Proliant ML150 G2 - HP SATA Drives only?

[Josh Bowles]

I had planned on using 3rd party SATA drives in my ML150 due to HP's pricing and minimal warranty on their hard drives. According to Seagate support and HP support, HP designed this server so that customers have to purchase the SATA hard drives from HP. The drive cage is the problem. No one makes a drive to fit the drive cage that I can find and HP doesn't make a "drive carrier" for 3rd party drives. Does anyone have any recommendations? We're a small company on a very limited budget, so 3rd party is the only option for us.

p.S. This thread has been moevd from Disk to ProLiant Servers (ML,DL,SL). - Hp forum Moderator

[e4services]

Josh,

We sure would like to look into it. I checked out the operators manual, the carrier look alot like the SCSI carrier and wonder if it would not work.

Of course I do not know what you consider as reasonable price for you.

[Josh Bowles]

I appreciate your comments. I'll check into the SCSI carrier to see if it might work. If you find anything definitive, please let me know.

[Zinky]

Josh,

What 3rd party SATA dives are you considering? I just spec'd a ML150 G2 as well and am planning the same - and use Western Digital Raptors (73GB, 10K rpm) - which have 5 year warranties.

[Josh Bowles]

I actually went ahead and purchased Seagate Barracuda 7200 drives (part# ST3250823AS). I installed them temporarily to see if they were recognized, and all appears to be fine. They were recognized by the server, so I think once I get Windows on it, they'll work out fine. I just have to find a suitable carrier for them. The only part # I could ever get out of HP was 373211-001, but of course this isn't a valid number according to HP Parts. If I happen to find a part, I'll post it.

[Humphrey Drummond]

I bought a couple of cheapest 80GB drives and replaced them with 400GB Hitachi Deskstars just to get the mounts. I have had no end of trouble with the machine so couldn't recommmend it. In fact we are about to buy another machine already configured so that we stop work on this one.

[Dusten]

You can get the part that you are asking for. It cost about $45USD. I found it at derivetech.com/212-363-1111. My sales rep is Mr. Phan, his ext. 224. Hope this helps.

[Robert Dobalina]

Compaq had originally sold drive carriers for their WU and below scsi drives. The problem was that people were placing cheap drives in the carriers and reselling as Compaq. This led to a number of issues as Compaq loads its own firmware on its drives and there were performance and management issues. Compaq then decided not to make drive carriers available for U2 and above. This has carried over to Hp. The pn# given is a spare # for the tray. It might work using someone else's drive but then again it might not. I know cost is a concern but if there a periodic issues how much does time\labor cost?

[Michael James_2]

I found that part number and because we are an HP Service Center, we can order it. Just call us at 808-843-1000 x103 and ask for Michael. Please reference the HP Forum.
The price will be $42.00 including shipping to the US (all of the states, not just the continental US). Should be getting a few of them in in the next day or two.

[Ben Thrum]

Hi all,

Found the part Number. there are a few but this one actually works.

hp Part #373211-001

Its for a ML 150 sata cage, but its the same as drive carriers for the ml110 series/generation 1 and up.

Took me hours on the phone and internet to sort this out.

[Michael James_2]

I wish you'd just called us, we've been shipping them all over the US. Orders in by 3:00 east coast time are usually shipping the same day and arriving next day. We ran into one inventory shortage, during late December, but that was the only delay we've had.

[Josh Bowles]

I'm going to close this thread. Looks like no one's posting except for those seeking FREE ADVERTISING. My Seagates have been running wonderfully and error free for about 10 months now . I ended up modifying the blanks that came with the server as trays for the Seagates. I know, this sounds like "rigging it up", but being a non-profit organization and having such a limited budget, you have to do the best with what you have. I'm happy with the solution I came up with, but I do wish HP wouldn't do this to their customers. There's no sense in DEMANDING use of their hard drives...or any add-on for that matter.

[Mark Teranishi]

I did the same "cost effective" approach but in the end I recommend future purchasers to just get the HP configured systems. Other than cost or for any known compatibility problems, if the HP system can do the job for you then use their configured/tested system. Try to minimize any custom changes.

Here was my adventure:
We bought a single 80gb drive, ML150 G2 with no raid support. We bought a 3Ware 8000 series SATA Raid card, and two Western Digital 72gb 10k drives. I trust 3Ware for linux raid support.

First problem, the included HP SATA card is connected to the drive bay cage on a secondary card which covers the whole back of the HD cage so it can support pluggable HD trays. If you want to insert your own 3rd party raid card, you need to remove both of these cards.

Second problem, you think you can just add the included HD rails to your HD and insert them in the HD cage. No, the combined width of the HD and rails is too wide to fit. Its probably made this way so you need a HP HD tray.

In the end I got the drives into the cage although not as secure as a HD tray. I attached all the SATA and 4 pin power. There is no SATA power since these orignally came from the HP SATA card.

Setup of 3Ware and Centos 4.2 Server was easy after that. Network, drives, graphic were all recognized by Centos. The system is stable as like all my other Centos systems, although not on a dedicated server like this one. Stress testing also showed no problems.

Looking back I should have bought 2 HP 80gb drives and the HP SATA Raid card. Install my Centos with the HP linux driver and test that out first.

If that didn't work well, then add the 3Ware card and test with the HP drives.

If that also didn't work well do the final 3ware to my WD drives.

I am very happy with this system, except I am looking for an extra HP HD tray.