Dell EMU01 owner manual Hard Drives, Before You Begin, Configuring the Boot Device

Hard Drives

Your system can accommodate up to five 3.5-inch SAS hard drives. All drives connect to the system board through a SAS backplane board. See "SAS Backplane (Service-Only Procedure)" on page 87 for information on these backplane options. Systems with an optional SAS RAID controller card support hot-plug drive operation. Figure 3-17 shows the ID numbers of the drives.

Figure 3-17. Hard-Drive ID Numbers

ID 0

ID 1

ID 2

ID 3

ID 4

Before You Begin

NOTICE: Before you attempt to remove or install a drive while the system is running, see the documentation for the optional SAS RAID controller card to ensure that the host adapter is configured correctly to support hot-plug drive removal and insertion.

NOTE: It is recommended that you use only drives that have been tested and approved for use with the SAS backplane board.

You may need to use different programs than those provided with the operating system to partition and format the hard drives.

NOTICE: Do not turn off or reboot your system while the drive is being formatted. Doing so can cause a drive failure.

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.

Configuring the Boot Device

If you plan to boot the system from a hard drive, the drive must be attached to the primary (or boot) controller. The device that the system boots from is determined by the boot order specified in the System Setup program.

The System Setup program provides options that the system uses to scan for installed boot devices. See "Using the System Setup Program" on page 31 for information about the System Setup program.

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Installing System Components