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Maxtor lights up.

  • Thread starter Thread starter KF
  • Start date Start date
K

KF

Golden Member
Pardon if everyone knows this. It's new to me.

I was copying over a HD to this new one, a Maxtor 60GB 7200rpm. It was dark and I could see an incredibly bright green light flashing in the case, reflecting off all the shiny metal parts. The case light for the HD is yellow-orange.

I was amazed to say the least. Hmmm...

There is a light on the bottom (circuit board) side, near the center, of the Maxtor drive! Same thing on the Quantum drive I was copying from, only I could just see it at a certain angle because there is maybe 1/8 inch gap between the drives. You can tell which drive is active by watching the blinking lights.

Considering how quiet the darn thing is, that light might be the only way you could tell it's running. Well, the seekclicks are audible.

I checked a WD drive and it doesn't have it. You can get one with an 8M buffer though. Maybe that's better.

At one time HDs generally had an activity light on the front, and sometimes had a bezel so you could see the it from the front of your case. It was eliminated long ago, in the interests of economy I suppose. Now Maxtor has a light where no one can see it. Unless they run without a cover. Modders might like it. Maybe you could mount the drive vertically. It would go nice with the blue lights on your HSF.

How long has Maxtor been doing this? Or did they pick it up from Quantum? How come reviews don't mention it?

OK Maxtor owners, check it out and report back what you find.

 
I've seen hundreds of drives with lights on them. [Edit] From what I've seen - the only ones that normally don't are SCSI drives, since they usually go in a tray and have a header for the front mounted light. [Edit]

The logic behind it is simple. Your hard drive LED will only show you there is drive activity, not which drive. Unless, of course, you have a case with HDD0, HDD1, etc. lights and a controller with additonal headers. Some drives do not flash to inidicate activity and mearly stay lit when there is power, but most do the activity thing. I had a 40-MB (Yes, MB) Western Digital that did the same thing, so it's been around for a while.

Every drive I have in my office uses micro-LEDs on the controllers. I have several Maxtors, a Fujitsu, a IBM GXP120, and a few Quantums.

DC

dkozloski - I have mostly HP (IBM) SCA drives, and my 1 Cheetah 18GB does indeed have the light. My appologies.

 
Deschutes Core, I am sitting here looking through the gaps in the chassis at the activity lights on my four Seagate SCSI Cheetahs on a Mylex RAID array. I have been using high-end SCSI drives for many years and I can't recall seeing one without an led activity light. If I am wrong, check my signature.
 
I got 2 old quantum drives, and both have blinkin lights on the hard drive...

Neither of my western digitals have them though...
 
For a quick and simple answer. depening on the manufacture they may put a led on the bottom of the drive, quantum almost always has, maxtor started to when they bought quantum hdd line. {edit: thats the d540x and the d740x lines}
 
Deschutes Core, my Cheetahs, Barracudas and some others are a dukes mixture of SCA and 68 pin and all seem to have activity lights.
 
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