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    Experience with Aftermarket Drive Bays & Thinkpads

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by quasi51, May 17, 2010.

  1. quasi51

    quasi51 Notebook Consultant

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    I'm looking to pickup a drive bay/caddy for my T410. Part number is 43N3412 as far as I know. I can get an original Lenovo part from vendors in Canada for about $80 with shipping or an aftermarket part from fleabay for $15. I'm not cheap...I'll buy the original part if it matters but I also don't want to waste $65 if there isn't a significant difference.

    I have a similar setup with my HP 8730w and rarely use the DVD-RW drive. The 2nd hard drive is almost always in the computer so I expect won't be taking it in and out of the T410 on a regular basis. It will almost always stay inside the machine.

    Does anyone have experience with aftermarket/3rd party drive bays? It doesn't have to be with the T400/T410, I'd take experience with any thinkpad. Are they well built? Any data errors/corruption?

    Thanks!
     
    quasi51, May 17, 2010
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  2. lead_org

    lead_org Purveyor of Truth

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    the quality of these knockoffs really depend from which sellers you buy from and whether the batch was made properly. It is a hit and miss affair, but given the low price you could give it a try, and test it for a while to see how stable they are.
     
    lead_org, May 17, 2010
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  3. Volker

    Volker Notebook Consultant

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    Mine works fine in my T410s. This generation of ultrabay adapters is just a dumb (micro)sata pass-through, so it should be rather difficult to screw that one up.

    Older ultrabay hdd caddies had integrated circuits with sata<->pata bridges, there it is quite conceivable that you end up with data corruption if the chips are bad.
     
    Volker, May 17, 2010
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  4. quasi51

    quasi51 Notebook Consultant

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    Great, thanks for the comments so far. Is there anyone who has had trouble with a recent (simple pass-through) adapter?
     
    quasi51, May 17, 2010
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  5. NecessaryEvil

    NecessaryEvil Notebook Evangelist

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    With the (x)00 series, and maybe the T410, there should be no issues with the 3rd party one.

    If you have a T/W510, the 3rd party one likely won't work. I don't know how much it matters, but the 3rd party one has an LED, the official has a switch...but when I popped in the 3rd party one from my W500, and the 3rd party one that I bought to fill the slot, they both did nothing. No spin up, no detection.

    When I bought the official one, it worked immediately. I don't know what Lenovo is doing that would make their official one work and the generic not in the new generation, but you should be warned.
     
    NecessaryEvil, May 17, 2010
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