12th Generation Dell Servers

[gabi_cavaller]

Hi,

Looking to purchase 3 R720 hosts.

Just wondering if you guys have been buying/installing your own HD's into these units and your experience?

The prices in the UK are still very expensive and as we don't buy a lot of equipment (get to play with lots though) the discounts aren't there really, specially for enterprise HD's.

Thank you very much in advanced,

G.

 

[BigD1108]

My employer is a Dell reseller, so I have a decent amount of experience procuring and later troubleshooting Dell servers. I've found that they are kinda prickly about supporting 3rd-party hard drives in their servers. YMMV.

If at all possible, I'd order the drives through Dell when ordering the server. Not that it won't work, but it definitely sucks when you have an issue, and Dell Support is a jerk about supporting the drives installed in the server.

P.S. Dell's actually published a whitepaper to convince you to buy drives from them, for what it's worth: http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pvaul/en/why_dell_enterprise_hdds.pdf

 

[Nate7311]

Unles your pricing is just stupid, a single point of warranty assistance can be a god-send. In the states, Dell's drives are typically within $100 of market prices from Newegg, etc.

 

[402blownstroker]

Dell's drives are typically within $100 of market prices from Newegg, etc.

That is still highway raping.... I mean robbery

 

[Nate7311]

Oh, hell yes it is. But it could be worse, and Dell is pretty famous at dropping their pants for quantity orders.

 

[young_one]

P.S. Dell's actually published a whitepaper to convince you to buy drives from them, for what it's worth: http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pvaul/en/why_dell_enterprise_hdds.pdf

That is a stupid whitepaper indeed, tries to imply that Dell has some involvement in the Manufacture - we all know they are just OEM drives with Dell Fimware, admittely they always pick enterprise grade drives.

In relation to the original question, I have some Dell T710's (with the rackmount converstion kits) which had no problem taking Hitachi HUA723030ALA641 (7.2k 3TB) drives once installed into the caddies. My setup is a H700 raid controller with 2*1TB Dell branded Seagate drives for Boot/OS and 6*Hitachi 3TB drives for mass storage.

These are not mission critical machines, if they were then (ignoring all guff in that whitepaper) the warranty alone would be worthwhile.

Just for info, we got the empty caddies from ETB-Tech for about £20 each.

 

[dashpuppy]

If you get a dell server it comes with warranty. If the drive fails you get next business day service ie a tech comes and replaces the drive.

You buy the ever with out drives and the one you buy elsewhere dies you wait 1-2 weeks for replacement, unless you have a few spares on hand.

I know this, because I'm the guy that comes and changes the drive.

Talk to me about those 4 hour calls or getting paged in middle of the night to fix dell servers etc etc.

You can also save money by, buying servers on eBay, lots of resellers on there can sell you a few servers at good price, could probably extend the warrantee, or get it transferred to your company name if there is any left on the units.. That's what I did with my r415, I got 760 days left and I get paid to repair my own server nbd

 

[gabi_cavaller]

Hi,

Thanks for all the replies.

Seems like you get pulled your pants down, but you have no choice

Awesome, will need to purchase them then really.

Just need to finalise the spec and see from there.

Thanks,

Gabi

 

[c0rpt3ch]

We've got two R710s a R910 and a Dell SAN and we order the drives through Dell. Yes they charge more but if they die I get someone out the next day with a replacement. Our Dell rep seems pretty good about getting us discounts whenever she can so it's not too bad.

I have worked at offices that bought their drives from the lowest bidder and when the drive died we'd have a helluva time trying to get hold of someone to help us out. In my opinion it's worth the extra bit that Dell charges.

 

[dashpuppy]

We've got two R710s a R910 and a Dell SAN and we order the drives through Dell. Yes they charge more but if they die I get someone out the next day with a replacement. Our Dell rep seems pretty good about getting us discounts whenever she can so it's not too bad.

I have worked at offices that bought their drives from the lowest bidder and when the drive died we'd have a helluva time trying to get hold of someone to help us out. In my opinion it's worth the extra bit that Dell charges.

that's my job, i get paged out to changed the drive for NBD an 4 hour response times too..

 

[vr.]

If you get a dell server it comes with warranty. If the drive fails you get next business day service

Don't you have to explicitly pay extra for this level of "Gold Support" ?

ie a tech comes and replaces the drive.

And this is not a good thing in all cases. It's extremely frustrating to waste an hour watching an incompetent Dell contracted tech install a disk in a caddy then muddle around in the RAID config because they're not familiar with that particular model of server. It pisses me off that we're not allowed to slap the morons and send them on their way. Stupid anti-workplace violence policy!

