Carl wrote:
>
> The old one is a 600E. The new one is a T42.
>
> The older Thinkpad uses the "UltraslimBay." The newer Thinkpad uses
> the "Ultrabay Slim." The model #'s (& more) associated with these
> Ultra bay types (& several other Thinkpad bay types) is found at:
> http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Ultrabay - This page also has a
> "Compatibility Matrix" at the bottom which shows no adapter is
> available for those two bay types.
>
> If you search on E-bay you will find many page's that say their HDD
> works on every (apparently) model of Thinkpad:
> http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-160GB-IBM-T...tem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a5b39e64b
> (read the compatibility in the description)
> You will also find pages that show the drive is compatible with only
> the 600 series. The drive in my T42 will fit in the 600E. The drive
> in my 600E will not fit in the T42 because of that piece of metal/
> plastic just past the pins. I don't know why that piece is there (on
> the drive), or why the T42 also has a piece their inside the slot
> which blocks it (it's inside the width of the drive - not
> necessary).
> It looks like this | x - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> | - where x is the plastic metal piece on the drive just past the
> pins, but inside the drives width, that keeps it from fitting in the
> T42. So - if it fits in a T42 then it fits in a 600E. But not
> necessarily vice-versa.
>
> Maybe you can make sense of this quote from
> http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Ultrabay_Slim_SATA_HDD_Adapter
> ---------------------------------------------------
> "The adapter has a black plastic grommet at the back that
> restricts its use to the 60 series ThinkPads. Some people have
> successfully removed this grommet with a pair of channel lock pliers,
> or sliced it off with a Dremel after which it will fit into older
> ThinkPads like the T40 series. This works because the adapter actually
> bridges the SATA HDD to PATA as those older machines have no SATA
> support.
>
> This has been tested with the following ThinkPads, although this is
> obviously not supported!
>
> * ThinkPad T40, T40p, T41, T41p, T42, T42p, T43, T43p
> --------------------------------------------------
> I don't know what SATA and PATA are - only that the spec says the
> HDD is an IDE. Regarding the above quote - note that the T42 is newer
> than the 600 series - the quote makes it look the other way around.
> Also, the article is about the "Ultrabay Slim" - which is relevant to
> the T42. The "Ultraslim Bay" is for the 600 series. So why does this
> part work correctly in the 600 series, but needs modified (Dremel
> tool) to work with a T42? Maybe you can make sense of this.
> I quoted the above as someone besides me thought "Dremel tool"
> regarding that darned piece of metal/plastic - if we're talking about
> the same thing.
>
I tried looking at pictures of the adapters.
My first comment would be, about electronic adaptation.
PATA, IDE, EIDE - parallel data bus, 16 bits wide.
40 pin connector for 3.5" hard drives or optical drives
40 pins for signals plus 4 for power on 2.5" drives = 44 pins total
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_ATA
SATA - serial data bus at very high speed.
- TX differential pair, RX differential pair
- three ground signals for crosstalk isolation and shielding
- results in a total of 7 pins on the data plug
- separate 15 pin power plug, sufficient for five groups of three power pins
USB - four pins, D+, D- for data, +5V and GND for power. 500mA limit.
Higher power limit on the new USB3 standard (irrelevant to this discussion). .
Now, each of those standards is completely different. But
they make single silicon chip solutions, for going from one
to the other. USB to SATA, USB to PATA, SATA to PATA, PATA to SATA
For example, I have an adapter next to me right now, in its original
cardboard box, that uses a Marvell 88SA8040-TBC1 to convert from PATA
(parallel ATA, ribbon cable bus) to SATA (serial ATA).
In the case of one of your adapter types, there is a rectangular region
next to the drive, large enough to hide a printed circuit board with
one of those 1/2" x 1/2" adapter chips.
The various bay types, have two connectors on them. The "public" connector
inside the bay, must adhere to an industry standard. For example, the
IDE to IDE kind of bay adapter, would use a standard 44 pin connector
inside the bay. That is so it will easily mate with an IDE 44 pin drive
(9.5mm thick or 12.5mm thick drive, depending on generation).
On the outside of the bay, I see a custom connector, and it looks to me
like it has more pins on it (50 pins perhaps?). Since I could not find
a pinout, it is hard to say whether the extra pins are for carrying power,
or for some other function.
In the case of the SATA drive adapter bay, the SATA drive has power
provisions for 3.3V, 5V, 12V. The extra pins on the proprietary bay
connector, could be used to make connections for those.
Each bay, will have a particular bus on the proprietary end connector
on the bay. Adapter chips would be used, to go from that standard,
to whatever standard the drive is using. It is always possible,
that they could overlay two I/O standards on the same pins, and
switch in the kind of I/O they want on demand (based on sense pins
indicating device type). But that would drive up the cost of the
laptop.
If your thinkwiki has info suggesting some item inter-works, you'll
have to take that on face value. If there was more documentation,
it might be possible to comment on what is going on there. If they
add plastic bits, to prevent the bay from plugging in, that probably
wasn't an accident. Some engineer did that, after examining their
hardware portfolio, and deciding what parts would be dangerous to
combine. While a business case could be made for having them
all different, such that every application was custom, that could
also drive away customers from their concept. I've seen at
least one computer drive enclosure idea, that was so foreign
and obnoxious that it got no traction whatsoever. So when
pissing off customers, it *is* possible to go too far.
There are other hardware interfaces, which are "dual personality".
For example, the ExpressCard interface on newer laptops (a kind of
PCCard), actually has two sets of hardware pins. It has a PCI
Express x1 lane interface. But it also has pins for USB2. And
people making ExpressCard devices, can choose to use either interface.
For example, I could plug in a Wifi ExpressCard that has a USB2 interface
on it, and it just use the USB2 pins. The PCI Express interface
supports 250MB/sec, while the USB2 is only 60MB/sec theoretical.
For a lot of slower I/O applications, either is sufficient.
They could be doing that on the bay concept, but I don't have
any proof that more than one interface exists.
Paul
RG> wrote: