coupled to the microcontroller 70 more specifically installed in the interior of the disk pod housing and coupled to the intelligent backplane 42 are temperature voltage sensors 72 the temperature voltage sensors 72 include a voltage sensor for determining the voltage level of power supplied to the disk pod and a temperature sensor for determining the internal operating temperature of the disk pod the voltage level and operating temperature for the disk pod determined by the temperature voltage sensors 72 are transmitted to analog to digital converter 74 where there are converted into digital values the converted values of voltage level and operating temperature are then transmitted to the microcontroller 70 which determines whether power or thermal events have occurred by comparing the received values of voltage level and operating temperature to pre selected operating ranges if the microcontroller 70 determines that either the voltage level or operating temperature is outside the corresponding pre selected operating range the microcontroller 70 will issue a notification to the ssa initiator of the occurrence of a power or thermal event the disk pod or other storage structure which houses the drives will typically include one or more cooling fans to maintain the proper ambient temperature within the housing depending on its configuration a cooling fan may be equipped with a monitoring pin or other fan speed monitoring device 75.