HDD led not triggering for SAS-connected drives

[akalin]

I was working with my build and I noticed that the HDD led wasn't lighting up. After some troubleshooting, I determined that it was because I have all my hard drives connected via SAS, which is because I have 6 hard drives + 1 DOM, and the X11SSL-CF only has 6 SATA ports, one of which is taken up by the DOM. That is, if I write to the root directory (on the DOM), the HDD led lights up, but if I write to my ZFS volumes, it doesn't.

Is this a known limitation? Is there a way to "hook up" SAS activity to the HDD led?

 

[Ericloewe]

I doubt it, but with a half-decent backplane, you can easily get individual drive LEDs.

 

[Chris Moore]

I was working with my build and I noticed that the HDD led wasn't lighting up. After some troubleshooting, I determined that it was because I have all my hard drives connected via SAS, which is because I have 6 hard drives + 1 DOM, and the X11SSL-CF only has 6 SATA ports, one of which is taken up by the DOM. That is, if I write to the root directory (on the DOM), the HDD led lights up, but if I write to my ZFS volumes, it doesn't.

Is this a known limitation? Is there a way to "hook up" SAS activity to the HDD led?

If you are using a server board there might be an input on it. It depends on the hardware. Can you give the rundown of what you are using?
It has always been the case that the hard drive LED did not flash when the SCSI or SAS controller was active unless the interconnect cable was connected. I have a system with this feature. I will try to get some photos of it.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[akalin]

If you are using a server board there might be an input on it. It depends on the hardware. Can you give the rundown of what you are using?
It has always been the case that the hard drive LED did not flash when the SCSI or SAS controller was active unless the interconnect cable was connected. I have a system with this feature. I will try to get some photos of it.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

Here it is (slightly updated from my build thread):

Case: Fractal Design Node 804 (MicroATX Mid Tower)
Motherboard: Supermicro X11SSL-CF (MicroATX LGA1151)
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V5 (3.4 GHz quad-core)
Memory: Micron MTA18ADF2G72AZ-2G3B1 16GB DDR4-2400 ECC VLP UDIMM
Storage drives: 6x Western Digital Red 8TB (3.5" 5400RPM)
Boot drives: Supermicro SSD-DM032-SMCMVN1 32GB SATA DOM
Power supply: SeaSonic - S12G (550W 80+ Gold)

 

[Chris Moore]

Here it is (slightly updated from my build thread):

Case: Fractal Design Node 804 (MicroATX Mid Tower)
Motherboard: Supermicro X11SSL-CF (MicroATX LGA1151)
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V5 (3.4 GHz quad-core)
Memory: Micron MTA18ADF2G72AZ-2G3B1 16GB DDR4-2400 ECC VLP UDIMM
Storage drives: 6x Western Digital Red 8TB (3.5" 5400RPM)
Boot drives: Supermicro SSD-DM032-SMCMVN1 32GB SATA DOM
Power supply: SeaSonic - S12G (550W 80+ Gold)

I'm driving home from work. I'll be able to look into this a little more when I get home.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[Chris Moore]

See where I circled the two ends of the wire in red. You need a wire like that, which is designed to plug into the header on the card and the other end plugs to a header on the system board. But the system board must support the input. I will take a look at the manual for your system board and see if I can find out if it will do it.

 

[Ericloewe]

I just checked the X11SSL-CF quick reference guide and the board only seems to have the one drive activity header. The SAS3008 has a dedicated on-board status LED, but no headers.

 

[Chris Moore]

Motherboard: Supermicro X11SSL-CF (MicroATX LGA1151)

The model you pointed me at has a built in SAS controller. There is still a separate header on the system board for the SAS activity LED. It is labeled LEDS1. You may be able to simply connect the HDD LED to that header instead of connecting to the SATA HDD header.

 

[Chris Moore]

I just checked the X11SSL-CF quick reference guide and the board only seems to have the one drive activity header. The SAS3008 has a dedicated on-board status LED, but no headers.

You posted while I was posting. I should have waited. You are right, now that I look more closely, it isn't a header. My mistake.

 

[Ericloewe]

Yeah, I definitely strongly advise against trying to solder onto the pins of that LED to make an improvised header.

 

[akalin]

Thanks for looking guys! The case I have has a window so I do see LEDS1, but it's just blinking green. Looking at the quick reference guide, it says that it blinks green when "SAS active" and is solid red when "SAS Error", so it's not a HDD activity LED. Unfortunately, it looks like none of the other LEDs are what I want. Oh well!