Anyone buy a generic Ultrabay adapter from eBay?

Lenovo wants $60 bucks for an Ultrabay 3 adapter, which I'm planning to buy to put into my T500 after I exchange the main drive for an SSD.

An eBay seller with good feedback is selling a generic version for $20.

Has anyone had good experiences with these generic parts?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Ultrabay-SATA-A...C_Drives_Storage_Internal?hash=item1e5ac5a471

Thanks!

 

I got a Ultrabay adapter specifically made for the R series. It's a bit thicker so it doesn't leave a gap. It works fine, but I don't use it a ton. I don't have any experience with the UltraBay 3.

 

I bought one (actually from the same seller) and it looks 100% like the original part. Since this is not some high-volume item I doubt that somebody would go through the trouble of manufacturing a clone, most likely they all come from the same factory.

Once / if my T410s ever arrives I'll be able to tell you if it works as advertised

 

they are not the original, they are knockoffs.

 

Definitely knockoffs, although in countries like China factories often run "ghost shifts" at night that make the same product, but are not sold as OEM parts.

The problem is that sometimes the ghost shifts use suboptimal parts (such as parts rejected by quality control and meant to be destroyed):

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/05/01/8375455/index.htm

I'll probably buy this one and see, since the risk is pretty low.

Thanks!

 

I bouht this from this seller. Worked for my T410. It's not generic. It's aftermarket. Quality is not as good as generic, but acceptable.

 

i know one of the factory that produces the product, it is not a ghost shift. This part is quite easy to make, once have the right equipments set up, and the stickers can be ordered from different factory. Reverse engineering has become an art form in China, almost anything can be replicated.

But indeed some factory use inferior parts, i know some IBM external dvd burner knockoff, that uses transistor that is still soldered by hand. This is why i never buy knockoff battery for Lenovo Thinkpads.

Also, generic = knockoffs, i think Leshan you are trying to say the aftermarket is not good as the OEM.

 

I actually just bought one from that seller (for the T60/T61 series). That adapter is sweet!! It's not obvious in the pictures, and it doesn't say anything in the description, but there's a separate blue activity LED on the end of the adapter.

Putting a drive into the adapter is a piece of cake. There's a spacer near the front that flips up near the front edge. Put the four included screws into the sides of the drive, flip the spacer, put the drive in the adapter, push it into the SATA connector, flip the spacer back down, and stick it into your laptop. That's it.

The fit and finish of the adapter is pretty good too. It almost looks OEM. The color is just slightly off from the rest of the laptop, but you'd have to really look hard to notice it though.

My only grip? It took almost a month to get the adapter, but that's because it was coming from Hong Kong.

 

Can you link me to the exact auction.. Can't find it!

 

I've had no problems. It works and it hasn't killed my backup hard drive. I can't stress enough how convenient the Ultra Bay hard drive is. Mine appears to have the same stickers as what I've seen in pictures of official products, though the seller clearly stated it was not OEM.

Miraculously I found the Ebay confirm email from last year in my saved emails. I bought my generic one for $30 (hahahaha guess the price went down). I purchased from a seller named digizon. I remember I had no issues with speed of shipping

 

Here ya go:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130368841442

 

Warning warning warning! I don't think that one works for the T500. I believe the T500/400's had different hardware because they no longer needed a SATA to PATA bridge

 

qweewq11's link is for the t400s/t400/t500 ultrabay adapter.

DigiDoc's link is for the T60/T61 ultrabay adapter in response to a request for the T60/T61 ultrabay adapter.

They are not interchangeable and have different connectors.

But all is well

 

i bought this one...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330369693478

has already been 10 days and still no shipment yet, but i'll provide a report on the quality when I do get it.

 

Ok good. Sorry to get confused who was looking for what

 

Correct. The T400/T500 doesn't need a bridge inside the adapter. The ultrabay on those models and newer is just a standard SATA connector.

