HDD light indicators for HDD raid arrays

[Red Squirrel]

I bought these for my raid arrays (software raid)

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/appl...dpNo=3142351&CatId=285

There are led indicators for HDD activity. How do I actually get those to work for THAT drive? The way the instructions say is to hook up the HDD's power cable to this adapter they provide which also plugs into the HDD led plug on the back. But how can that determine HDD activity, all that is, is power, not actual information on the drive. As expected, it does not work.

I've seen some raid cards that have LED plugs for each hdd activity, but how does that work? The particular card I saw that had those did not include the cables, so what am I suppose to do, solder it? or is there actually a standard for these? The plugs on the HDD cage are kinda like floppy connectors but smaller.

 

[MichaelD]

If you look at this picture, below the Molex power connector, you'll see a small opening with 8 little pins inside. Those are actually 4 pairs each of a positve and negative connection for each HD activity light on the front of the cage.

As you correctly surmised already:

I've seen some raid cards that have LED plugs for each hdd activity, but how does that work?

Your HD controller card or motherboard must have the corresponding pins on it for each HD activity light. You make individual connections from card/MB to cage using wires/connectors that look exactly like the wires from your case that you connect to the motherboard for power/reset/HD activity/power LED.

I am using a separate PCI-E RAID card and two cages similar to yours (but mine take 5 HDs). My RAID card has the idividual HD activity pins for each drive, but also has a set of pins for "any HD activity on any drive." So I'm using that single option to show HD activity. I didn't want all those extra wires in my case...there's enough as it is.

So, there's your answer. You can buy those wires online, if you wish. Search under "HD activity cable" or similar.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Figured, so only way to really get this to work then is to get a raid controller that has these lights, and they're usually the expensive ones. Guess for now I'll just leave those unused then. I have my eyes on a 8 port card so it would be perfect for me as I will have room for up to 8 drives. When I decide to upgrade my array I'll need a card at the same time so I can just get one that supports that feature.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Actually I noticed the picture differs from what I got. What I got is these weird plugs (never seen a plug like this before) and the cable splits off from the regular power cable (special adapters they provide). What sucks is, the HDD power light and Activity seem to somehow be linked, but its random. On one of my bays the power light is like half lit (only part of the image) and on another bay its like 1/4 lit and the activity is another 1/2 lit. So its all screwed up. The drives I put in there are brand new so they are not failing or anything.

 

[Blain]

Manual Here

Don't the rack LEDs function for each drive installed?

 

[Red Squirrel]

That manual is pretty much useless.

From my understanding the leds are suppost to but they are not really working as expected. They do power on only if a disk is inserted, but they don't fully power on, like on one of them the power symbol is only half lit, on another its lit a bit more, but the activity is lit too (solid). Depending which bay I put the drive in I get different results. What would a half lit power symbol mean anyway? Does it mean it may not be getting enough power or something? I'll post a pic in a bit to show what I mean.

 

[Blain]

If the LEDs aren't working... RMA

 

[Red Squirrel]

I really don't feel like going through all that trouble and chances are I'll just get another bad one. I ordered two, they both do the same... Sucks how all the stuff we buy is made in china by people who get paid slave wages, that's what we get, stuff that half the time wont even work when brand new. Same thing with the MSI mobo, the IDE port is fubar... what's this world coming to, when brand new stuff does not even work 100% of the time.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
I really don't feel like going through all that trouble and chances are I'll just get another bad one. I ordered two, they both do the same...

If you aren't willing to expend some effort, there's little we can do for you here.

Kingwin Tech Support...
Telephone: 1-909-598-2888 x 110
Email: techsupport@kingwin.com
Tech Support Request Form

 

[Red Squirrel]

Why should I put effort towards someone else's lack of workmanship? Things should work out of the box. For something as silly as a led its more an eye candy thing then anything so I'll probably just see if I can fix it so at least they all light up the same way for consistency, but guess I wont get the HDD activity part to work unless I can wire it differently, or just not bother. Not like I'll be sitting there looking at the lights all day.

Actually, I wonder how dell servers have it setup, where a light goes orange if a drive failed. Would be nice to find a HDD cage that has that feature built in, where it has failed status, activity, power all setup independent of the controller.