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Remove a 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch hot-swap drive

Follow the instructions in this section to remove a 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch hot-swap drive.

About this task

Attention
  • Read Installation Guidelines and Safety inspection checklist to ensure that you work safely.

  • Prevent exposure to static electricity, which might lead to system halt and loss of data, by keeping static-sensitive components in their static-protective packages until installation, and handling these devices with an electrostatic-discharge wrist strap or other grounding system.

  • Before you remove or make changes to drives, drive controllers (including controllers that are integrated on the system board assembly), drive backplanes or drive cables, back up all important data that is stored on drives.

  • Before you remove any component of a RAID array (drive, RAID card, etc.), back up all RAID configuration information.

  • If one or more NVMe solid-state drives are to be removed, it is recommended to disable them beforehand via the operating system.

  • To ensure that there is adequate system cooling, do not operate the server for more than two minutes without either a drive or a drive filler installed in each bay.

Procedure

  1. (Optional) Remove the security bezel. See Remove the security bezel.
  2. Slide the release latch to unlock the drive handle.
    2.5-inch hot-swap drive

    Opening the drive tray handle
    3.5-inch hot-swap drive

    Opening the drive tray handle
  3. Grasp the handle and slide the drive out of the drive bay.
    2.5-inch hot-swap drive

    Opening the drive tray handle
    3.5-inch hot-swap drive

    Hot-swap drive removal

After you finish

  1. Install a new drive or drive filler to cover the drive bay. See Install a 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch hot-swap drive.

  2. If you are instructed to return the component or optional device, follow all packaging instructions, and use any packaging materials for shipping that are supplied to you.

Demo video

Watch the procedure on YouTube