On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 8:48 PM, Richard Stovall <[email protected]> wrote: > Tis different, IMHO. If I'm buying a low end server with SATA drives > I don't expect to have to pay Dell or HP for OEM drives with some > custom firmware, which is exactly what you're getting.
As they saying goes, "+1". If we got something for the money, it would be one thing. But Dell's drives are very generic -- often just the OEM drive with a Dell P/N sticker slapped on it. When I look for hard disk firmware updates I'm given a list of *OEM part numbers*. No correlation to Dell P/N's. In order to determine which files I should get for my drives, I have to pull them out of the chassis and copy the OEM P/N and compare to the Dell download list. Where's the "value-added engineering and support" in that?? I don't expect Dell to support non-Dell drives. If they want to put some kind of warning in the firmware/driver/etc, so that I have to click a "Warranty is Void" checkbox, okay, fine. I pays my money, I takes my chance. But *enforcing* this is bogus. This is predominately a money-grab and customer lock-in technique. It may have been exacerbated by compatibility problems (which we can only suppose), but locking out everyone is a money grab. The fact that Dell isn't the first to do this doesn't make it right. The main reason I think this is so bogus is for contingency reasons. Let's say I have a server develop trouble in an unexpected way. Thanks to this, I can only try parts from Dell. If I want to try something creative to get somebody out of a fix, I'm sunk. Or what happens when Dell discontinues all support, five years after sale? If I want to recycle an older server to less-important tasks, I'm sunk. -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
