Direct LED connection to WD hard drive

[lenknermj]

I hope this qualifies as highly technical... =)

I have a Promise SX4000 ATA RAID controller, which appears to have connections for only 2 HDD LEDs, while at the same time, supporting 4 drives. So far, so stupid.

I'm using it to drive 4 WD 100GB 7200RPM SE drives. Additionally, I have a Codegen mini-server case with 5 extra leds for HDD activity display (For those interested, it's a Codegen 9011 case).

My question is:

Can I connect these LEDs directly to the hard drive anywhere? I've looked all over the web, and found nothing...I can't even find info as to what the extra 4 pins are in the drive config block (ya know, CS, Master, Slave, etc).

Has anyone ever done anything like this? What can I do to have independant activity lights for each of my 4 hard drives?

TIA,
Mark

 

[zsouthboy]

It *can* be done... on my hard drive, there is a small led on the underside for drive activity, it would be possible to wire up to that, but IMO, i wouldnt recommend it. just what you need is solder all over the bottom of a hard drive

 

[KenGr]

With most hard drives, I don't think there is a activity connnection any more. Some used to have it. The motherboard connection signals IDE activity on the channel (any channel on most boards).

 

[heliomphalodon]

Sure, I've done this to lots of drives -- SCSI drives, that is. Go to the WD site and download the documentation for your drives, then look to see whether there is a pair of pins on the drive that are meant to support this. You might be out of luck, though -- IDE drives may not support this.

 

[Peter]

No way on IDE, sorry. Remember folks, there is only one active drive controller per channel (the one in the master). Hence, there is only one state of activity per channel, only one LED, and btw, also no concurrent activity on both master and slave.

 

[zsouthboy]

Originally posted by: Peter
No way on IDE, sorry. Remember folks, there is only one active drive controller per channel (the one in the master). Hence, there is only one state of activity per channel, only one LED, and btw, also no concurrent activity on both master and slave.

Yes, but we are talking about on the DRIVE itself! i know for a fact my hard drive's(a 20gb Quantum btw) LED lights up ONLY when it is being accessed.

 

[lenknermj]

Well, seeing as how they're all masters on their own channel, they should all show activity.

I'm thinking of going another route now, since Promise hasn't been any help (yet...still givin' em a chance).

I think I'm just gonna splice LEDs 1 and 2 together, and the same with 3 and 4. Anyone have horror stories of running two LEDs off the same header? LOL!!


Seriously.



Sad, huh.