You buy the ever with out drives and the one you buy elsewhere dies you wait 1-2 weeks for replacement, unless you have a few spares on hand.

I'd want spares on hand anyway. 5 minute response time from internal staff is better than 4 hours.

I know this, because I'm the guy that comes and changes the drive.

and hopefully you know your way around a drive caddy!

Talk to me about those 4 hour calls or getting paged in middle of the night to fix dell servers etc etc.

You can also save money by, buying servers on eBay, lots of resellers on there can sell you a few servers at good price, could probably extend the warrantee, or get it transferred to your company name if there is any left on the units.. That's what I did with my r415, I got 760 days left and I get paid to repair my own server nbd

Unfortunately with how disk warranties have shifted, the Dell warranty is becoming better than marketplace purchases. Makes me sad.

 

[ashman]

I thought Dell had changed is with their RAID controllers so you couldn't use your own drives and HAD to use Dell drives, is this not the case? I have a couple of old first gen 2900's with Perc 5i's and they will take any drive. Good points about warranty though, it definitely worth paying the extra $$ for production servers, no question there.

 

[dashpuppy]

Don't you have to explicitly pay extra for this level of "Gold Support" ?
And this is not a good thing in all cases. It's extremely frustrating to waste an hour watching an incompetent Dell contracted tech install a disk in a caddy then muddle around in the RAID config because they're not familiar with that particular model of server. It pisses me off that we're not allowed to slap the morons and send them on their way. Stupid anti-workplace violence policy!


I'd want spares on hand anyway. 5 minute response time from internal staff is better than 4 hours.
and hopefully you know your way around a drive caddy!
Unfortunately with how disk warranties have shifted, the Dell warranty is becoming better than marketplace purchases. Makes me sad.

No yuo don't have to pay for NBD support it comes standard on all dell servers 9 from what i have seen ) Some clients even go for the 4hour ( that's the gold support )

Not all of us are incompetent you know. Just because you know how to setup raid doesn't make you some so called tech.

 

[DeChache]

And this is not a good thing in all cases. It's extremely frustrating to waste an hour watching an incompetent Dell contracted tech install a disk in a caddy then muddle around in the RAID config because they're not familiar with that particular model of server. It pisses me off that we're not allowed to slap the morons and send them on their way. Stupid anti-workplace violence policy!


I'd want spares on hand anyway. 5 minute response time from internal staff is better than 4 hours.
and hopefully you know your way around a drive caddy!

We usually end up buying cold spares from dell and just swapping them out and just let the tech come and take the old degaussed drive.

No yuo don't have to pay for NBD support it comes standard on all dell servers 9 from what i have seen ) Some clients even go for the 4hour ( that's the gold support )

Not all of us are incompetent you know. Just because you know how to setup raid doesn't make you some so called tech.

I usually just don't take the risk and grab the drive from the tech and do it myself . All my servers are configured with a hot spare any way so the array is typically rebuilt

Or if its one of the servers I had a spare for I just hand him the dead drive and be on my way.

 

[dashpuppy]

We usually end up buying cold spares from dell and just swapping them out and just let the tech come and take the old degaussed drive.




I usually just don't take the risk and grab the drive from the tech and do it myself . All my servers are configured with a hot spare any way so the array is typically rebuilt

Or if its one of the servers I had a spare for I just hand him the dead drive and be on my way.

That happens alot, some it company want to do it them selves, happens all the time. I just swap out the drive and poof done. Doesn't bother me at all, as long as the customer is happy and dell approves it. It's good. I've been doing this for several years so i know what im doing. SOMETIMES you get a new guy, and it's appropriate to give him / her a break. You have to start some where, and if you think about it, some are just as scared to touch customers live data as the rest are..

 

[DeChache]

That happens alot, some it company want to do it them selves, happens all the time. I just swap out the drive and poof done. Doesn't bother me at all, as long as the customer is happy and dell approves it. It's good. I've been doing this for several years so i know what im doing. SOMETIMES you get a new guy, and it's appropriate to give him / her a break. You have to start some where, and if you think about it, some are just as scared to touch customers live data as the rest are..

I'm scared to play with my live data Losing 8TB of lecture capture would suck or one of the 20tb media storage servers i shake that the thought. Everything is backed up but has anybody else had to do a restore to tape of 4tb worth of data. Its like watching paint dry while the mob is breaking down the front door.

