The Truth About Using Non-HP disks?

[Jeffrey Wilkinson]

I try to buy complete servers, loaded from the factory, but on SAS disks HP is up in the stratosphere on pricing.

Example: I plan to buy 3 qty. DL160 servers next week, each with 4x 300GB SAS 15000 rpm, for a RAID 1+0 setup.

HP charges nearly $800 *per drive*. I can get the same drives for around $400 at nearly any online vendor. That is a savings of $4,800 just on 3 servers. ($1600 x 3 servers)

So, has anyone actually had problems running disks that are not from HP? I've been told HP loads its own firmware, but in REAL WORLD USE how many people have actually experienced problems?

Years ago we bought some DL320's with disks, and they were the exact same make/model Seagate we were already buying for our Intel servers. So we started buying HP servers with no disks, and added our own later.

That is fine for a $75 drive, but the SAS drives are a LOT of money. Before buying a dozen SAS drives (without the magical HP firmware) that might turn out to be unstable, I wanted to ask the experts first.

Is the danger of running non-HP-firmware disks real, or just theoretical?