[ltp] T4x/R5x Ultrabay SATA caddy

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Tue, 27 May 2008, Shem Multinymous wrote:
> Several eBay sellers are offering after-market SATA Ultrabay adapters
> for the ThinkPad T4x and R5x series:
> http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?satitle=thinkpad+t43+sata+hdd
> 
> They claim it works even with models like the ThinkPad T40 (which,
> unlike T43/R52, don't have *any* SATA on-board). And AFAIK the T4x/R5x
> Ultrabay is PATA-only. Still, the connectors in the photos are clearly
> SATA.
> 
> What animal is this? Have they crammed a PATA-SATA bridge into the caddy frame?

They'd have to.  SATA ports on the chipset are available only from the
ICH5 onwards I think.  ThinkWiki doesn't list the southbridge (ICH) for
the T42 and older.

The T4x/R5x/T60 bay has PATA on all models, and (officially) extra SATA
signals on the T60.  So, there are actually SATA and PATA caddies for
the bay, but the SATA ones really aren't supposed to work except on the
T60.

I could see they working on some of the T43 and R52 models (there is no
reason why it would have to be supported on all T43 models, for example,
as there are at least two versions of the mainboard), if IBM routed the
second SATA port there but never bothered to support it officially.

Someone would have to try a T60 *SATA* caddy on a T43, R52, and other
T4x/R5x to check.

Otherwise, it is an embedded PATA-SATA chip in the caddy.  Which could
actually BE quite a handy thing, it certainly works well enough in the
T43, but do NOT expect SATA hotplug or link power-saving to work (in
fact, expect that to break rather badly).

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh