I'm not entirely sure if this is true across all ranges but early last year Dell started to "block" non Dell branded drives from being used in their PowerEdge line. I'm not sure if they backported this into firmware upgrades or it is just for new systems. This is really no different than what HP or IBM have been doing for years. They buy commodity drives and then flash their proprietary firmware. It's kind of a pain because you could always add cheap storage to a Dell server and parts shortages were not an issue. Anyway this is something to consider if you plan to add your own cheap drives after purchasing a machine. I have no first hand experience with this issue. When I was in an environment where I purchased hardware I always purchased whatever drives I needed with the system. What really bugged me about this was that there were times where parts would go on backorder and it was nice to know outside of a system board or certain controller cards Dells were just standard parts I could buy on the open market.
Here is a link to an article from the time: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/10/dell_perc_11th_gen_qualified_hdds_only/ On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 8:23 PM, Andrew Farnsworth <[email protected]>wrote: > That is one thing I really like about the Dell T110. All standard parts. > Non-parity RAM, standard SATA hard drives. Almost all of the used servers I > have looked at use SCSI drives or SAS drives. Now I know SAS drives are not > that expensive but at $120 for a 750 GB drive where SATA costs $70 for a 2 > TB drive... especially since I rsync this thing regularly back to my RAID at > the house. If / When I want more RAM or HD, it is going to be fairly > inexpensive. I am currently looking at just about $530 for the server, 2.4 > Ghz Xeon quad core cpu, 4 Gb RAM, a 250 GB SATA drive from Dell and a 2TB > SATA hard drive from a 3rd party (TigerDirect or NewEgg). I am having a > hard time convincing myself that spending $100 on a server, plus 3 x $100 > for hard drives makes that used server for $400 not stand up so well to the > new Dell at $520. > > On a side note, they want about $120 for a 3 year warranty... not sure it > is worth spending 25% of the machine cost on an extended warranty. > > Andy > > > On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 7:52 PM, df9 <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Does the university you have a surplus >> Outlet for there gear? >> Last year I got a Dell leading edge >> At UM Teripin trader for $50. >> The catch was the drives cost as much as >> An Apple home server each. >> Dan >> >> On Jan 15, 4:29 pm, Andrew Farnsworth <[email protected]> wrote: >> > I'm looking to standup a simple server and want server hardware rather >> than >> > just a white box. Performance is not really an issue but reliability >> and >> > price are. Any suggestions? I can get a Dell T110 for under $500.00. >> I >> > looked at HP but they are more expensive for a lesser spec machine. >> > >> > Thanks! >> > >> > Andy >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "NLUG" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected] >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected]<nlug-talk%[email protected]> >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/nlug-talk?hl=en >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "NLUG" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<nlug-talk%[email protected]> > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/nlug-talk?hl=en > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NLUG" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nlug-talk?hl=en
