scott2000666
asked on
Dell Poweredge 2850 hard drive lights defective
I have a Dell 2850 with 6 drives (2 146gb raid 1, 4 73gb raid 5). All the drives show up in the raid utility and appear to be working fine...the correct amount of drive space is showing in Windows. However, the green lights next to each drive are all lit up except for drive 2. Sometimes it will flicker when there's activity, but the one light will not remain solid like all the rest. I replaced the drive and the same thing happens. I bought this machine off ebay and am concerned something may be defective.Any ideas?
From memory, there are typically two LED's on Dell Server drive caddys. One shows activity (flickering green), the other shows status (green/red).
These LED's are actually located on the backplane of the drive chassis, not on the drive itself. You should be able to see the clear pieces of plastic that act as prisms to reflect the light to the front of the drive caddy.
If the LED itself is faulty, it may be an early indicator of an issue in the backplane. However, it might just be a faulty LED, piece of plastic (prism), or something else trivial that will not cause any damage.
If the LED is faulty or something simple, I would suggest regular monitoring of the array software as a substitute for physically checking the LED status on the drives. As always, ensure you have working backups and you should be fine.
These LED's are actually located on the backplane of the drive chassis, not on the drive itself. You should be able to see the clear pieces of plastic that act as prisms to reflect the light to the front of the drive caddy.
If the LED itself is faulty, it may be an early indicator of an issue in the backplane. However, it might just be a faulty LED, piece of plastic (prism), or something else trivial that will not cause any damage.
If the LED is faulty or something simple, I would suggest regular monitoring of the array software as a substitute for physically checking the LED status on the drives. As always, ensure you have working backups and you should be fine.
ASKER
yes, there are two indicators as you said. one for drive activity and one power indicator. the power indicator led is the one that is not working. How comfortable would you be in assuming it's not an early indicator of a problem with the backplane? I bought this machine off ebay last week and I'm inclined to send it back.
Replace the failed disk... You can monitor drives perfectly fine with OMSA
http://linux.dell.com/monitoring.shtml
http://linux.dell.com/monitoring.shtml
ASKER
I already replaced the disk and the caddy to no avail. :(
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http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/sys_mgmt/en/network_software?c=us&l=en&cs=555
I hope this helps.