Sanity Check - 3rd party drives in an HP Server

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engedib

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#1119766 1-Sep-2014 17:04

Dynamic:
I have deployed quite a few HP MicroServers with non HP drives and they are working perfectly, the HP drives are just labelled as HP, they are WD or Seagate models.
Even put Samsung SSD drives to IBM servers (the price difference is even bigger there) and that's also absolutely fine with the LSI logic controllers.

Thanks for that. What are you telling clients about the warranty or were these for internal company use?

They were presented with a quote for both HDD options and explained the differences with going each option and the warranty implications.
Because of this, we will probably deploy an IBM x3530 M4 with only Samsung 840/850 PRO SSD drives and HDD caddies from ebay :)

MCSE+M/S, MCITP

1101

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#1120387 2-Sep-2014 11:39

Regs: the raid controllers are a bit iffy in those too. i'm recommend against it also!

As I found out the hard way. Luckily before installing onsite.
:-(

I Also purchased Genuine HP Hotplug Drives.
They were bog standard WD's (Black I think ?) . Didnt even come in the hotplug caddy , despite the pics showing a caddy.
Could have saved some $$ there

Dynamic

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#1120389 2-Sep-2014 11:41

1101:
Regs: the raid controllers are a bit iffy in those too. i'm recommend against it also!

As I found out the hard way. Luckily before installing onsite.
:-(

What were your issues? I would assume they would run reliably but at a pedestrian pace like any other FakeRAID controller.

“Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.” Douglas Adams

1101

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#1120400 2-Sep-2014 11:53

Dynamic:
1101:
Regs: the raid controllers are a bit iffy in those too. i'm recommend against it also!

As I found out the hard way. Luckily before installing onsite.
:-(

What were your issues? I would assume they would run reliably but at a pedestrian pace like any other FakeRAID controller.

when it went bad, Win partition C: was completely gone(yes missing !!!!), yet Win boot partition still OK. Restart it approx 5x times & that partion was magically up & ruining again. Then on next restart same thing happened.

So Remove/wipe RAID, resetup RAID, reload Server.
All went well for a while & then same thing started happening. Firmware updates didnt help.
In the end I had to just use Software raid.
:-(

Dynamic

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#1120405 2-Sep-2014 12:02

1101:
Dynamic:
1101:
Regs: the raid controllers are a bit iffy in those too. i'm recommend against it also!

As I found out the hard way. Luckily before installing onsite.
:-(

What were your issues? I would assume they would run reliably but at a pedestrian pace like any other FakeRAID controller.

when it went bad, Win partition C: was completely gone(yes missing !!!!), yet Win boot partition still OK. Restart it approx 5x times & that partion was magically up & ruining again. Then on next restart same thing happened.

So Remove/wipe RAID, resetup RAID, reload Server.
All went well for a while & then same thing started happening. Firmware updates didnt help.
In the end I had to just use Software raid.
:-(

Oh that is nasty. I've had Windows-based Software RAIDs go spectacularly wrong (back in NT4 days - not touched them since) and was under the impression that FakeRAID was much less evil.

“Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.” Douglas Adams

MadEngineer

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#1120874 2-Sep-2014 22:32

EMPR

You're not on Atlantis anymore, Duncan Idaho.

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Shop on-line at New World now for your groceries (affiliate link).

Zeon

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#1120884 2-Sep-2014 23:03

engedib:
Dynamic:
I have deployed quite a few HP MicroServers with non HP drives and they are working perfectly, the HP drives are just labelled as HP, they are WD or Seagate models.
Even put Samsung SSD drives to IBM servers (the price difference is even bigger there) and that's also absolutely fine with the LSI logic controllers.

Thanks for that. What are you telling clients about the warranty or were these for internal company use?

They were presented with a quote for both HDD options and explained the differences with going each option and the warranty implications.
Because of this, we will probably deploy an IBM x3530 M4 with only Samsung 840/850 PRO SSD drives and HDD caddies from ebay :)

If doing that why not just go Supermicro?

Speedtest 2019-10-14

Regs

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Snowflake

#1120896 2-Sep-2014 23:38

Dynamic:
1101:
Regs: the raid controllers are a bit iffy in those too. i'm recommend against it also!

As I found out the hard way. Luckily before installing onsite.
:-(

What were your issues? I would assume they would run reliably but at a pedestrian pace like any other FakeRAID controller.

here are my issues from a while back:
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=86&topicid=130728&page_no=5#938171

TL/DR avoid the built-in raid controller, use SATA/AHCI mode instead. Updated drivers may have fixed this in the last ~9 months, I haven't built any new ones since (the one I built is running fine in AHCI mode still).

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Snowflake
www.snowflake.com

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Twitter: @nzregs

Dynamic

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#1120976 3-Sep-2014 08:52

If doing that why not just go Supermicro?

For me, the security of parts supply for my clients is important.

I can get a reputable drive from multiple places at short notice. I can't make a motherboard or power supply etc for a specific server series appear out of nowhere. I don't need/want to keep spare parts for half a dozen server models.

“Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.” Douglas Adams

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