Installing System Components 81All drives are installed at the front of the system and connect to the systemboard through the SAS backplane. Hard drives are supplied in special hot-swappable hard-drive carriers that fit in the hard-drive bays.CAUTION: Before attempting to remove or install a drive while the system isrunning, see the documentation for the storage controller card to ensure that thehost adapter is configured correctly to support hot-swap drive removal andinsertion.CAUTION: Do not turn off or reboot your system while the drive is being formatted.Doing so can cause a drive failure.NOTE: Use only drives that have been tested and approved for use with the SASbackplane board.When you format a hard drive, allow enough time for the formatting to becompleted. Be aware that high-capacity hard drives can take a number ofhours to format.Mixed SAS/SATA Hard-Drive ConfigurationsMixed hard-drive configurations of SAS and SATA drives are allowed. In thisconfiguration, two SAS drives must be installed in hard-drive slots 0 and 1only. The remaining slots can have SATA drives installed.Mixed 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch configurations of SAS and SATA drives are alsosupported in the 3.5-inch–bay chassis only. In this configuration, two 10,000-RPM 2.5-inch SAS drives installed in 3.5-inch adapters must be used in hard-drive slots 0 and 1 only (see "Front-Panel Features and Indicators"). Theremaining hard drives must be 3.5 inches in size and must be either all SAS orall SATA drives.Removing a Hard-Drive BlankCAUTION: To maintain proper system cooling, all empty hard-drive bays musthave drive blanks installed.1 Remove the front bezel. See "Removing the Front Bezel."2 Grasp the front of the hard-drive blank, press the release lever on theright side, and slide the blank out until it is free of the drive bay. SeeFigure 3-4.
