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4 Install Drive Trays
Drive trays are used to mount drives in the chassis. Each drive tray has two status LEDs. The top LED is blue when
the drive is active or a hot spare. The bottom LED changes to amber if a fault has occurred.
A tray must be placed in each drive bay to maintain proper airflow for cooling. If fewer than twelve drives are con
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nected, empty “air baffle” trays must be placed in the empty bays.
A standard drive tray installation order simplifies support and is strongly recommended:
•
SSD drives for write cache (W), if present
•
SSD drives for read cache (R), if present
• Hard drives or SSD drives for data storage
•
Air baffle filler trays to fill any remaining empty bays
Install the first drive tray in the top left drive bay. Install the next drive tray to the right of the first. Install remaining
drive trays to the right across the row. After a row is filled with drives, move down to the next row and start again
with the left bay.
This example shows the proper order for a write cache (W) SSD, a read cache (R) SSD, eight hard drives, and two
empty air baffle trays.
To load an individual drive tray into a bay, press the blue button to open the latch. Carefully slide the tray into a
drive bay until the left side of the latch touches the metal front edge of the chassis, then gently swing the latch
closed until it clicks into place.
TrueNAS appliances only support qualified hard drives and SSDs. Contact the Sales Team if you need more drives
or replacements. Adding unqualified drives to the system voids the warranty. Call Support if drives are improperly
installed in trays.
4.1 Replacing Drives
Depending on the configuration ordered, X-Series drive trays come preinstalled with 3.5” drives, 2.5” drives with
adapter, 2.5” read intensive (RI) drives with interposer and adapter, and/or empty air baffles that preserve system
air flow. Drives that lose functionality can be removed from the tray and a new drive installed in its place or a sys
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tem upgraded by removing the air baffles and installing new drives ordered from iXsystems.
