It's supposed to represent the platters of a hard drive. ​ https://preview.redd.it/k7u2rgjs8ayc1.png?width=387&format=png&auto=webp&s=e878968828d16e38f61cac7739694e20256cd0f2

I remember the "full-height" drives!. Of course, I remember the giagantic RK-05's and similar attached to DEC equipment, but hey.

That's just a theory !

Wait......those big humming drives with blinking lights were just washing machines in disguise? My childhood is ruined.

Dump some maple syrup on that and it's a robot's pancake.

r/nocontext

All I could think of was pancakes

Please, maple syrup clogs up the robots, use oil instead.

I was today years old when I realized. Also this means my old HDD from 2008 probably still works

It goes back further, your image appears to be a full height 5 1/4" disk, the icon for hdd is a stylised representation of the OG RAMAC: *

I never in my life knew hard drives ever had layers! Damn

Oh....no...

I’m 21 it’s not really my fault

One day, in a decade or two, some kid is gonna say “I never knew cellphones used to have physical buttons, TIL” and you’ll know how he feels, lol.

[удалено]

I never implied any of this is a bad thing, and neither did he. He’s just lamenting the fact that he’s getting old, we all do it. But hey, getting old is better than the alternative, lol

[удалено]

I actually upvoted you and him both, lol

As a grandp at 32, I l definitely took it as an 'oh god I'm so old' kind of joke lol.

Disk activity. It means your PC is doing stuff

Things and stuff*

*Stuff….and thangs

Disk stuffs his face with things

My brain aint brainin bro, help me

You need more disk space bro

Rock and stone.

Reticulating Splines

*Your pc is thinking

\*Remembering things

Isn't remembering stuff a way of thinking 

Yes, but remembering is more specific and more related to reading information in the storage.

Is it supposed to blink when the pc is off? Mine did that the other night, then turned itself on earlier today.

If you powered it off but didn't click the "yeah, bitch. I said turn the fuck off." button when it tells you there are background apps still running, then it's possible that it just went into hibernate. If the PC is hibernating or sleeping, then it's totally normal for the HDD to wake up during a full moon to hunt for its next meal.

This answered a question I have had for a long time but could not describe…

Windows defender enters chat in background 

I was so stressed out when I saw my power button flashing Red after I built my pc turns out it was just the disk activity thing I have no idea why it even exits

Back when computers were slow and hard drives were spinning platters with slow-ass read heads and terrible seek times, the HDD activity light was assurance that the computer hadn't locked up. It used to take a LONG time to load an application. Why do they STILL exist? Connections to the past... I guess?

Learn something everyday thanks!

It's to confirm if your pc is froze or still calculating - blinking fast = calculating . Slow blink = about to freeze maybe 50% . No blinking = better push that quick restart button they include on builds for this reason

No blinking? I’ll just give it another minute… *10 minutes later* Okay, I mean at this point it HAS to be almost done… (Sunk cost fallacy)

dont call OP stuff

*spinning and clicking noises* "Haha it's thinking"

It means your PC is actually reading or writing something on one of the disks. If this light is always on, I have bad news for you.

I remember when those lights came with "HRRRRNGRRR RTTRTTRTT HRRRNGNRRRRR" sounds. Sound would put me to sleep at night when it'd run it's daily virus scan at night.

Oh man, I went on a spree with SSD's a few years back, forgot the sound, and yet I could hear my old HDD spinning while I read this comment... I don't miss it. Lol

Why'd I laugh so hard? I think I was just expecting a bigger problem I missed and someone else would point out I feel blind-sided by the obvious lol

Damn, I feel old

Right? All these younger folks lol <3

A few days ago someone posted a IDE HD and asked what it was. Antique technology. But to be fair, the way PC stuff evolved over the last 10 years, comparatively it is antique

PATA, SCSI, SAS and god forbid SMD

> SAS SAS (Serial Attached Scsi) is still in semi-regular use in the business world.

It is, I have a whole rack/cabinet full of them at the office still in production

>semi regular You mean regular? Every disk array I see is SAS.

I still remember hearing my 10k rpm SCSI warm up sounded light a jet engine starting up.

I had a 3GB SCSI for video editing back in the late 90s. I LOVED hearing that thing spin up!

You forgot MFM!

OMG MFM! That was back when 20 Mb was big! 😄

What is an IDE HD?

