Customer furore as Dell Disable non-Dell HDDs and SSDs

A short note on Dells recent moves to ensure that only Dell HDDs and SSDs are used in their Servers.

For a number of years Dell's systems have posted a warning that a HDD is non-approved, not that it's rubbish, or some unrecognised dodgy clone - just that it's not from Dell. Now in the latest 'generation' of the PowerEdge Server Range they have gone a step further and the PERC actually blocks the use of 3rd party drives.

This Register article has sparked a lively debate the general consensus of which is that
1) they should have told people before they did.
2) It's ok for a vendor to say what they're prepared to support but not stop people from using their product of choice.
3) They'll be looking at other server options

DELL has issued a white paper "Why Customers should insist on DELL Hard Drives" - clearly the real answer is "...we need your money and in order to get it we'll stop you having any choice!!" great customer service message.

It reminds me of the battle between IBM and Hitachi Data Systems & IBMs customers in the 80's. Which was over the use of 3rd party HDS disk packs in IBM Mainframes. IBMs insistance that only their peripherals (remember external disk packs weighed about a ton) would be allowed to work with their mainframes almost brought the company to it's knees as the US Gov' sued over anti-trust activities. But more importantly it pushed customers to consider alternative hardware vendors such as DEC, Compaq, and Sun. oh nearly forgot DELL...

NB: Dells RAID controllers are made by LSI and rebadged/BIOS'd their servers are designed and made by Hon Hai Precision Industries as are HPs and the Nintendo WII