Thinkpads Forum

Was there ever a blu-ray optical drive that fit in the Ultrabay Slim of the T60 series? I don't know of a Lenovo branded drive, but were there any at all? Thanks.

There Was an Ultrabay Enhanced (Not Serial UB E) drive: ThinkPad Ultrabay Enhanced Blu-ray Burner (43N3200), but that will not fit in the T60 series slim bay. It only fits in my advanced dock and I Don't plan on taking the spare dock unless I'm on a site for more than a week. It's also hard to find now and quite pricey ($400-$500).

If you are that keen, external Blu-Ray (USB) drives are available for under $100.

I don't believe they made blu ray drives for the T60 or T61, but a few years later, they did offer one on the T400. The part number is 42T2517. I believe it is a 9.5mm Pata drive, which should fit a T60 or T61, though I have no firsthand knowledge. My guess would be if you can find one, it'll be expensive too.

I'm pretty sure T400 takes the Serial Ultrabay Slim (SATA interface) and that won't fit in a T61.

I've done more digging and I don't think any plain Ultrabay Slim 9.5mm height Blu rays were ever made. Right around this time (late 2008-2009) the big serial ATA craze hit (I was in afghan and didn't really catch up until 2010-2011 ) and everyone changed to SATA for everything.

I was trying to get an internal unit to save space & weight on a separate power supply. However, since this would only for viewing BRDs, perhaps an external drive - as long as it runs OK on USB2 and has its own power supply might work.

Yup, you're right. I thought they were still using PATA for the opticals on the T400, but they must have switched after the T61.

It's almost to the point where one needs a matrix to keep track of all the incremental changes from one series to the next, regarding docks, screen ratios, ultrabay types, CPU gen, and keyboard styles. Maybe I'll make one, because constantly going to several documents to see what's what on a specific T series vs the others that I have gets tedious.

But I'm now certain that nobody made a removable BRD drive in old PATA Ultrabay Slim form factor.

I'm inclined to agree.

By the time Blu-ray (and HD-DVD) came to the scene, T60 was the new mainstream and the T61 was just on the horizon. The format(s) didn't really gain traction until the T61 was nearing the end of its service life, and by then the industry as a whole was switching fast to SATA for everything. I was actually pretty surprised to see they made a PATA bus BD drive at all, for the thicker, older style UltraBay Enhanced found on the older Z series, G41/50, R5x/6x, and the advanced dock. But at that, it almost makes sense if you consider the infancy of the technology, and the fact that it may have taken more physical space to cram the electronics into the mobile package than your typical CD/DVD drive at the time.

There was a Blu-Ray for T400/T500/W500 series
There was no Blu-Ray for T6x series
There was, however, Blu Ray for R6x series

Hi wujstefan, and thanks.

The BRD for the R6x series is the Ultrabay Enhanced which will fit in my Advanced Docks, but I'm not taking my advanced docks to Aruba just to be able to watch some bluerays in the evening.

Not only that, but the only ones I've seen, the greedy vendors want some $400-500 for one drive. Ummm,,,,,, No.

There are external USB cable connected Blue-ray / DVD readers out there (note: these probably cannot read VCD).
These are relatively expensive, but still workable prices.

But the above option is still much cheaper than the stratospheric (extremely high) prices we were quoted for a Blue-Ray reader unit that would fit into our T42 many years back!