The T60/T61 needs a special ultrabay adapter to use SATA drives in it (like the one I linked).

 

Excellent, so we can just stick a 2nd hdd in there and skip the ultrabay adapter altogether!

 

Technically you could get it to work, but you'd need a male microsata to female sata+power cable. Something along the lines of this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ..._re=sata_cable_&_power-_-12-200-464-_-Product

Electrically it'd work since there is no bridge adapter necessary... only problems are that you'd look like a tool with your drive sticking out of the computer. That, and that cable wouldn't connect since the micro sata connector end is female (and you'd need a male end to plug into the laptop side). That cable is for adding microsata devices to a desktop (i.e. using a laptop microsata dvd drive in a desktop/server).

By the time you track down the right cable, it'd probably cost the same as a generic ultrabay adapter caddy anyways.

 

...actually, here's the adapter (and it only costs $10):

http://www.cpustuff.com/micro-sata-adapter-output-3.3-volts-microsata-male-to-22-pin-sata-male.html

You'd also need a sata + power cable ($5):

http://www.cpustuff.com/22-pin-sata-female-to-22-pin-sata-female-power-and-data-adapter-cable..html

Before shipping it'll cost a little over $15. A generic ultrabay adapter costs $19.99 shipped.

Is it worth piecing it together? Uhhh... obviously not. My point was though that electrically it's 100% possible since there's physically no bridge chip inside that ultrabay adapter (it's merely a physical adapter).

 

I brought the same adapter from the same seller and so far the adapter has been working great and I don't see any performance difference between my lenovo ultrabay 2 adapter and this replica adapter and plus the replica has a blue light when its powered on.

 

I have the same exact one too. I wonder if the original Lenovo one has the same Blue Led or is it something else in color....

 

My generic one also has the same blue LED

 

Ship from HongKong, China to USA, takes about 2 weeks.
I don't think this one has blue led. And, It's 2nd GEN, only for T400/T500, Not for T400s/T410/T510.......

 

Does anyone haze dual boot on this 2nd HDD Caddy’s?
Thanks

 

Yup, I do with VISTA Ultimate x64 though I think may not need it any longer as Windows 7 x64 works well enough for me.

 

Is there any consensus on which of these ebay sellers USA or overseas offer the best fit & finish build with or with out the led?
The led would be nice, yet not a deal breaker.
I have a T400.
A link or eBay user name?

 

I bought one from this guy but he's operating from China. It works well enough though and has LED.

 

I bought 2nd Hard Drive Caddy from eBay.
Here is the link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290297720383&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

It does not work in my T410. I can hear the drive spinning but shutoff a few seconds later.

Is this compatible with T410?
Do I need to change bios setting to make it work?

Thanks

 

It did state that it is for T400/T500 series and if it cannot properly start-up/detect, I doubt there's anything you can do with the BIOS.

 

I just bought this one for my W510; it was the only one I could find on eBay for this machine:

http://cgi.ebay.ca/2nd-HDD-hard-dri...C_Drives_Storage_Internal?hash=item53e018d2ee

 

I have the exact same issue,only I bought mine from another seller, which leads me to believe it may be a problem with the T410. See my post here: Re: T410 Ultrabay HDD Question - lenovo community .

 

I purchased another one from eBay and It works.

Here the link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360237267449

I hope this help.

 

I bought the genuine Lenovo caddy and an exact hard drive for my w510. It is RAID1 now, The genuine caddy has a blue LED. It really is for the w500 so there is a gap at the top. The color and finish is identical to the laptop.

 

I used a knockoff ebay caddy in my T400 with a 640gb WD Blue drive, and it worked superbly with excellent throughput and drive performance. Build quality was probably not as nice as the genuine part, but it is kind of hard to screw up manufacturing a simple SATA interface. I wouldn't hesitate to buy another cheap one.

 

My guess is that most knock-offs will work well enough but there maybe some that dont work that well. The best thing is to get from a reliable seller with gd ratings esp when buying from ebay.