W530 drive bay design flaw - drive slide out of connectors?

Hi, I recently purchased a W530 with a hard drive bay and I've been experiencing trouble with the bay.
The problem is that there is no mechanism in the drive bay to keep the drive "in bay" - i.e. connected. Because of a small gap between the drive and the wall of the bay the drive will slide out of the connector when the laptop is put in the bag vertically.
this seems to me like a major design flaw in the drive bay, and I'm wondering if others are experiencing the same issue and know about any workarounds.

Kaso wrote:
> Assuming that you are using the UltraBay 12.7mm Lenovo adapter, you must use both the drive tray AND the rubber rails to secure the HDD within the unit.
First, you buy the right 12.7mm-high UltraBay HDD caddy adapter that is compatible with the W530. Second, you put the HDD in the hollow space of the caddy adapter and secure the HDD with the four tiny screws that are provided as part of the caddy adapter. Finally, you plug the whole thing (caddy **bleep** drive) into the UltraBay until the secure latch "clicks" and the caddy bezel flushes evenly with the right side of the chassis.
There are no "rubber rails" involved.
There are NO screws supplied with the Lenovo 12.7mm UltraBay caddy. The caddy presumes that you are using a Lenovo supplied HDD with the drive tray and the rubber rails Look at the diagrams on the flexible cover on the caddy. The Newmodeus caddy uses screws only (supplied) and does not need the rubber rails nor the drive tray.
W520, i7-2820QM, BIOS 1.42, 1920x1080 FHD, 32 GB RAM, 2000M NVIDIA GPU, Samsung 850 Pro 1TB SSD, Crucial M550 mSata 512GB, WD 2TB USB 3.0, eSata Plextor PX-LB950UE BluRay
W520, i7-2760QM, BIOS 1.42 1920x1080 FHD, 32 GB RAM, 1000M NVIDIA GPU, Crucial M500 480GB mSata SSD, Hitachi 500GB HDD, WD 2TB USB 3.0

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I purchased a W530 and immediatly swapped out the included hard drive for an SSD. I also purchased the drive bay adapter and planned on moving that original drive to it, but it did not come with a drive caddy. If the drive bay does not come with an extra one, and hard drives do not come with them.... why was it not included? Where do I purchase one? Does it need those rubber sides that are now around the SSD?

Hey Chuntley,
If you search around the forums you will find a lot of post on this or close to this subject about installing a second drive to W530.
Here is a link to one such post.
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/W-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/12-7mm-Ultrabay-adapter/td-p/804275
If you have any other questions please post back.
Best Regards,
Hiro
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Ultrabay caddies come in two thicknesses, 12.7mm for T430 and T530 (0A65623), and 9.5mm for T430s (43N3412.)
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I have an old Compaq Presario v2036AP Notebook PC.
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Little Fish,
A properly working lever will have resistance as it pushes the whole drive mechanism out of the bay. It looks like the lever opens about 45º on my Wallstreet before it starts to eject, then reaches a full 90º with the drive protruding about 1/2 inch...you can then grab the drive and pull it on out.
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I'm want to put an SSD in the hard drive bay of my W530 but am concerned about size and the rubber rails that came with the original hard drive. The hard drive thats in there now is a 7mm drive, and I think the SSD I'm looking at is about 9mm high. Is it possible to get different rubber rails to accomodate a taller drive (9mm vs 7mm)?
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I swapped out the 512GB SATA spinner in my W530 for a 512GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD. Fit perfectly using the existing rubber rails.
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And even after I did see the two different drive pictures in the manual (which apparently were trying to convey a difference in positioning of the rubber rails) it really wasn't clear to me what they were trying to say.
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Just bought a mid-2012 MacPro. Also purchased a Crucial 512GB SSD drive, which I intend to use for a boot drive. I know that I can install the drive in one of the four slide out drive bays. From what I can gather, it doesn't matter which bay I use, Mac will boot equally well from any of them. My question is: What about the second optical bay? Is there any advantage to putting the SSD there? (other than keeping another slot open for HDD?) Have tried to research this a bit, but the model is brand-new, not a lot of info out there.. Mucho thanks!

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Message was edited by: japamac

X230 drive bay height

Running out of space on my 500GB HDD. From what I've been able to find online, it looks like the drive bay will only accommodate 7mm high drives, and 500GB is the biggest in that form factor, so I'm SOL. Just wanted to confirm or, hopefully, discover I'm wrong on one or both o**bleep**s. Thanks for your help.
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Go to Solution.

Hello,
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I am a volunteer and neither a Lenovo nor a Microsoft employee. • Dexter is a good dog • Dexter je dobrý pes
S230u (3347-4HU) • X220 (4286-CTO) • W510 (4318-CTO) • W530 (2441-4R3) • X100e (3508-CTO) • X120e (0596-CTO) • T61p (6459-CTO) • T43p (2678-H7U) • T42 (2378-R4U) • T23 (2648-LU7)
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W530 drive bay design flaw - drive slide out of connectors​?

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W530 drive bay design flaw - drive slide out of connectors?