No drive activity light with M.2 SSDs

[Trevor Rymell]

Can anyone tell me if there's a way to implement a hardware LED drive activity light that would work with a PC motherboard that takes an on-board M.2 SSD?

I'm surprised that all the new gaming motherboards come with at least one M.2 SSD socket on board, yet none of them have implemented an LED drive light connector - only the traditional one that works with the normal SATA hard disks.

I bought an Asus Hyper M.2 x 4 Mini adaptor card which takes an M.2 SSD which is then plugged into a PCIe socket on the mobo. This card has a drive activity light on it which is fine if you don't want to use an enclosed chassis. Even Asus who made this card, don't think it worth while to provide an HDD activity light header somewhere on their own motherboards.

The only options I can see are to:-

1. Forget about HDD activity lights (I like my HDD light!)
2. Use the PCIe adaptor card and not the dedicated M.2 socket on the mobo.
3. Go back to using a SATA SSD.

Can anyone suggest a way it can be done?

Thanks in advance
Trevor

 

[dknguyen]

It's not that surprising. SSDs run so much faster so LED blinsk are kind of meaningless.

 

[eTech]

Hi

My motherboard has a drive activity light and i'm using an M.2 SSD socket. The M.2 sockets are built in.
MSI Z370

eT

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

How about a photo-transistor that "sees" the internal LED and drives an external LED? Take your pick what supply you want to use. 3.3, 5 or 12 and size the resistor appropriately.

 

[Trevor Rymell]

Hi

My motherboard has a drive activity light and i'm using an M.2 SSD socket. The M.2 sockets are built in.
MSI Z370

eT

Just to be clear - you're using an on-board M.2 SSD (no other HDD) and MSI provides a header on your motherboard to connect a front panel LED that lights up in synch with read/writes to the M.2 SSD? May I know the exact model? I see 13 MSI boards based on the Z370 chipset.

 

[Trevor Rymell]

Apologies to all. I was wrong. The Asus board I am using (and I assume others too) does implement a HDD front panel light via the normal motherboard header that works with on board M.2 SSDs. I either had a dead LED or I had wired it wrong and assumed the header was only for SATA drives. Thanks again to those who replied. I'm sorry to have wasted your time.

 

[eTech]

Just to be clear - you're using an on-board M.2 SSD (no other HDD) and MSI provides a header on your motherboard to connect a front panel LED that lights up in synch with read/writes to the M.2 SSD? May I know the exact model? I see 13 MSI boards based on the Z370 chipset.

Hi

I didn't have to connect anything other than plug the M.2 SSD into the slot.

Z370 PC Pro.

eT