Hard drives for PS100E & PS70E

From what I've heard, if you are under warranty and you put in non-certified drives, you void the warranty on the whole system.

Assuming you're out of warranty, or at planning to buy the drives from Dell, with the latest firmware, Dell offers 2TB, so those should work.

Is there a document somewhere that will tell me what is certified or not?  The drives currently in the SAN are Western Digital 250GB (WD2500YS-01SHB0), not like they are special or anything.  I sent an email to Dell tech support, guess I'll see what they have to say.

Bill

Only Dell Equallogic drives are certified. You might be able to find Dell Equallogic drives from resellers, but "retail" drives aren't certified no matter which model they are and/or which firmware they have.

I’m Joe and I work for Dell EqualLogic.  The largest capacity disks that were available for the PS50E-PS400E series were the 750GB 7.2K (SATA).  However, upgrade kits that would have enabled you to upgrade an existing array to a larger size capacity are no longer available for purchase, this is due to the End of Service of this series, and service contracts will only be sold/supported with an end date of April 18th 2013.  Installing any other drive that is not purchased through Dell EqualLogic, will in fact void any warranties, support contracts, or technical support on the array.

The largest drive sold and tested for PS100 model arrays were 750 GB.  This was marketed as a PS400E and (most of them) shipped with Seagate Model ST3750640NS drives running drive firmware 3.AEG.  2 TB drives have never been tested or sold with that chassis, and will likely have problems

Checked with sales, and drive upgrade kits are no longer available for that model.

DEV MGR is correct that "retail" drives aren't certified no matter which model they are and/or which firmware they have, but that also implies loss of support.  Non tested/supported drives may have a higher failure rate, may run hotter (possibly affecting other components), and may even hit data integrity issues.

So what you are saying is that these units are at their End of Service as far as upgrading and parts, but yet service contracts will still be sold through 2013?  Does that only seem strange to me?  I understand that equipment eventually has to hit the end of servicable life, but I would think parts, etc would be available to the very end.  Is there a part number that I can get for the upgrade kit that is no longer sold to see if I can locate one through a 3rd party?  This bit of news has really put me in a jam since we have maxed out storage space but the SAN is still more than adequate for our needs, just needs more space.  Thanks.

Bill

Assuming you're on a modern firmware, you can very easily add a PS4000E to the group. This would allow expanding the storage space and eventually even move over completely to the newer system.

As for the 750GB cap; I've never seen the list of drives that shipped on older Equallogic systems, so I didn't know what would work and only assumed 2TB because the same firmware that works on the newer systems can be applied to the older systems.

However, currently sold Equallogic boxes don't seem to offer much in the sense of storage space upgrades other than if you bought the system with 8 drives and expand by adding another 8 (identical) drives.

Bill,

We’re sorry for the inconvenience.  After the acquisition and when we moved over to the 16-drive chassis, Dell did heavy, extensive outreach to all EqualLogic customers with these types of 14-drive arrays advising of a deadline to purchase additional drive packs, or upgrade kits.  We’re sorry you weren’t able to purchase during that time window. We no longer have drive upgrades for sale on those arrays.   Parts are available only for replacement of individual drives in arrays under support contract until April 18th 2013.  There are no upgrade kits available through third parties.  We’d recommend talking to your sales team about adding another array, perhaps a PS4000E which might meet your needs for additional capacity.

Regards,
Joe

Hi,

Dell JOE can you explain me how the upgrade works please.

If we replace equalogic disk by some larger equalogic certified, does we need to move the data anywhere or the equalogic will ask to expand the actual RAID ?

For the time we had an Equalogic PS4000 XV with 300 GB SAS and we want buy 600GB.

Does it will work ? Have you a document with the procedure ?

Thanks a lot,

Regards.

Joe,

Thanks for the document. I found out some precious informations. But I can't find some answer :

Does the array will be able to grow after we change the all disks or does it work with the old size ? (sorry if it's à little bit stupid... just to be sure)

If not is there another sollution ?

For remember today we have 16 * 300 GB and we want to buy 16 * 600 or higher

Where can I find the upgrade kit for the PS 4000 XV? I look for in equalogic website, dell and google but nothing...

I really thanks you Joe,

Regards.

Icb3a,

This file should explain the upgrading disk procedure.

http://en.community.dell.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Discussions.Components.Files/3775/3531.ps_2D00_disks_2D00_upgrading.pdf

Regards,

Joe

Icb3a,

When you vacate the member to update the drives (as per the document), you will then re-add it to the group, re-configure it with the new raid policy, which will now include the new larger disks and update the array to the larger size.

For the United States and Canada, Please contact US-NH-sales@dell.com (US: 603-579-9762 x7792) for the update kit, or privately email me (click my name, select follow, and send me a message with your name, email address, country and phone number), and I forward this to our customer service so that they can get someone to contact you.

Regards,
Joe

Joe,

Thanks a lot. I send you a private message.

Regards.

Bill, We’re sorry for the inconvenience.  After the acquisition and when we moved over to the 16-drive chassis, Dell did heavy, extensive outreach to all EqualLogic customers with these types of 14-drive arrays advising of a deadline to purchase additional drive packs, or upgrade kits.  We’re sorry you weren’t able to purchase during that time window. We no longer have drive upgrades for sale on those arrays.   Parts are available only for replacement of individual drives in arrays under support contract until April 18th 2013.  There are no upgrade kits available through third parties.  We’d recommend talking to your sales team about adding another array, perhaps a PS4000E which might meet your needs for additional capacity. Regards, Joe

As an EqualLogic customer, this is very disturbing news.  My company owns 2 PS100E's and 2 PS5000E's.  The PS100E chasis were purchased a few months before the Dell merger and it was understood during the sales process that they could be upgraded in the future.

I was never contacted by Dell or my vendor during the "extensive outreach" advising of a deadline for purchasing the upgrade packs.  I just happened to find this forum and this is the first I've heard of it.  I've had all of these units under full support the whole time, so Dell definitely knows how to reach me.

Yes, I understand that I can add on a PS4000 series, but that is a heck of a lot more expensive than a drive upgrade kit.

I had plans to buy a new shelf... possibly a PS4000 or PS6000 and upgrade the drives in the two PS100Es, but it sounds like the small business I work for is going to have to shovel out more money on storage that we don't really have.

So I guess there still isn't a trade-up program either.

I agree on the "extensive outreach" .

When was this done?