I don’t think I bothered to complain here but I sure sent my fair share of nasty grams. In fact Dell became one of my four letter words after I heard they were firmware locking Gen11 servers to only dell drives. Of course it was a mistake but I loved to unashamedly repeat the famous quote from Howard Shoobe.
“There are a number of benefits for using Dell qualified drives in particular ensuring a positive experience and protecting our data.”
While I wish they had not tried to do this in the first place, I do want to be sure to give kudos to Dell for listening to reason. Matt Simmons is reporting that Dell is reversing its position on 3rd party drives. From the post:
DELL H-SERIES CONTROLLER BLOCKING OF 3RD PARTY DRIVES
TO BE REMOVED IN Q2FY11
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 generation of PowerEdge servers as we could not certify these non-Dell drives. However, based on customer feedback, we are now reversing this decision and allowing their use (without support).
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:
• Dell Hard Drives Landing Page
• Why Dell Drives Paper
NOTE: There is no change to the current hard drive carrier policy. Hard drive carriers will not be sold separately (3rd party drives are still not supported on Dell Enterprise systems).
Dell, welcome back to my approved vendor list.