Branded servers and HD pricing

[#Chri5#]

Just wondering what people's thoughts are on the cost of manufacturer pricing on server HDs?

Now, I appreciate a company like HP will do some testing to qualify drives to ensure compatability and the like, but some of their pricing is a bit silly. Some recent SATA drives I've had as HP parts are still branded as Western Digital RE3 drives, HP haven't even bothered to stick their own labels on them.

Here's a couple of HP parts - bog standard 7200rpm SATA, cold swap drives:

HP 2TB (507774-B21) : ~£550+VAT
HP 1TB (507772-B21) : ~£360+VAT

OEM parts:

WD RE4 2TB RAID : ~£185+VAT
WD RE3 1TB RAID : ~£95+VAT

Just how much qualification do HP do? To add insult to injury, HP only warrant entry and midline (basically anything 7.2k rpm) SATA/SAS drives for 1 year. Yet buy the much cheaper WD and you get 5 years warranty.

Do Dell and others run such crazy pricing?

 

[#Chri5#]

Interesting it's not HP that like to inflate commodity item prices then.

I've quickly put together an Excel matrix of common HP drives and alternatives from WD or Seagate (with a 3rd party caddy where needed).

HP actually works out cheaper on a hot plug 250GB SATA and are within £10 of a 2.5" SAS 146GB 10k. Other than those though, the cost saving in favour of OEM drive + caddy ranges from £50 to over £320.