Yes. An empty box indicates that the disk is spinning up. A box with a grey "light" indicates that this disk is spun up but not currently being accessed and a box with a white "light" indicates the disk is actually being read or written. This is all done in software so there may be some times when reality and its representation don't agree :)

Actually, if you're running developer then you can turn it off. There's just no way of doing it from emplode yet.

Try this:

# rwm
# cd /empeg/var
# echo "[display]" >> config.ini
# echo "caching=0 >> config.ini
# rom

Since this is stored on the music partition you can put consumer back on afterwards and it will persist.

--
Mike Crowe
I may not be speaking on behalf of empeg above :-)