Using Thinkpad Ultrabay Hard Drive Adaptor with a 3.5" DESKTOP HDD?

[996GT2]

I was wondering if the SATA Ultrabay hard drive adaptor would work with a full sized, 3.5" HDD. I know the drive won't physically fit, but if I connect the power and SATA cables from the desktop 3.5" 7200 RPM drive to the connectors on the Ultrabay adaptor (maybe I'd have to cut a hole for the cables), does anyone know if the desktop drive will work as an external through the adaptor? Or, if the bay adaptor won't power a full sized desktop HDD, will it work if I connect the HDD to an external power source while having it plugged in to the bay adaptor via SATA cable?

This is the Ultrabay adaptor I'm talking about:
Link

My T61 doesn't have expresscard, so this is basically my only way of connecting an external HDD with faster transfer speeds than USB.

Thanks

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: 996GT2 My T61 doesn't have expresscard, so this is basically my only way of connecting an external HDD with faster transfer speeds than USB. Thanks

You must be kidding. My T60 has both a Cardbus and a PC Express slot - stacked on the left fron side. So does my son's T61.

What you propose is almost sacreligious. My Ultrabay adapter takes any SATA cable pair. Maybe a thin ribbon can go in and connect directly?

Anyway - I use a eSATA Expresscard to my external HDD - or a PCMCIA eSATA card. (Have both) They work beautifully and I don't have to ruin a $45 Ultrabay adapter.

eSATA

Better yet 0 why not just put a 500GB/7200 drive in your Ultrabay and forget the external?

BTW - what has this to do with digital/video cameras?

 

[996GT2]

Originally posted by: corkyg

Originally posted by: 996GT2 My T61 doesn't have expresscard, so this is basically my only way of connecting an external HDD with faster transfer speeds than USB. Thanks

You must be kidding. My T60 has both a Cardbus and a PC Express slot - stacked on the left fron side. So does my son's T61.

What you propose is almost sacreligious. My Ultrabay adapter takes any SATA cable pair. Maybe a thin ribbon can go in and connect directly?

Anyway - I use a eSATA Expresscard to my external HDD - or a PCMCIA eSATA card. (Have both) They work beautifully and I don't have to ruin a $45 Ultrabay adapter.

eSATA

Better yet 0 why not just put a 500GB/7200 drive in your Ultrabay and forget the external?

BTW - what has this to do with digital/video cameras?

I dont know why, but when I ordered mine the only way to get a card reader was to get the PCMIA slot. So, stupidly, I left out the expresscard option and went for PCMIA+Card reader.

I was under the impression that PCMIA is quite slow when you put an eSATA adaptor through it. What kind of transfer speeds to you get using the PCMIA eSATA adaptor?

Btw I meant to post this in notebooks...fuzzy's going to move it.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Moved

Anandtech Digital and Video Cameras Moderator
fuzzybabybunny

 

[corkyg]

OK - the PCMCIA adapter to eSATA is almost as fast as the Express. Cloning a 320GB drive takes about 11 minutes with Express, and 14 minutes with PCMCIA Cardbus. The same operation via USB is almost 1 hour.

PCMCIA/Cardbus is definitely an option. Better than ruining a good Ultrabay.

I travel with 2 digicams, one CF and the other SD/SDHC. I simply use USB adapters for those. They are plenty fast enough for transferring images to my HDD. BTW - my Ultrabay holds a 200GB/7200 HDD solely for the purpose of storing digital imagery.

My PCMCIA slots are stacked. Only one of them can be used. The Express slot is directly above the PCMCIA. There was no choice on that - standard Lenovo arrangement. What would really be nice is if they would simply put a eSATA port on the side.

 

[996GT2]

Hmmm...so I actually decided to go in a completely different direction.

Last night I ordered a 64GB SSD and an Ultrabay SATA adaptor. Today or tomorrow I'm probably going to be buying a 500GB 2.5" drive for the ultrabay...and I'll sell the WD6400AAKS. That'll give me about 550 gigs of completely internal storage, with an SSD as my main drive

 

[corkyg]

Good plan! Let me know how the SSD works out.

 

[fpepinnt]

I was asking myself the same question (but 3 years later . I was sorry to see no answer to the original question, so here goes :

Note that I know next to nothing in electronics !
...but since a 3.5HDD is 5 Volts and that a 2.5HDD is 5 volts. Could it be possible for the secondary sata to deliver enough "Juice" to a 3.5HDD ? (adapting an ultra bay adapter an Sata cable extensions is not my problem).

For those of you who ask why ? Let's just say that I like the possibility of adding a HDD password which I cannot do with a USB enclosure).

Chelios to all !

 

[Harvey]

I was asking myself the same question (but 3 years later . I was sorry to see no answer to the original question, so here goes :

Note that I know next to nothing in electronics !
...but since a 3.5HDD is 5 Volts and that a 2.5HDD is 5 volts. Could it be possible for the secondary sata to deliver enough "Juice" to a 3.5HDD ? (adapting an ultra bay adapter an Sata cable extensions is not my problem).

For those of you who ask why ? Let's just say that I like the possibility of adding a HDD password which I cannot do with a USB enclosure).

Chelios to all !

I'm not sure a USB enclosure won't allow you to include an password, but if it does, and you still use the enclosure's USB data path, it still won't allow you to use one, regardless of the power source.

Sufficient power may or may not be a problem. The biggest current draw in a 3.5" drive is the motor that spins the platters. A USB connector is specified to provide 5 volts at a maximum of 500 mA (0.5 A) = 2.5 Watts. If the drive requires more than that, you can't get there from here. The biggest limitation would be whether the USB power source will provide that much current.

That's the same reason why you should use a powered multi-port USB hub if you want to use it with multiple high current USB devices, including external enclosures. An unpowered hub is usually OK for low current devices such as mice, keyboards and flash drives.
you should use a powered