Power And Signal Cables For Internal Drives - IBM 8486 - eServer xSeries 100 User Manual

Power and signal cables for internal drives

The server uses cables to connect parallel IDE, Serial ATA, and SCSI devices (such
as tape devices) to the power supply and to the system board. (See "System-board
internal connectors" on page 14 for the location of connectors.) Review the
following information before connecting power and signal cables to internal drives:
v The drives that are preinstalled in the server come with power and signal cables
v When you install a drive, make sure that one of the signal cable drive connectors
v If you have only one IDE device on a cable, it must be set as a master device.
v If two IDE devices are used on a single cable, one must be designated as the
The following cables are provided:
v Power cables: Four-wire power cables connect the drives to the power supply.
v Signal cables: Signal cables are typically flat cables, also called ribbon cables,
attached. If you replace any drives, remember which cable is attached to which
drive.
is connected to the drive and that the connector at the other end of the signal
cable is connected to the system board.
master device and the other as the subordinate device; otherwise, the server
might not recognize some of the IDE devices. The master and subordinate
designation is determined by switch or jumper settings on each IDE device.
At the end of these cables are plastic connectors that can be attached to
different drives; these connectors vary in size. Use either a four-wire power cable
or Serial ATA power cable with Serial ATA drives, but do not use both at the
same time (use one or the other).
that connect parallel IDE, Serial ATA, SCSI, and diskette drives to the system
board. Two or three types of signal cables come with the server:
– IDE: The wider IDE signal cable has three connectors. One of these
connectors is attached to the drive, one is a spare, and the third is attached to
the primary or secondary IDE connector on the system board. The spare
connector can be used to connect an additional IDE drive to the server.
The CD or DVD drive is attached to an ATA 100 signal cable. ATA 100 signal
cables are color-coded. The blue connector is attached to the system board.
The black connector is attached to the master IDE device. The gray middle
connector is attached to the subordinate IDE device.
– (Optional) Diskette drive: The narrower signal cable has two connectors.
One is attached to the diskette drive, and the other is connected to the
connector (FDD1) on the system board.
– Serial ATA (SATA): The narrower, black signal cable has two connectors. One
is connected to the Serial ATA drive, and the other is attached to the
connector on the system board. Each Serial ATA drive comes with a cable. If
you install an additional Serial ATA drive, you will need an additional cable.
If you install the optional ServeRAID-7t S-ATA controller, all SATA drives must
then be connected to the ServeRAID-7t S-ATA controller instead of the system
board. The controller comes with two cables. See the optional ServeRAID-7t
S-ATA controller documentation for cabling instructions.
– SCSI A SCSI cable connects SCSI devices to an optional SCSI controller. For
more information about connecting SCSI devices, see the SCSI
documentation.
Chapter 2. Installing options
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