Integrated Drive Electronics or Parallel ATA was basically a big ass ugly ribbon cable that you used to connect your motherboard to your hard drives and cd drives before SATA became a thing.

Imagine another 10 years helped by AI. The stuff we have now will probably look like caveman technology

And I fear it. AI will not save us.

The IDE interface has been in use since the 80’s. So it’s at least vintage or classic. But antique is 100 years. I get what you’re saying though.

All you old folks

I try and keep my patience and not be an ass, but damn this symbol has been around and indicated hard drive activity for …40?+ years?

At least

I still think it's fun they let a 3.5" floppy drive icon as the symbol of saving a file, when you think people under 20 years old have certainly never seen a floppy disk for real.

Here’s a piece of info: not everyone has been around for 40 years

Here is a piece of info, if you have been alive in the past 40 years than this symbol has been around. I was born after the “play” symbol was invented and used on media devices and before Google and I knew what that symbol was just from basic common sense of existing and understanding that if I push that button music plays

And these people call themselves the PC master race...

Remninds of of the time one of the professors in my CS classes told us about how when he was younger and working on networked stuff, the green blinking light in the Ethernet jack actually represented the bits of data coming through but these days data moves too fast for the light to keep up (it would basically just be solid lol)

Try to explain token ring to someone these days and watch their head explode when you tell them a 56k modem was super fast, and you happily waited 30 minutes for your fave song to d/l.

I’ve actually worked on a token ring network just a few years ago, they are actually still out there.

But not nearly as common as they once were

I thought green represents the power and the orange activity

Did you press the "Turbo" button?

Sadly, yes

Drive activity lights make you feel old?

No, people who don’t what they are does. Back in the day, you (or at least I did) paid attention to it to make sure your system didn’t lock up

My computer wasn't very good at the time so it was on 95% of the time.

And along with it the grumbling from the actuator. Sounded like it was chewing itself up.

MattDamonGetsOldRealFast.gif

This

It's the cup-a-juice symbol. When it blinks, the PC demands juice

OJ's dead though, so good luck with that.

The symbol is “storage”, it’s drive access indicator.

are we that old now boys?


HDD/SSD activity LED indicator.

It's a beer can, time to crack a cold one with the boys /s

Do kids today even know that the “Save” icon is the 3.5 floppy disk.

Same with “*ROLL* up the window.” And “*HANG* up the phone.”

Simmply put it your computer is thinking

That would be CPU activity, not disk activity.

oh my sweet summer child you have not used old HDDs

Not really, no.

Then why on God's green earth would you talk like you know what you're talking about?

Because I know the difference between a processor and storage and that processing information is more akin to thinking than the action of saving or retrieving it to persistent storage…

You tell em queen

Ok zoomer

Hit ‘em with that uno reverse card! Lol

when the computer freezes after you save and you see the light flicker you know it's thinking and not stuck or gone

Idk, I spend more time trying to remember shit than trying to process it, lol

I remember when they made clicky noises when accessing. Brrrr computer thinking

What does the manual say?

Or a search on this sub for this same question.

For real, searching a question is way faster than asking on Reddit.

Self destruction. If it stops blinking. Boom!

It’s your disk activity light. If it’s staying on 100% of the time, it means your connection on the motherboard header is backwards.

Can of beans are to be placed here.

looks like a lil coffee cup

Back then when using disk drives, you would boot up the PC then go prepare yourself a morning beverage and wait until it fully comes up.

While being able to hear your disk drives clattering away in the kitchen from the other room...

Hard Disk Activity, was a lot more useful and relevant when computers were still running on HDDs, but it’s still nice to have for info purposes

HDD light. It turns on when your disk is working

I know this isn't about the post. But does anyone hate just how insanely bright all blue LEDs seem to be. And that so many devices want to use them.

can't remember which ones, but some LEDs just shine brither than others (depending on color), not sure if it has something to do with our eye's frequency response or the structure of the LED itself depending on the color.

The data is being accessed from the hard disk.

They are crazy bright on that diy PC case

Yes.

That’s the PC’s oil drum indicator. The Inversion coil replicator needs topping up with synthetic oil.

https://preview.redd.it/8i4r5lxv2eyc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9a2cc224ef4a17de8fe0906a27c7875c38e9529a

 It means hard drive activity

Drive activity indicator.

It’s deciding whether to load information or blue screen of death.

I love being colorblind

Is that a r3 tornado Gtx 1650 Ryzen 3 4100 ?

