Dell certified drives only with PERC H700?

Sorry....should have been more clear. Looking to replace a PE1900 with a T310/T410/T610 and want to move the drives over. Was going to get the latest H700 or H800 RAID card in hopes of getting newer 6.0GB SATA drives down the line. Just didn't know if I could buy the new server with minimum drives, move over the existing ones and expect them to work.

The PowerEdge 1900 shouldn't have an H700 unless you put it in yourself. It only ever shipped with the PERC5 and maybe the PERC6, but not the H700.

Just got a new R510 Server with H700 Raid Card and yes unfortunately it is true you can only use Dell certified drives with the new Raid cards

Looking to replace a PE1900 with a T310/T410/T610 and want to move the drives over. Was going to get the latest H700 or H800 RAID card in hopes of getting newer 6.0GB SATA drives down the line. Just didn't know if I could buy the new server with minimum drives, move over the existing ones and expect them to work.

I have a T410 with a PERC controller, and I'm pretty sure it will take non-Dell drives. I have to admit I haven't checked myself, but I've been following this issue a little (because I think this is a disgusting move on Dell's part) and I think the drive restrictions apply only to the next generation after the T410, not to the T410's generation. I think there may be a choice of hot-swap SATA controller for the T410, and I got the PERC on the recommendation of a support tech I was chatting to after he helped me with an issue on our older Poweredge.

Andy.

I have a T410 with a PERC controller, and I'm pretty sure it will take non-Dell drives. I have to admit I haven't checked myself, but I've been following this issue a little (because I think this is a disgusting move on Dell's part) and I think the drive restrictions apply only to the next generation after the T410, not to the T410's generation. I think there may be a choice of hot-swap SATA controller for the T410, and I got the PERC on the recommendation of a support tech I was chatting to after he helped me with an issue on our older Poweredge.

Do you have a PERC H700 or PERC6? I know the PERC6 will take non-certified Dell drives. I wonder if non-standard drives on a H700 plain doesn't work, or if it says "Golly gosh, you should really be using Dell drives, press F1 to continue....cheapskate." on POST or something. ;)

Sorry to be unhelpful - it's a PERC 6/i.

Yes it is the case.  Dell has modified the firmware on the LSI private labeled controller so that it will only "UNBLOCK" the use of hard disks whose firmware identifies itself as a Dell private labeled hard disk.

By the way, be careful what you post on the forums...Dell will delete posts which cast them in a bad light.  My earlier post was deleted by them.  Looks like censoring is becoming a tool of Dell.

As noted in your other thread, it was your language that got your post deleted, even if it was as benign-seeming as crummy (substituting for 'app').  Censorship of comments that case a company in bad light is every company's right in their public forums, but one that Dell does not use.  (Have you not read the forums?? LOL)

I really do not think the the word "carppy" but spelled with the 'r' before the 'a' is a word needed to be censored.  I may be wrong, but it is not even on the list of words the FCC bans on broadcast TV or radio.  Please, let's be honest here.

I'm just saying ... that's why it was deleted.  I wouldn't have thought so either, but I had a post deleted for using that "dirty" word too :) 

DELL has announced that they will be removing the "BLOCK" of non-DELL branded disks connected to their H700 and H800 controllers.  The big question now is how quickly will they release a firmware update.  Since the BLOCKING firmware logic probably performs a simply check for the name "DELL" in the hard disk's own firmware identifier, simply removing the "IF...THEN" logic to ENABLE any disk regardless of the result of this string comparison and instead flagging it as ENABLED should literally take moments to re-write.  I am hoping DELL will do this today.  Unfortunately, the released announcement seems to indicate Q2Y11 which I hope does not mean 2nd quarter 2011.  Maybe it was a typo.  Here's to hoping.

