Third party drives into a Equallogic PS400 Array?

[jpochedl]

I'm wondering if anyone has tried to put non-Dell drives into an older Equallogic PS400 series array? (Yes, PS400, not PS4000)

The reason I ask is because we have one of these old arrays still in service, and Dell is EOL'ing the unit (no more support / maintenance renewals after April, so I'm told). We plan on moving the unit out of active service here i the next few months, but it still functions and would be great for DR testing or our test VM environment in general. I'm just curious what options I'd have for replacing disks as they fail, or putting in bigger disks for the playground...

I found this older thread:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1708441
but it doesn't really have any definitive answers.

 

[Phoenix42]

My statements in the thread you linked to are still true. Email me at d_glynn@ your storage vendor.com if you want to discuss more.

 

[Nate7311]

I've done this a few times. The key is to use Enterprise SATA Drives. Typically, I use either Seagate ES/ES.2's or WD RE's. Just keep in mind that all of these configurations are UNSUPPORTED. This means that you are on your own for any help. That being said. I've trolled eBay for pulls of cheap 750GB and 1TB enterprise SATA drives (got the last round of 750's for $25/ea in qty of 14) and popped those into EQ PS100E and PS200E chassis without much issue (in this series, they're all the same except for drive capacity with PS400E's being lasgest with 750GB drives). Even with newer 5+ firmwares, no problem.

 

[hotcrandel]

If its EOL, It's already unsupported, no?

I've got a MSA1500 and two different shelves of drives I've been wondering what to do with.