HDD LED gives a code?

[musicman53]

This is what someone wrote in another forum................
regarding the HDD LED(regular single LED).................
"every single LED can give out codes, it blink, first two times, than four
in Example: -- PAUSE ---- = 24
or --- Pause ------ = 36"
HOW long has it been possible for that to happen?
In all the years I have had computers and built them, I have never seen that happen.

 

[Greebo]

Once, awhile ago with a Dell server with a raid array. There was a list of blink codes in the manual for the hard drives. However, it wasn't -- PAUSE ---- = 24 but more simple as in -- pause -- = pending hard drive failure etc.

 

[miniyazz]

It's been possible for that to happen since the dawn of circuitry.. although I doubt it would do so like that. The natural base it would use is base 2 (binary), as it only has two states - on or off. So a HDD LED, if coded to do so, could report codes by (for example): steady off, then on off cycle then on 500ms, on off cycle 50ms then off 500ms, on off cycle then on 500ms then on off cycle then steady off to represent the code 101, or 6 (base 10).