Hard Drives; Hard Drive Installation Guidelines - Dell POWEREDGE 840 Hardware Owner's Manual

14 Test the drive.
If you installed an IDE device, run the IDE devices tests in the system diagnostics to determine
whether the device operates properly. See "Running the System Diagnostics" on page 112.
If you installed a SCSI device, run the SCSI controllers test in the system diagnostics. See "Running
the System Diagnostics" on page 112.
If you installed a tape drive, see the tape drive software documentation to perform a backup and verification
test.

Hard Drives

NOTE:
The system's drive configuration must consist of only SATA hard drives or only SAS hard drives. Combining
SATA and SAS drives is not supported.
Your system can contain up to four 1-inch-height SATA or SAS hard drives in either a removable fixed
hard-drive bay (see Figure 3-8) or a lever-release bay (see Figure 3-11). These drives connect either to the
system board, an optional controller card, or an optional SAS backplane.
SAS or SATA drives can be hot-pluggable only if they are attached to an optional SAS backplane. See "Hot-
Plug SATA Hard Drives Using the SAS Backplane" on page 61, "Hot-Plug SATA Hard Drives Using the SAS
Backplane" on page 61, and "Removing and Installing the Optional SAS Backplane Board" on page 61.

Hard Drive Installation Guidelines

Use the following guidelines when installing hard drives:
• You should only use drives that have been tested and approved by the system manufacturer.
• Do not install a mixture of SATA and SAS hard drives. All hard drives must either be SAS drives or
SATA drives.
• You may need to use different programs than those provided with the operating system to partition
and format a hard drive. See the hard drive documentation for information on setting up the drive.
• When you format a high-capacity hard drive, allow enough time for the formatting to be completed.
Long format times for these drives are normal. For example, a large drive can take over an hour to
format.
• Do not turn off or reboot your system while the drive is being formatted. Doing so can cause a drive
failure.
Installing System Components
53