I know the server techs are better but some of the tech I've gotten for desktops and laptops make me shudder at the thought of them touching the server.

I know everybody has to start somewhere but I figure that start is workstations by the time you get to servers you need to be comfortable with hardware.

It has to suck though trying to do your job with somebody like me looking over your shoulder judging every move waiting for a mistake

 

[dave99]

I thought Dell had changed is with their RAID controllers so you couldn't use your own drives and HAD to use Dell drives, is this not the case? I have a couple of old first gen 2900's with Perc 5i's and they will take any drive. Good points about warranty though, it definitely worth paying the extra $$ for production servers, no question there.

Seems hit or miss. I know they changed it on the H700 with a firmware update, not sure about the newer H710. I tried to use my own SSD with an h710p as a cache drive (lsi cachecade feature), but while I could configure it, it would throw warning messages and trigger the system alert stuff (amber blinking led), so I took it back out.

I'll be getting another T320 or 420 with a 710p in the next few weeks for a client, I'll try again with another newer SSD and see if it works better. It appears it should from other blogs online. It's read only cache on the perc, so paying 1k for a dell drive is dumb.

 

[vr.]

I thought Dell had changed is with their RAID controllers so you couldn't use your own drives and HAD to use Dell drives, is this not the case? I have a couple of old first gen 2900's with Perc 5i's and they will take any drive. Good points about warranty though, it definitely worth paying the extra $$ for production servers, no question there.

They did have a period of time where non-Dell disks would not be recognized or usable. The public outcry and legal fine print in some fair trade act changed that pretty quick. If you run into a perc5 that won't recognize a non-Dell disk you can update the firmware of the controller. Afterwards the drive will say "unsupported" or something similar but you can add them to virtual disks and work with them.

dashpuppy I don't doubt you know what you're doing. If they're young I cut them all kinds of slack. Older, slow insecure techs, I have no patience with those guys. There are plenty of used car sales jobs they can take or maybe a wal-mart greeter. Getting into field IT work towards the end of your work career with no prior knowledge of computers is not the wisest move.

 

[dashpuppy]

They did have a period of time where non-Dell disks would not be recognized or usable. The public outcry and legal fine print in some fair trade act changed that pretty quick. If you run into a perc5 that won't recognize a non-Dell disk you can update the firmware of the controller. Afterwards the drive will say "unsupported" or something similar but you can add them to virtual disks and work with them.

dashpuppy I don't doubt you know what you're doing. If they're young I cut them all kinds of slack. Older, slow insecure techs, I have no patience with those guys. There are plenty of used car sales jobs they can take or maybe a wal-mart greeter. Getting into field IT work towards the end of your work career with no prior knowledge of computers is not the wisest move.

TOTALLY AGREE!!

p.s if i have a tech watching over me, i stop what i'm doing turn around and ask them what they are doing ? if they say i want to watch i say no go do something else, im trying to do my job. if they insist then i simply say ok, im going to move this for another day. i don't have time to be watched i have other jobs to get done.

most the time for me it's usually consumer's that like to see what their laptops look like apart, hwever it's usually for only 10-18 min as i can do complete tear down motherboard swap in 15 min or less most days. LOL!

My last one few months ago, i had to grab my pic from my bag whyle i did that the customer moved a screw and cable, i didn't notice till i turned it on and it started smoking, he then said oh i wonder if that was from the cable i moved. FAWK! i said, go away go sit somewhere else ! I had to call dell and get new main board sent to me. Good thing the cable that burn up was only for the camera in the bezel..

Today was a 6 laptop day

Tonight, i'm off to a valt of equipment under a bank to do a full rack swap and re-configure of 3 cisco firewalls.

 

[DeChache]

TOTALLY AGREE!!

p.s if i have a tech watching over me, i stop what i'm doing turn around and ask them what they are doing ? if they say i want to watch i say no go do something else, im trying to do my job. if they insist then i simply say ok, im going to move this for another day. i don't have time to be watched i have other jobs to get done.

Interesting try that at my place of business you would be shown the door. Especially with a server... Our IT security folks are strict when it comes to access.

PS the firewalls sound like fun. I've got 5 sitting in my office waiting to be setup.

 

[vr.]

Interesting try that at my place of business you would be shown the door. Especially with a server... Our IT security folks are strict when it comes to access.

PS the firewalls sound like fun. I've got 5 sitting in my office waiting to be setup.

