/DVD that I could potentially use but sometimes I need to do a video pull while I am away from home (and the dock).

At this point, the routine is remove Ultrabay HDD , put in DVD writer, pull video off DVD to regular HD, remove DVD then copy video to HDD in Ultrabay. To get data onto the PC, I then have to open up the enclosure, remove HDD, attach it to a USB enclosure and hook it up to the PC.

I have also tried one of those fancy cables that link the PCMCIA card to the regular USB ports to draw power but it turns out that the T40p's USB ports can only supply about 400mA total - still a little too low to run the drive in the enclosure. Another cool side benefit is that trying to tap power from the USB ports to feed the USB 2.0 card running on the PCMCIA bus ALWAYS freezes the machine the moment the drivers go online in both Windows and Linux.

No PS2 port on the T40p so I cannot tap power for the USB enclosure from there.

At this point, I have learnt to deal with this mess. The primary annoyance is having to remove the HDD from ultrabay caddy and then mount in into the 2.5 USB enclosure. If a Ultrabay slim to USB adapter existed, I could leave this hooked up to the PC permanently and just move the HDD in the ultrabay adapter from Thinkpad to USB adapter on the PC.
Any ideas or do I need to explain the issue some more?

Thanks for the input.

smugiri · #5 Post by **smugiri** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 10:55 pm

The "real" solution to this problem (that is also really appealing to me) is to replace the T40p MB with a nice T42p board but I want to try other options before doing this.

#6 Post by **rkawakami** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 12:27 am

So from your explanation I gather that you are transferring upwards of 7-8GB of data off of the DVD onto the T40p's hard drive, which is then written onto a hard drive mounted in the Ultrabay adapter, for final delivery to your HP PC. You also want the fastest capability of moving that data FROM the PC back onto your T40p.

Assuming that there is no transcoding going on here, your data transfer time with a USB 2.0 link, at an effective rate of around 30MBps (megabytes per second), is about 4 minutes for 7GB of data. Sound about right? Is this close to what you are getting when you connect the HD to your PC's USB port?

You are correct that even with an ideal 802.11g connection (about a 6MBps transfer rate), your transfer time would increase by a factor of 5. However, you probably know as well as I do that you are only going to get that ideal speed if your T40p is sitting next to the wireless access point. If you intend on performing the data transfer away from your basement, then figure at about a 10 times increase in time with a wireless connection.

The solution seems to me to center around a USB Y-adapter:

One example
Second example

This may allow you to use the existing USB HD enclosure on your T40p. You may also want to consider a PCMCIA USB 2.0 card which has an external power supply capable of supplying 1A of power and using a hard drive (of sufficient storage) that draws a minimum amount of power (i.e., less than 1A, or 5 watts, at start-up).

smugiri · #7 Post by **smugiri** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 9:55 am

rkawakami wrote:So from your explanation I gather that you are transferring upwards of 7-8GB of data off of the DVD onto the T40p's hard drive, which is then written onto a hard drive mounted in the Ultrabay adapter, for final delivery to your HP PC. You also want the fastest capability of moving that data FROM the PC back onto your T40p.

Assuming that there is no transcoding going on here, your data transfer time with a USB 2.0 link, at an effective rate of around 30MBps (megabytes per second), is about 4 minutes for 7GB of data. Sound about right? Is this close to what you are getting when you connect the HD to your PC's USB port?

I do not use USB on the motherboard since it is not reliable as it is throttled down to USB 1.1 at random times.

I already have a PCMCIA Firewire/USB 2.0 card. I can use it for other stuff (getting video off miniDV, powered USB drives etc) but cannot use it with the 2.5 enclosure since it does not supply bus power to run the card.

All this means is that I cannot use USB for transfers to my 2.5' drive, I have to use the ultrabay HDD adapter.

rkawakami wrote: The solution seems to me to center around a USB Y-adapter:

One example
Second example

This may allow you to use the existing USB HD enclosure on your T40p. You may also want to consider a PCMCIA USB 2.0 card which has an external power supply capable of supplying 1A of power and using a hard drive (of sufficient storage) that draws a minimum amount of power (i.e., less than 1A, or 5 watts, at start-up).

I mentioned that I already have one of these.

