PowerEdge: What is the meaning of LEDs on Physical Drives (PD)
Summary: This article provides an explanation of the backplane hard drive LED indicators.
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Instructions
Understanding Physical Drive LED Indicators
On hot swap drives, the backplane provides two LED indicators per drive that transmit light to the top of their respective caddies.
- The drive manages the light on the left and indicates activity on the drive.
- The backplane with the storage controller controls the indicator on the right and is used to indicate drive status.
Refer to the sections below for detailed explanations:
 |
1. Physical disk activity indicator 2. Physical disk status indicator 4. Physical disk eject button. |
| Drive-status indicator pattern (RAID only) | Condition |
| Blinks green two times per second | Identifying the drive or preparing for removal. |
| Blinks green, amber, and turns off. | Predicted drive failure. |
| Blinks amber four times per second | Drive failure |
| Blinks green slowly | Drive rebuilding |
| Steady green | Drive online |
| Blinks green three seconds, amber three seconds, and turns off six seconds. | Rebuild aborted. |
| Off | Ready for insertion, removal, or not detected |
Affected Products
HS Series, Modular Infrastructure, Rack Servers, Tower Servers, XE Servers, XR Servers, OEM Server Solutions, PowerEdge c6300, PowerEdge C6400, PowerEdge C6600, PowerFlex appliance R650, PowerFlex appliance R6525, PowerFlex appliance R660
, PowerFlex appliance R6625, Powerflex appliance R750, PowerFlex appliance R760, PowerFlex appliance R7625, PowerFlex appliance R860, PowerFlex appliance R640, PowerFlex appliance R740XD, PowerFlex appliance R7525, PowerFlex appliance R840
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Article Properties
Article Number: 000413096
Article Type: How To
Last Modified: 09 Jan 2026
Version: 1
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