Security isn't the issue, you can securely sit on top of a repair tech without being obnoxious to their productivity. Unless of course your security weenies don't know anything about servers and have to hawk-eye every movement jibber-jabbering the whole way like a curious five year old.

 

[dashpuppy]

Interesting try that at my place of business you would be shown the door. Especially with a server... Our IT security folks are strict when it comes to access.

PS the firewalls sound like fun. I've got 5 sitting in my office waiting to be setup.

ID definatly walk off site WITH my parts to fix your broken server, then id call dell and explain the situation.

There is NO NEED for any security douche bag to watch over a tech fixing a server. That's just plane stupidity.

Id just phone head manager for my area and explain this guy was watching over me while i was trying to work, he would say so did you walk off site, id reply with of course.

 

[dashpuppy]

Security isn't the issue, you can securely sit on top of a repair tech without being obnoxious to their productivity. Unless of course your security weenies don't know anything about servers and have to hawk-eye every movement jibber-jabbering the whole way like a curious five year old.

comes down to a huge distraction and the security guy being a complete retard and probably doesn't even know what a server is, but yet he would rather watch over your shoulder like a parot.

 

[SpaceHonkey]

comes down to a huge distraction and the security guy being a complete retard and probably doesn't even know what a server is, but yet he would rather watch over your shoulder like a parot.

What you guys don't seem to understand is that some companies have to follow policy, either dictated internally or by law that no non-employee goes unsupervised in a facility, usually to prevent the exposure of the company from a breach caused by a non-credentialed person in an area of potentially severe vulnerability.

I don't leave a plumber in my house unattended, and I certainly wouldn't want my bank, hospital or government to leave a random tech in a facility where my personal data is stored. Unfortunately as annoying as it is, it is a necessary evil.

 

[gabi_cavaller]

Seems hit or miss. I know they changed it on the H700 with a firmware update, not sure about the newer H710. I tried to use my own SSD with an h710p as a cache drive (lsi cachecade feature), but while I could configure it, it would throw warning messages and trigger the system alert stuff (amber blinking led), so I took it back out.

I'll be getting another T320 or 420 with a 710p in the next few weeks for a client, I'll try again with another newer SSD and see if it works better. It appears it should from other blogs online. It's read only cache on the perc, so paying 1k for a dell drive is dumb.

This is what I was intending on doing too (SSD)

Thanks,

G.

 

[dashpuppy]

What you guys don't seem to understand is that some companies have to follow policy, either dictated internally or by law that no non-employee goes unsupervised in a facility, usually to prevent the exposure of the company from a breach caused by a non-credentialed person in an area of potentially severe vulnerability.

I don't leave a plumber in my house unattended, and I certainly wouldn't want my bank, hospital or government to leave a random tech in a facility where my personal data is stored. Unfortunately as annoying as it is, it is a necessary evil.

Supervising in the room is different than hovering over ones back.

Personally I'm bonded, the places I go, I have to be.

 

[Nate7311]

That's not the point. You have to understand that regardless of your bonding, insurance, Dell-tech status, etc, you are still an outsider coming into work on their equipment, and any competent admin SHOULD be watching. They don't owe you anything. Do that enough times, and Dell will kick you to the curb and find someone else. It's a give and take scenario; expecting anything else is professional suicide.

 

[dashpuppy]

That's not the point. You have to understand that regardless of your bonding, insurance, Dell-tech status, etc, you are still an outsider coming into work on their equipment, and any competent admin SHOULD be watching. They don't owe you anything. Do that enough times, and Dell will kick you to the curb and find someone else. It's a give and take scenario; expecting anything else is professional suicide.

the main point is here, no one needs to be hovered over, standing back and watching the tech is perfectly fine, but when you have some one hovering over yuo in your own personal bubble that is REALLY 100% un-necessary!

tell you what, try this. Go break your toilet in your house, then call a plumber to fix it, then hover over him in his bubble see how fast and mad he gets.

Same scenario.

Personally, i don't care if people watch me, but when yuo are in my bubble when i'm trying to work, that's a WEEE BIT FAR..

The government data centers i have been & work at, don't have some douche watching over your shoulder, instead they have cameras ALL OVER and on every front & rear of a isle and in and out of each isle etc etc.

 

[DeChache]

ID definatly walk off site WITH my parts to fix your broken server, then id call dell and explain the situation.

There is NO NEED for any security douche bag to watch over a tech fixing a server. That's just plane stupidity.

Id just phone head manager for my area and explain this guy was watching over me while i was trying to work, he would say so did you walk off site, id reply with of course.

