What is indicated when the Mid-Bay hard drive LED indicator is solid amber?

A solid amber LED on a Dell PowerEdge hard drive carrier indicates a critical fault or that the drive has failed. The PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) is responsible for managing the drives and their status indicators. When a drive loses communication with the PERC, the controller marks the drive as failed or offline. This state change triggers the system to illuminate the drive's LED as solid amber to alert an administrator to the fault condition, signifying that the drive is no longer an active and healthy member of the storage configuration.

A. A hard drive that has been removed, or a bay that is empty, will have its LED indicator turned off.
B. Normal operating conditions, including normal temperature, are indicated by a solid or blinking green LED. Amber always signifies a warning or fault.
D. A predictive failure alert (PFA) status is indicated by a blinking amber LED, not a solid one, to warn of an impending failure.

1. Dell PowerEdge R750 Installation and Service Manual: In the section "Drive status indicator codes," the manual specifies that a "Solid amber" light indicates a "Drive fault." A loss of connectivity is a type of drive fault. (See Page 26, Table 8. Drive status indicator codes).

2. Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) 10 and 11 User's Guide (H740P, H745P, H840): In the "Troubleshooting" chapter, under "Physical Disk States," a drive is marked as "Offline" if it "is part of a virtual disk but has been removed or is not responding." A non-responding drive has lost connectivity, which is a fault state indicated by an amber LED. (See Page 68, "Physical Disk States").

3. Dell Knowledge Base Article 000130428, "Dell PowerEdge: How to physically replace a hard drive (Hot Swap procedure)": Under "Step 2: Identify the failed hard drive," the article states, "Normally, a failed disk is indicated by an amber light on the carrier." It further distinguishes this from predictive failure, which involves a blinking light.