GEN8 Drives

[NJK-Work]

Does anyone know if I will be able to use old G5/G6/G7 drives in the new Gen8 servers, or is that new "HP Smart Drive carrier" going to require a brand new drive type?

Thanks,

Nelson

[gsb_2]

From the QA page on Gen 8

"G7 drives and memory are not recommended on Gen8 products."

[rguha · Accepted solution]

No, we cannot use the drives from G5/G6/G7 as the drive carrier has changed in G8. It has been reduced. 

 There are also LED displays on drive carriers to indicate their state, including one to alert administrators when a drive is rebuilding so they don't pull the drive before it's complete.

[Goutham_Sabala]

Smart Drive Carriers are needed for drives in Gen8 server, drives from earlier generations cannot be used in Gen8 and Gen8 drives cannot fit in older gen's. Drivers are less smaller in Gen8 and status leds have been changed dramatically.

[NJK-Work]

Thanks to all that replied.

[Allan_C]

Is there a part number for empty drive trays? I would like to install Intel SLC SSD's in my new ML360p Gen8 and the HP Part Number 378343-002 drive trays don't fit.

[Goutham_Sabala]

Gen8 hdd drive carrier trays are not sold separately.

[kanchisharma]

Gen8 Hard drives are designed to reduce multiple HDD failures hence the concept of the Various LED have been introduced, HP recommends use of HDD which are designed for Gen8 Only, Hdd Tray cant be purchased as there is a firmware sign also involved and other 3rd party hdd or non compatible hdd will not work..

[J_Ratcliffe]

This is disappointing to learn.  I'm not sure if I should try to resell all our storage or try to return the server.

[jsprous]

This is very discouraging.  If we cannot buy empty drive carriers we will NOT be buying any HP servers newer than G7 series!  I refuse to be forced to buy an HP Branded hard drive when I could buy the same Hard drive without the HP name for less than half the price.

[eXchange]

Since many years we prefer to use HP Servers since they are rocksolid. Now we bought our first machine of Gen8 and feel quite patronized about the enforcement to buy only HP harddiscs for this machine. It's not that we don't like to buy original HP parts. But as long as HP SSDs and HDDs cost up twenty times more than comparable parts form other manufacturers we don't wanna choose them.

Now we decided NOT to buy more Gen8 machines as long as this situation won't be liberalized.

[maxdadeath]

Are there drivers that support windows server 2003 x64 for DL360p Gen8 E5-2640 1P 16GB-R P420i SFF 460W PS Base Server. Have tried hp website, there is only 2008 drivers.

[MWarren]

Service part 651699-001 or 651687-001

[Sbrown]

The service part is right, be careful ebay folks are selling fake versions for $35 for SFF/LFF. They even sell the drive with them. I saw user selling 400GB SAS MLC HP SSD with SC for $450 and I even check the warranty and it said valid but I asked and the dude said the SC were not genuine! CRAZY!

Be careful! I doubt HP will warranty you if you buy these.

Don't buy unless they are authorized hp reseller!

[PDP-Fan]

From my experience the older HP disks work perfectly when mounted in G8 frames. We installed even SSD drives (not from HP) and had no issues with them.

I think there is no change to the drives from G7 to G8... only the frames have changed.

[BK_HPE]

Hello @Nelson Kaeppel

Rguha is correct, the HP ProLiant DL360p Gen8 Smart Storage solutions are equipped with entirely re-designed Small Form Factor (SFF 2.5 in) and Large Form Factor (LFF 3.5 in) hot plug carriers for HP Qualified Hard Drives and Solid State Drives. These new carriers provide status and activity indicators as well as caution indicators.  Therefore the hard drives from previous models are not compatible with the HP ProLiant DL360p Gen8 series.

You can see that statement on the bottom of page 34 of the HP ProLiant DL360p QuickSpecs, you can also see all available HP Hard drives for the HP ProLiant DL360p Gen8 server series on pages 35 through to the bottom of page 39 of the HP QuickSpecs.

Please let me know if you need more information, I will be happy to connect you to HP experts that can assist further.

[PDP-Fan]

@LSW

And how do you explain that all the old HP drives (drive only) work without any problem...? Even if all the docs say that this is not possible? Of course you have to change the frames... the old frames will not fit into a G8.

I have looked at one of the G8 frames and I think all they did was to move the LED lighting and indicating stuff from the backplane to the disk carrier frame. And they added a few more LEDs to create a circulating animated activity display.

The only difference is that "DO NOT REMOVE" LED that lights up white when another disk in the RAID is already gone.

Absolutely no changes were made to the disk drives itself because this would be too much trouble and cost too much.

[BK_HPE]

Hi @PDP-Fan

This configuration has not been tested or supported by HP and therefore HP cannot guarantee compatibility.  However, I am glad that you found a way to make other drives work in the HP ProLiant DL360p Gen8 server.  Please let me know if you need any other assistance.  

[Torsten.]

See here

http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/getpdf.aspx/4AA3-9827ENW.pdf

Not only the LEDs are different, but the frame has also a NVRAM chip.

[PDP-Fan]

Interesting.... and there must be a way to erase that data... ;-)

[Torsten.]

The document says "Smart carrier authentication to verify that both drive and carrier are HP-qualified options"

So it likely stores information about the drive type and maybe the last reason for error/fail - read and written by the array controller via the backplane.