Can you put non-IBM hard drives in an IBM Server?

feenster99 · 8 Oct 2008 at 21:27

Hi,
We've just bought an IBM x3200 M2 for a customer - it came without any hard drives. I'm trying to track some down to go in it, but can't establish whether they need to be IBM branded. A couple of sales people i've spoken to have mentioned that IBM server hard drives have a certain firmware, and that the Server won't recognise drives without this.

Is this nonsense? Could I put some Seagate SATA drives in without problems? I would try it, but the drives need caddies to be mounted which I don't have.

Cheers,
Matt

growse · 8 Oct 2008 at 22:04

I imagine you may lose support if you do that, but I don't think they'll actually not work.

That said, I've just got a BladeCenter S at work and wasn't planning on putting IBM drives in it, so if you do try it, let me know how you get on.

dave-lew99 · 8 Oct 2008 at 22:52

feenster99 said:
A couple of sales people i've spoken to have mentioned that IBM server hard drives have a certain firmware, and that the Server won't recognise drives without this.

Ah hmm...whats that i smell....

It's unlikely that any normal drive wouldn't work - the hardest part for this sort of thing is getting the correct caddies but disk-wise any should be ok.

It is entirely possible IBM might throw a hissy fit if you tried to get support but again if you don't mention they're not IBM drives then im sure things would be fine.

madman045 · 9 Oct 2008 at 09:21

With previous model of IBM servers, any none IBM disks would flag an error every time you boot up the server (these were SCSI disks) and you had to acknowledge the error before it would boot the OS. Don't know if that still the same with newer models.

s0ck · 9 Oct 2008 at 11:20

If you plan on using IBM Support (and I would) then use IBM disks. The caddies are likely to cost a fortune anyway so you may not make any saving by using ***** disks.

CraigN · 9 Oct 2008 at 11:52

i happen to have 2 spare U320 15k 73.4 GB IBM disks FRU 90p1322 (in caddies)

i can put thm in the MM if you have a need for them

feenster99 · 9 Oct 2008 at 13:31

Hi,
I've just spoken to a very knowledgable chap at our of our suppliers. Apparently, for all the big Server brands, you need to stick to branded PSU's, CPU's and Hard drives. RAM doesn't really matter - he advised to get some decent Kingston stuff.

On a side note, I plugged a Samsung SATA drive in and it worked fine (obviously no caddy though). Apparently though, the IBM monitoring software will moan, as the Caddy contains some chips to help with the SMART monitoring etc.

Matt

Curiosityx · 9 Oct 2008 at 21:42

I strongly warn against you using anything other than IBM Branded hard disks, the same goes for other vendors like HP and Dell.

Yes it is true that in most cases hard disks for industry standard servers can be sourced separately but as quite rightly mentioned above manufacturer branded hard disks often contain customised firmware which works with both the backplane and the caddy for full functionality, the end result differs between class of server but i have witnessed disastrous results with raid arrays with customers using non standard disks.

I would advise that your order disks that neet with the HCL of the server.