If DELL indeed does remove this block in such a timely fashion it will surely convince me that they are, and can be, responsive to their customers and are genuinely interested in doing what is both right, and really in their best interests.  DELL does not need to block other hardware which might be integrated into their systems in order to create sales.  DELL makes a SUPERIOR server product and they should continue to capitalize on that fact.  I think DELL might consider another option with respect to making money on hard disks and other third party products, like memory, integrated by the end user into their servers.  I would certainly pay a "Support for 3rd Party Products" fee of $50 or $100 per server to allow me to use my own sourced products from a DELL list of compliant brands which DELL engineers could then provide some limited technical support to discuss issues which might come up.  Although DELL would NOT be responsible for warranty replacement or patching of these products, they could still provide advice in their use when installed in a DELL box.  As an example, if I paid this fee, and I were too dumb to use RAID edition hard disks and had RAID issues and called for support, the DELL engineer could help identify the disks I used and say "you need to be using RAID edition disks" whereas if I did not pay the third party products support fee they would say "sorry but you have not paid for 3rd party products support so we cannot advise you in this area."  Just a thought.

I hate to question you tshubert, but where did you get this information? Don't get me wrong, I am quite excited since I want to move one of my existing PE1900s to a PE T410. I have found that Dell is actually pretty good as far as releasing firmware, drivers, etc. so it might be soon!

I spoke with a Dell technician this morning and then my Dell rep. They confirmed that there is a firmware update going to be released that will NOT block non-dell hard drives with the H700 PERC card. Rep said the release should be out likely within the next 30-60 days.

2QFY11 means 2nd quarter of Dell's fiscal year. FY11 started in Feb 2010, so Q2 is May 2010 - July 2010.

Here is what was sent to me:

 April 2010

At Dell, we are committed to our customers. We listen to our customers. And, to ensure our customers have a positive experience with our products, we validate and certify all of our PowerEdge servers and components.

Previously, Dell prevented the use of non-Dell hard drives attached to PERC H700 and H800 controllers in our 11th

Dell will no longer prevent customer use of non-Dell hard drives attached to PERC H700 and H800 controllers on our 11th generation of PowerEdge servers. A Q2FY11 PERC Firmware Update is planned to allow non-Dell hard drives to be used with these controllers.

We strongly recommend choosing Dell drives as we have validated and certified our drives and can support any issues that may arise.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

• www.dell.com/poweredge

 • Dell Hard Drives Landing Page (http://www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/pvaul/topics/en/hard-drives?c=us&l=en&s=corp)

• Why Dell Drives Paper (http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pvaul/en/dell-hard-drives-pov.pdf)

Please contact your Dell Sales Representative with questions.

Thank you.

Despite the bit of hot air about how wonderful Dell drives are, if you look at the drives in OpenManage, you can clearly see exactly what they shipped.  In my case, it was WD2502ABYS-18B7A0, a standard Western Digital.  In this case, their crime is perhaps not so egregious, because I can order them from Dell at basically market price.  However,  I already have 4 of these.  I would really like to be able to roll them out, but apparently that will have to wait.

You know what's really grinding on me?

I'm pretty sure the H700 was an upgrade over the also-still-available PERC 6/i.  It stings a little to think I paid extra to screw myself over.

I also recently bought a DELL R51510 sever for a customer. The standard onfiguration came with 2 x 500Gb drives ... I added 4 x Dell 1TB drives to the system. My customer wanted the two 500GB drives replace with 500BG drives. When I discussed this with the DELL sales rep explaining that my customer refused to pay the DELL price for 2 more drives, he proposed that we buy 2 Western Digital Enterprise drives as relacements because we allready had the caddies.

Mistake ... even thought these drives are exactly identical to the 1TB that came from DELL they are blocked from working in the server. So this was a waste of money as I am now sitting with 2 drives that my customer will not pay for.

The sales rep obviously didn't know about the issue as he would have told me.

After searching for possible clues on the web I have found this forum, the good news, it looks like DELL will be posting a firmware update.

I have a job to get done and can not wait for months for the update to become available.

Does anybody know whether the firware update is available yet?

The question is now, do I return the server and get another namebrand or do I wait?