Should I expect problem plugin an HP drive in a Dell server?

[CougTek]

I stumbled on a very affordable HP 600GB 15Krpm SAS 6Gbps drive, 3.5". I need two 3.5" SAS drives for a Dell PowerEdge 2950 III. Except for the drive sled, should I be safe using an HP drive into a Dell server? Is it possible there's something in the firmware of the drive preventing me from using it elsewhere than in an HP?

I can easily find the drive sleds for the Dell server elsewhere, so that's not an issue.

 

[P5-133XL]

I didn't know that HP still made HD's nor did I know they ever made 15K rpm drives. Is it just re-brand of Seagate's Cheetah series

 

[ddrueding]

Certainly just a re-branded drive. 99% sure you'll be fine.

 

[CougTek]

Is it just re-brand of Seagate's Cheetah series

Of course, I know it's rebranded. I'm almost certain the drive is a Seagate Cheetah ST3600957SS. Nonetheless, I was worried that HP might have modified the drive's firmware in order to make sure it isn't used in another brand than theirs. I'm probably just paranoid.

 

[Mercutio]

I think the story is that HP, Dell and IBM have custom firmware on rebadged SAS drives. I don't know if that's still true or not, since they all pretty much use rebadged LSI controllers with custom firmware as well.
Were I a betting man (and last time I was, I wound up with blue hair for a month), I would guess that everything will work perfectly for everyday use but of course those enterprise drive have a funny way of finding themselves in edge case scenarios. Honestly I'd probably err on the side of caution with Dell-qualified drives if I were talking about a mission critical machine since "getting a drive that works for your configuration" is exactly why the Dell drives for Dell servers cost 3x what Newegg wants for the regular Seagates.

 

[Chewy509]

IIRC, having worked with HPs rebranded drives, the most likely only firmware change is a change to the reported number of sectors on the disk. eg All HP 73GB drives irrespective of the OEM, all had the same number of sectors on them. (as you know IBM, HP, WDC, Hitachi all 73GB drives had a slightly different number of sectors on them, so HP redoes the numbers to ensure you can mix/match brands without worrying about missing sectors on the new disk when you plug into your RAID configuration).

IIRC, IBM did the same (don't know about Lenovo now), and NFI on Dell disks...

But as Merc mentions, it the support factor that would override all else in my decision.

 

[blakerwry]

I thnk chewy hit the nail on the head. The biggest difference between dell (or whoever's) drives is that they make them smaller than the original manuf so you can swap in a new drive (from whatever manuf dell chooses that day) and not worry that your array that consisted of 4x147gb drives will not rebuild because you're missing 1mb on the new drive.

I've used 3rd party drives, including those from IBM, hp, and dell in other systems without issue. The only odd things I've run into are that the drive's caches are sometimes disabled or the drive LEDs are reversed (always on, turns off with activity) - both are easy fixes.

 

[LunarMist]

Is that some kind of spam?

 

[Stereodude]

Is that some kind of spam?

Nah, it's pork. Honest!

 

[Newtun]

Nah, it's pork. Honest!

It's pork, like Arby's is roast beef.

 

[CougTek]

I forgot to write a follow up, but the HP drives worked fine in the Dell server, with the appropriated sleds.