Why do we need an HDD activity light?

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#1307278 18-May-2015 15:45

I think one would have reached the end of things to worry about if one is worried about the HDD LED.

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#1307286 18-May-2015 16:06

There's something very soothing about a gently flickering HDD light

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cyberhub

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#1307289 18-May-2015 16:10

If I suspect that my PC has crashed (has not happened much) I will check the hard drive light.

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#1307292 18-May-2015 16:20

Sideface: The RevoDrive has 8 green LEDs, 6 Blue LEDs, and 2 white LEDs - so you can really see it "thinking" if you have a windowed case

Interesting! What does each one indicate?

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#1307361 18-May-2015 17:36

gzt:
Sideface: The RevoDrive has 8 green LEDs, 6 Blue LEDs, and 2 white LEDs - so you can really see it "thinking" if you have a windowed case

Interesting! What does each one indicate?

The OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 card is essentially a RAID 0 array of 4 x 120GB SSDs with 4 x SandForce Controllers.

In normal operation, the 5 blue LEDs (one per SSD plus one for the traffic controller) glow steadily.
The 4 green LEDs flash when the SSDs are active - sometimes simultaneously, sometimes not.
One steady white LED indicates power on.
A second white LED flashes to indicate the overall traffic controller.

I don't know what the other 4 LEDs are for - they have never lit up.

[EDIT] It was all lies about 6 blue LEDs - there are only 5

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coffeebaron

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#1307366 18-May-2015 17:47

I wasted a few hours working on a Mac recently due to no HDD light. I didn't know if it was stuck doing something or not, so left it for a few hours. No activity showing on a HDD light would have meant I could have shut the thing off a bit sooner.

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#1307394 18-May-2015 18:51

I just bought a Microsoft Surface 3 tablet and the one thing I miss is any kind of HDD activity light. Yesterday it was installing 23 different updates which took forever. I didn't think to try Task Manager because it was shutting down, so I expect it wouldn't have worked anyway. It got stuck on one particular update for so long I thought it had locked up, but eventually it ticked over to the next one ... and so on. An HDD activity light would have been very useful, but hopefully this is one of the few occasions when I'll miss it.

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#1307396 18-May-2015 18:53

IME when windows update is stuck there is no activity light, its just stuck being dumb.

PC not responding, turn it off. Light or no light. NTFS is resiliant and if something gets screwed up windows update is good about recovering and skipping it IME.

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#1307400 18-May-2015 18:58

scuwp:
Gilco2: Dont know why they have to make cases with super bright leds

Cause it looks cool, and if it looks cool that means it has to be better and faster.

True!

A computer isn't cool without LEDs.

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#1307414 18-May-2015 19:14

The morons at gigabyte put a line of LEDs under my motherboard shining thru it to show the separation between the analog and digital circuitry, in some claim of making it sound better. While it may be a little quieter, its still rubbish because its a single ended output with a connection to a massively noisy ground even with the gaps from the digital circuitry. Still get ground loop when going thru the mixer.

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#1307416 18-May-2015 19:21

Athlonite: Try a black marker pen for the NIC LED's

Ive actually got a few of those paint pens that I use for annoying chargers etc with LEDs to try to make the room dark enough to sleep.

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#1307442 18-May-2015 19:53

richms:
Athlonite: Try a black marker pen for the NIC LED's

Ive actually got a few of those paint pens that I use for annoying chargers etc with LEDs to try to make the room dark enough to sleep.

I love my computer but I don't sleep with it.

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JWR

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#1307565 18-May-2015 23:39

Sideface:
richms:
Athlonite: Try a black marker pen for the NIC LED's

Ive actually got a few of those paint pens that I use for annoying chargers etc with LEDs to try to make the room dark enough to sleep.

I love my computer but I don't sleep with it.

I got a tablet.

I do sleep with that.

But, I don't love it. I am only using it.

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#1307581 19-May-2015 00:37

JWR:
Sideface:
richms:
Athlonite: Try a black marker pen for the NIC LED's

Ive actually got a few of those paint pens that I use for annoying chargers etc with LEDs to try to make the room dark enough to sleep.

I love my computer but I don't sleep with it.

I got a tablet.

I do sleep with that.

But, I don't love it. I am only using it.

Have you no shame?

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roobarb

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#1307674 19-May-2015 10:47

If USB flash memory devices had LEDs there would be few less bricked thumb drives and lost family photos.

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