Its not a security douche bag its me or another competent admin. You wouldn't be the first tech I got fired.

And no I don't stand in your bubble I'm down at the end of the isle working and just monitoring.

Get off your high horse.

 

[dashpuppy]

Its not a security douche bag its me or another competent admin. You wouldn't be the first tech I got fired.

And no I don't stand in your bubble I'm down at the end of the isle working and just monitoring.

Get off your high horse.

HEY! chill, i said id be pissed off if some one was in my bubble, if you were doing something else and on and off came over to see how things were going ( normally that's how it goes ) then sure that's perfectly fine.

 

[Nate7311]

the main point is here, no one needs to be hovered over, standing back and watching the tech is perfectly fine, but when you have some one hovering over yuo in your own personal bubble that is REALLY 100% un-necessary!

tell you what, try this. Go break your toilet in your house, then call a plumber to fix it, then hover over him in his bubble see how fast and mad he gets.

Same scenario.

Personally, i don't care if people watch me, but when yuo are in my bubble when i'm trying to work, that's a WEEE BIT FAR..

The government data centers i have been & work at, don't have some douche watching over your shoulder, instead they have cameras ALL OVER and on every front & rear of a isle and in and out of each isle etc etc.

If you want to complare yourself to a plumber, be my guest

Seriously, though... We did stray a bit from the OP.

My experiences mirror Dave99, where the Server would recognize and utilize the non-Dell drives, but throw warnings about not being supported. If I remember there was a way in the Open Manage client to acknowledge the warning, but it popped back up on reboot.

 

[dave99]

I wouldn't have a problem with a drive being labeled unsupported in openmanage, but with the 710p, it actually threw up the amber alert. That sucks, because then essentially I can't monitor it with nagios, because it will always be in a warning condition.

 

[vr.]

I wouldn't have a problem with a drive being labeled unsupported in openmanage, but with the 710p, it actually threw up the amber alert. That sucks, because then essentially I can't monitor it with nagios, because it will always be in a warning condition.

Did you update the controller to the latest firmware and it still does this?

 

[dashpuppy]

If you want to complare yourself to a plumber, be my guest

Seriously, though... We did stray a bit from the OP.

My experiences mirror Dave99, where the Server would recognize and utilize the non-Dell drives, but throw warnings about not being supported. If I remember there was a way in the Open Manage client to acknowledge the warning, but it popped back up on reboot.

I don't see any errors in my server, i have sea-gates in there 1tb's to be exact and a Perc H200 working perfectly too!

Mine's in raid 10..

 

[schizrade]

I don't see any errors in my server, i have sea-gates in there 1tb's to be exact and a Perc H200 working perfectly too!

Mine's in raid 10..

"sea-gates"?

 

[dashpuppy]

"sea-gates"?

auto correction seagate

 

[schizrade]

auto correction seagate

We'll let it slide this time... lol

 

[athlon1.2]

What you guys don't seem to understand is that some companies have to follow policy, either dictated internally or by law that no non-employee goes unsupervised in a facility, usually to prevent the exposure of the company from a breach caused by a non-credentialed person in an area of potentially severe vulnerability.

I don't leave a plumber in my house unattended, and I certainly wouldn't want my bank, hospital or government to leave a random tech in a facility where my personal data is stored. Unfortunately as annoying as it is, it is a necessary evil.

Amongst the things I have done, moving half a redundant datacenter for a large wireless company (they moved the first half a few nights before and called me because they had problems with the other crew), break/fix at major pharmacy datacenter, server break/fix for Fortune 500 HP VAR @ major banks, network cutovers for same VAR at banks, PCI compliance upgrades @ major retail stores, etc, etc I have never been followed around. I've been left unattended overnights at banks and warehouse club stores, to name a few.

 

[dashpuppy]

Amongst the things I have done, moving half a redundant datacenter for a large wireless company (they moved the first half a few nights before and called me because they had problems with the other crew), break/fix at major pharmacy datacenter, server break/fix for Fortune 500 HP VAR @ major banks, network cutovers for same VAR at banks, PCI compliance upgrades @ major retail stores, etc, etc I have never been followed around. I've been left unattended overnights at banks and warehouse club stores, to name a few.

100% agree, i've only had one guy hover over me, and after i told him to back off he went and did his own thing..

 

[dave99]

Did you update the controller to the latest firmware and it still does this?

latest firmware at the time. I'll try again when the next T320 w/710p shows up in a few weeks.