The picture I linked to shows the same Y cable you linked to, just not as clearly. The cable does not work since the machine always freezes when attempting to power the 2.5' enclosure using power tapped from a motherboard USB port while simultaneously access data through the PCMCIA.

The machine unfreezes as soon as the USB cable tapping power off the motherboard is removed.

Devices that use slightly smaller amounts of power (like two mp3 player that I have) work perfectly with the Y cable - draw on one mp3 player is about 350mA and the other draws about 400mA both work with the Y cable. Draw for the HDD is about 800mA at spin up which always freezes the machine. The drive works perfectly at USB 2.0 when powered with an external power supply while hooked up to the PCMCIA. I do not want to carry another power supply though. And even having to use this Y cable thing (for power to my mp3 players) is a mess, I don't like it.

Like I mentioned, this freezing happens in both Windows and Linux at driver load (current supply is switched on and off on USB by the drivers as is implied but not stated here).

Any other ideas guy?

#8 Post by **rkawakami** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 3:55 pm

Sorry if I misunderstood how you are using the USB Y-cable, but I thought you are connecting it between the laptop's USB port and the PCMCIA adapter's USB port.

Assuming your PCMCIA USB adpater has TWO USB ports, my understanding is that you use the Y-cable on THOSE two ports and not involve the laptop's built-in USB port at all. If that's not the case, then I apologize for the confusion.

#9 Post by **gator** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 4:28 pm

You might want to use the following together:

Slim CD-ROM to IDE adapter

IDE to USB adapter 1
IDE to USB adapter 2

Ken Fox · #10 Post by **Ken Fox** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 4:48 pm

gator wrote:You might want to use the following together:

Slim CD-ROM to IDE adapter

IDE to USB adapter 1
IDE to USB adapter 2

If he's going to try to use his ultrabay devices, these won't work, as they have proprietary Thinkpad connectors at the back, not the standard connectors one gets with slim optical drives. This is why you can't just go buy a slim optical drive at Newegg and use it in your ultrabay.

#11 Post by **gator** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 5:00 pm

hmm .. pardon my ignorance. I did not know that the connectors were proprietary. Thanks for the info, Ken.

smugiri · #12 Post by **smugiri** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 11:20 pm

Seems like I am basically cooked at this point.

Time for an upgrade then I think.

Maybe a nice SXGA+ X60t is in the books for me now.

Thank you all for the help.

Temetka · #13 Post by **Temetka** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 2:38 am

Get a PCMCIA Firewire card.

Get a FW enclosure

transfer files.

done.

smugiri · #14 Post by **smugiri** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 12:13 pm

Temetka wrote:Get a PCMCIA Firewire card.

Get a FW enclosure

transfer files.

done.

I do have a PCMCIA firewire card like I mentioned above (the card has 2 USB ports and 2 firewire ports like so).

The problem is that this card does not supply bus power and as a result of this cannot run a 2.5' drive in a USB enclosure like so un-assisted.

I am trying to find a solution that does not require me to carry another power adapter/battery charger (I have one for a camera, another for the mp3 player, one for the Blackberry yadda yadda yadda - they all add up and are boring to carry).

This is where Y USB cable comes in rkawakami pointed to above comes it, to pull power to run the drive off 2 USB ports at .5Amps each to get it up to the maybe 1000mA needed to spin up the 2.5' HDD. As a nice side benefit, the Y USB cable also charges the Blackberry so one less power supply to carry.

Problem though is that when you pull > 800mA off the USB ports for the T40p, it freezes until the load is dropped. So, long story short, FireWIre won't work for me either.

And this is not a one time file transfer, it is a continuous process that I repeat every so often when pulling video from DVD to the Thinkpad/PC for editing/whatever.

Temetka · #15 Post by **Temetka** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 7:06 pm

Why can't you use a 5.25" Firewire enclosure and stick a regular hd in it? Or or you trying to do all this on the road?

smugiri · #16 Post by **smugiri** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 11:02 pm

Temetka wrote:Why can't you use a 5.25" Firewire enclosure and stick a regular hd in it? Or or you trying to do all this on the road?

Yep, DVD from camcorder -> mpg -> HDD on the road.

Techie419 · #17 Post by **Techie419** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 5:12 pm

BUMP!

