Why Buy Hardrives with storage server from a vendor?

Hi all,

Im just browsing around at storage server's like the Dell MD100/ MD3000 and the Sun J4200 and although the storage server seems reasonable (approx $3000-$4000 AUD) the hard-drives that you buy to go along with them seems exorbitantly expensive. And I'm not sure why. Surely at most they are using good quality RAID level 7200rpm SATA hdd, but even then they are still charging almost 4 times the price. What is the advantage to buying these from them.

I can see if one fails then the vendor replacing it is convenient. But at that price you could buy double the amount of hdd and just claim on warranty directly with the manufacturer. It would be much cheaper and you wouldn't be relying on someone else to fix your problems.

Is this the case of "you don't get fired if you buy IBM?" mentality or is there some reason I'm not grasping here?

Cheers

Mark

From serverfault Mark

• Certain branded HDDs may have custom firmware setup on them, but generally speaking it's a bad idea buying RAM and/or HDDs from Dell, since you can save quite a bit by buying them even of newegg or something similar.

  dyasny : it's always a _good_ idea to buy parts for brand name systems, from the same brand, because you are paying for extended QA, complex support and updates.

  Farseeker : And padding some sales schmucks commisssion and sales bonus

  David Mackintosh : well how else is he supposed to afford to take me out to lunch?
  From gekkz

• Hi Mark

  on the UK site they seem to be offering SAS 15K disks, not SATA. SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) disks are enterprise grade disks that generally spin at 15000 RPM as opposed to th 7200 RPM offered by most SATA offerings. This gives a very noticeable performance hike on it's own but the SAS standard also offers data throughput of 6GB per second, much faster than SATA (in practice, althoigh in theory SATA can also offer 6GB/Second throughput), hence the higher price.

  From Marko Carter

• This may vary from place to place but purchasing a complete assembly, rather than just a bare machine means no matter what breaks you only make one phone call to get it repaired or replaced under warranty.

  The custom drive firmware mentioned by gekkz is also important. I've heard of people who have experienced system failures and were told that the use of "non-genuine" drives voids the warranty because the system was not designed to work with them. Even if you win that argument, it takes time which you may not be able to afford.

  From John Gardeniers

• The reason most people buy everything from one vendor is simple - support.

  I buy HP, we can call them up at any time and know that they'll deal with any problem we have as they supplied it all. Buy bits from here, bits from there and you're giving each vendor a perfectly justifiable 'get out clause' to stop talking to you when you're in trouble.

  So it all comes down to how much that safety blanket is worth to you.

  Oskar Duveborn : +1 It's worth a lot to quickly dish out "it's broken, fix it now!" and actually get that done, every time consistently, within a short time period - instead of having to deal with whatever return process cheaper vendors might have (exceptions exists, simply find a vendor/supplier/partner that gives you what you want, when you want it and cherish them)... also, buying from the chassis producer will hopefully make them take all responsibility and provide fast and accurate knowledge about weird compatibility problems and quirks.. but sure, sometimes the cheaper way might fit the situation better.

  Chopper3 : Thank you, I'm quite 'time-poor' so being able to just smile and point a single company's engineer at a box when it goes pop genuinely enhances the quality of my (work)life.

  James : +1, the extra cost for support/compatibility is almost always a win

  ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells : +1 - actually the killer app of vendor support is actually having them on the hook to support the item.
  From Chopper3

• I was looking at storage servers offerings from both Dell, HP, Sun, and others a few months ago. In all the quotes and specs I received the vendors offered fairly competitive prices for the drives compared to what I could buy on the street. I suspect if you look closely you will see you where being offered SAS instead of SATA or drivers with higher RPMs.

  Look closely at the drives offered. Give your rep a call. Many of the vendors would let you order a system with cheaper/smaller/slower drives if you request them, but they don't advertise it on their sites.

  Mark : I double checked this, and it was 7200 rpm SATA drives from dell. I wonder if the old, "we calculate exchange rates at one time in the year and dont change them" problem has come up again. the AUD has been all over the place in the last two years compared to the USD.

  John Gardeniers : On that exchange rate issue, be sure to let them know the possibility of the sale hinges on the rate being current and fair (at least when it's in our favour). They will normally flex when pushed hard, even for just one server.
  From Zoredache

• Having worked in Dell support, I can tell you that inserting non-Dell drives will not void your warranty on the MD array, but you'll find it very hard to get any support at all.

  Suppose a drive fails, and you suspect the array backplane instead of the drive - until you get a Dell supported drive and check the array using that, there is no proof the array is damaged, because your drive was never tested and verified to work with that specific array.

  The same goes vice versa as well - you call the drive vendor, and get send to the SAN vendor, you call the SAN vendor - and get sent back to the disk vendor.

  Unless you enjoy feeling like a soccer ball, I'd pull out the extra cash, and get the proper support you deserve, if you're already going for a brandname solution.

  From dyasny

• Don't forget that the list price is only for those people who never ask for an offer. When you buy big name vendor stuff it's most likely that they'll be able to offer special prices which include better support options or other goodies. Ie we have some sun gear (sans, server, etc.) and we have never ever paid the list price no matter how small the order.

  From pfo