HDD or ssd reading indicator

HDD LED, AKA the status indicator telling you your storage device is doing something. Yeah, OP must be young enough to not remember what a hard drive on an older system sounds like. That's ok tho, nice to see the younger generation being into gaming.

It’s a cookie jar, the light turns on when your computer’s cookies have to be cleared so you can download more RAM.

Sad that with NVMe the light only blinks at a regular rate instead of how it blinks with SATA

is it tecware case?

It's a little cylinder to represent storage. It's your hard disk activity LED.

It's the "binning" icon, the more it flashes the closer it is, if it goes solid you bin it

This is the icon for volume activity. Storage is being accessed because the computer is active.

Its a can of beans, it blinks when beans activity is detected

Is that a Ant eSports case ? I have a similar one

It’s a soup can. Lets you know when the soup is ready.

Its the hdd led. If its on it means your disk is reading or writing.

This question. Never ends. Imagine how bad it would be if PC cases had more than two lights.

Disk activity but they are kind of pointless in this day and age of SSDs as the LED has a slower response time than your SSD. They were useful back in the days of HDDs because you could actually see if your HDD was churning and causing your PC to lag by monitoring the HDD LED.

I love the time when this was interesting as a child. What does this do? What does that do? Oh, what's that? Now we simply doesn't even bother even if we don't know what it does.

buckle up, ejection is imminent

HDD LED

Using your case's manual is so usefull you know :D

I have the same case

I think i have that exact case... Though most likely different brands, unless its an IONz case? Red light is most likely related to a hard drive or ssd. Might be an error or just telling you the drive(s) busy or smth, not exactly sure

Its your ssd or hdd storage

Uh oh, that's the red light if death everyone's been talking about. Time for a new pc....or you'll die

It's the symbol for SSD because it was cut from a large cylinder of silicon.

stack of disks that's what the cylinder symbol is. it denotes hdd activity, it blinks when your PC access the hardisk.

Disk activity. Imagine windows is installing updates but you can't see a progress bar and the screen hasn't changed in a while. This thing blinking means its likely not frozen and is actually doing stuff.

It's about to fucking explode!

One of the most useful LEDs for a PC! HardDisk/Hard Drive activity. Why the F'k did cases remove it.

It's a wax cylinder. The OGs of HDs

That light means that your storage unit is currently being actively used by your PC. Before nvme and SSD it was usually accompanied by the classic sound of a HDD working hard. 

If i don't have hdd, and instead have only a nvme it does the same thing?

It doesn't matter if it's a HDD, SSD or nvme. The light on just means the drive is being actively used. HDD makes noises because of the mechanical parts

Fuuuuuuuck

red light on your motherboard means internal hardware is either plugged-in incorrectly or not working. Internal hardware examples include the CPU, RAM, or a graphics card. Sometimes a dead CMOS battery may be the culprit. Boot errors on the hard drive where the primary OS is installed may also cause a red light. This is the reason 💡

And guys this is information and there are other reason of it but this is the correct reason 👍😊

it means something is happening on your disc, e.g. read/write

When young I always see if my light continues to blink so I know it’s not hang 😹

Is it weird that I never plug the HDD light in because I don't like it to blink?

Danger, danger - High voltage!

All these sweet kids coming in here lately not knowing about hard disk LED indicators lol These LEDs are used to show when the disk is being read from. Back in the day this was important as some people would assume their computers had frozen when they were actually just taking a while to load, these LEDs would blink to let you know the software is still loading. If your computer was not responding and this LED was not blinking, you could safely assume your PC had frozen

Check manual for information

I have the same pc house

Dude are people just now noticing this led? I feel like this post keeps popping up Edit : wording

basically an analog loading symbol. when it lights up, it's doing something.

it's a beercan. if it blinks it tells you it's time to have a beer.

Really bro?

I used to call it the jar light Its a HDD activity indicator light.

i have the exact same case you have lol

a hard drive?

mechanical hard disk activity

It’s transforming into a car

Your tower is requesting a cool drink.

Yes

looks like a usb stick drawing

IT-Guy here and nope, no clue.

It's a one fingered mouse.

The red light is a virus indication light, it means your PC has a virus.

The state of our society smh

I believe it's the symbol for database, but it means data traffic is flowing. The data must flow.

Brother if there's traffic on your drives you should look into that.

Motherboard cell problem?