
Installing or Swapping a SCSI Drive in a Hot-Swap Bay
DIGITAL Server 9100 Series User's Guide
2-3
Installing or Swapping a SCSI Drive in a Hot-Swap Bay
This section describes the procedure for installing a new drive in or swapping out a faulty drive from one
of the 12 hot-swap drive bays. The 3.5-inch SCSI drives must use the industry standard 80-pin Single
Connector Attachment (SCA) connector. Each drive must be installed in a carrier (supplied).
If you are installing new drives, follow an installation scheme starting with the top left drive. Fill the bays
left to right, across a row, and then move down a row.
If an individual SCSI drive fault LED (yellow light) is on steadily, this indicates that the drive below it
has been flagged as faulty by the SCSI host controller. Follow the procedure described in this section to
remove the faulty drive and swap in a good one.
Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) and Protection
ESD can damage disk drives, boards, and other parts. This system can withstand normal levels of
environmental ESD while you are hot-swapping SCSI hard drives. However, we recommend that you do
this procedure at an ESD workstation or provide some ESD protection by wearing an antistatic wrist strap
attached to a chassis ground
any unpainted metal surface
on your server when handling parts.
No Need to Turn Off Power
You can install or swap SCSI drives without turning off power. This is one of the few system procedures
that is safe to do with the system power left on.
WARNING: This capability is true only for the drive/carrier assemblies in the hot-swap bays, not
for drives in any other drive bays.
When to Replace Drive
Wait until the drive spins down before you replace the drive. When the SCSI drive fault LED indicates a
drive fault (steady yellow light), you can remove the drive and swap in a replacement at any time when
the drive is not being accessed, without needing to power down the server. However, drive manufacturers
caution against moving a drive that is still spinning because of possible damage to the spindles.
Status LEDs
If you are swapping out a faulty SCSI drive, you can pinpoint which drive to remove by checking the
status LEDs that occur in sets of three above each of the 12 drive bays.