I am also hoping for such a device. It doesnt appear it exists.

I have a T23 with 2nd hard drive installed and have no way to use the thinkpad cd/dvd unless the 2nd drive in the Ultrabay is REMOVED.

it would be nice to have an adapter that connects to the thinkpad cd/dvd allowing it to connect to usb - but it appears the IBM CD/DVD drive is proprietary and not standard IDE connection.

The only options I can see are:

Buy an ADDITIONAL external USB CD/DVD Combo drive

- All enclosed - $50 for generic drive (???) or $200 IBM Thinkplus.
Targus makes one too, about $100.

OR

- with a standard slim IDE CD/DVD ($50) PLUS a slim enclosure ($15)

But IMO it doesnt make much sense to buy ANOTHER drive, since I ALREADY have an IBM drive.

Another option I have considered is using a dock, with the exisiting IBM drive, since it include an extra ultrabay port.

Does anyone have any suggestions on an external SLIM CD/DVD COMBO, USB 2.0, that can be found at a reasonable price?

Bg357 · #18 Post by **Bg357** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 11:18 pm

You have a different situation, the OP was looking for an external enclosure for an UltraBay Slim drive, which doesn't exist. You, OTOH, need an external enclosure for an UltraBay 2000 drive, which is relatively available. 'jamiphar' is selling one right now for $15, although I think it's missing the cable. http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... ht=#269487

I have one with the USB & PC card cable but I haven't decided if I want to sell it.

Techie419 wrote:BUMP!

I am also hoping for such a device. It doesnt appear it exists.

I have a T23 with 2nd hard drive installed and have no way to use the thinkpad cd/dvd unless the 2nd drive in the Ultrabay is REMOVED.

Techie419 · #19 Post by **Techie419** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 11:46 pm

Bg357 wrote:You have a different situation, the OP was looking for an external enclosure for an UltraBay Slim drive, which doesn't exist. You, OTOH, need an external enclosure for an UltraBay 2000 drive, which is relatively available. 'jamiphar' is selling one right now for $15, although I think it's missing the cable. http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... ht=#269487

actually (to be honest) im not sure what I have.
Please forgive me, as I just got a Thinkpad last week.
Didnt realize there were 2 different drives - a Ultrabay Slim Drive and an Ultrabay 2000 drive.

My FRU p/u is 08K9868 CD-RW/DVD that goes inside my Thinkpad.

I'd take either an external enclosure or a cable for it, if they make one.

help?

Bg357 · #20 Post by **Bg357** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 6:45 am

Actually, there have been 9 different UltraBay formats over the years, you can find out more at: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/UltraBay

A ThinkPad T23 has an UltraBay 2000 so you can use a Portable Drive Bay 2000 (19K4480) to accomplish your goal.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-4JSSC8

There is a brand new one with all the cables & stuff on eBay for $40...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0050866704

Techie419 wrote: Didnt realize there were 2 different drives - a Ultrabay Slim Drive and an Ultrabay 2000 drive.

My FRU p/u is 08K9868 CD-RW/DVD that goes inside my Thinkpad.

I'd take either an external enclosure or a cable for it, if they make one.

help?

Moderator edit: Shortened eBay URL to prevent horizontal scrolling

Temetka · #21 Post by **Temetka** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 6:28 pm

Neat!

Could I get a zip drive and use it with an adapter to fit the ultrabay slim for the T4x series?

Techie419 · #22 Post by **Techie419** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 11:50 pm

THANKS BG!

that wiki page is quite informative - an excellent resource!

I think that's exactly the device I need.

The only consideration being the bay is only USB 1.1 speed.
Not sure how a "DVD" drive will work at that speed USB.
Wondering if I connect the drive to a high speed 2.0 port (via PCMCIA) IF it will run at 2.0 speed, maybe?
The IBM pages are obviously published pre-usb 2.0, & not updated.

Techie419 · #23 Post by **Techie419** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 7:27 pm

just a follow up post for those following this thread

I purchased a Portable Drive Bay but found issues with install.
A new thread was started on it since its technical related.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=40918

WTB: Ultrabay slim to USB converter (if they exist!)

WTB: Ultrabay slim to USB converter (if they exist!)

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