Fake hard disk frames for Gen8-Gen10?

[PDP-Fan]

We did some experimenting lately... I was wondering if a non-HPE SSD drive would work in a brandnew Gen10 server (DL380). I assembled the drive with the frame that was supplied, plugged it into the server and got a message from SSA: "Not a genuine HP disk drive, the front panel lights will not operate....blah blah" and a yellow warning sign.

I noticed that the supplied frames did not look exactly the same as the original ones and I changed one frame with another I knew was working. And looka there... the problem was gone!
I also noticed that one frame had one of those infamous golden chinese Q.C. (Quality Control) stickers... Do the chinese manufacture fake disk frames?

Has someone else seen disk frames that do not work? I wonder where they come from... Anyone been on the Shenzhen market lately?

[Jimmy Vance]

HPE does not offer the hot-plug drive caddies as an option part. Anything you find out in the wild is either a counterfeit, or a used one removed from an HPE spec'd drive.

[PDP-Fan]

I experienced exactly the same problem. We do a lot of changing from G7 to G8 frames... also mounting SSDs in G8 frames. And normally there is no problem if you take frames from defective original disks.

But recently someone bought a hand full of "chinese" HP disk frames and they produced the same error message. The disk will work without problem but the Smart Array controller informs you that tha LEDs won't work correctly. So I think it's an electronic communication problem between the array controller and the disk frame LED chip.

If you look closely, you can see a difference in the LED lights. The non-HP LEDs are brighter and they look more hollow when turned off. Generally those fake frames are made pretty well but it seems they didn't get the chip right...