Ultra slim bay external enclosure

[cathcam]

Back on the T23 or was it the T40, there used to be an option for an external Ultrabay, which included it's own power and connected to the Thinkpad by PC Card. I almost never have the CD/DVD drive in the ultraslim bay on my T60 and would like to leave it connected to a USB hub.

Can anyone suggest a useful option?

[KieranN]

CDW sells some similar options that you cannot find on the Lenovo site.

Just select any ThinkPad, and then click "accessories". You should find it there.

[cathcam]

Yeah, I checked various sites for official Lenovo or IBM options including CDW and came up blank. Anyone know what type of connector is on the CD/DVD? Is it an industry standard SATA or IDE connecter??

[wjli2]

don't think these connectors are industrially standard.... probably some special connectors....

[billbolton Community Moderator]

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cathcam wrote:
Anyone know what type of connector is on the CD/DVD? Is it an industry standard SATA or IDE connecter??

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The external connector on the Ultrabay Slim carrier is specific to Thinkpads, the internal connector between the carrier and the 9.5mm thickness device inside will be standard for the device type.... but that isn't going to help you much.

Basically, there is no stand alone external enclosure that will mount an Ultrabay Slim device for USB connection.

Cheers,

Bill

. 

[cathcam]

Oh well, thanks anyway, I figured as much. Shame Lenovo don't make the same sort of external ultrabay that IBM used to. That really was the business. Next time I get a laptop I'll pay more attention to this sort of thing upfront.

[goretsky Community Moderator]

Hello,

Have you considered purchasing an external slimline DVD±RW disc drive that runs off the USB ports?  This would solve the problem of not having an optical drive installed in your ThinkPad, and you would also be able to use the optical drive with other computers.  Lite-On, Plextor, Samsung and SONY all make external slimline drives, and I would imagine other manufacturers do as well, so you should be able to find one you like that works with your systems.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[billbolton Community Moderator]

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cathcam wrote:
Shame Lenovo don't make the same sort of external ultrabay that IBM used to.

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The world has changed since those days. 

USB has pretty much eliminated the need for that sort of "bus extension" workaround to achieve external connectivity, so none of the vendors do it anymore.

Cheers,

Bill

[cathcam]

Yes of course, but its so wasteful. There is always an easy and cheap way of doing everything, I'll almost certainly pick up an external USB DVD/CD drive from ebay to go along with my external hard drive.

I'll end up with a completely wasted DVD/CD drive. I would have been willing to pay a similar price to a full external drive for a USB connected ultra slim bay that would allow me to use the CD/DVD, the Disk drive bay, and better still if it could charge an extra ultra-slim battery!

At some stage we will have to tackle this uneccesary waste of resources and the unrelented march of technology will no longer be complelling reason to but more stuff. Where are all the smart engineers and designers that make things more useful without more waste ?

[cathcam]

I don't see it the same way, how simple would it be for Lenovo to produce an external slim-bay that simply attached via USB? It wouldn't need the PC Card attachment like the old one used to, simply a frame a power supply to take the drives.

So yes, the world has changed it would be cheaper and simpler to build one these days as it could be attached by USB.