Hard Drive Manufactures Save The Good Stuff For Dell?

[cbanakis]

So I am setting up a file server for my brothers company.

We are going with a Dell PowerVault MD3200I (With 12 4TB Drives)

Dell charges $1,000 per drive. (Ouch)

And they do not sell the empty drive trays.
(They expect you to buy the drives from them)

I found empty trays on ebay for $27 each, and 4TB Seagate Constellation SAS ES3's for $427 each.

This plan saves us $6,552.

IMHO, the hard drive I selected is the absolute best option on the market for 4TB SAS.

I explained my plan to the Dell salesman.

First, he tried to tell me that using those drives instead of the Dell drives would void the warranty on the entire system.

After a lot of arguing, he admitted he was mistaken, but Dell still would not support the drives themselves.
(Fortunately, Seagate does though)

But then, after all of that, he fed me a line about how major manufactures (Dell, HP, IBM, etc) get first pick from Seagate, WD, etc.

The way he worded it was...

"We get first pick from Seagate, and the drives that fail our tests get sent back, and those are the drives that are sold in the 3rd party market. (Newegg, Tiger Direct, Best Buy, Etc)

So any time you buy a hard drive anywhere, your buying one that we rejected"

I'm fairly confident, that this was just made up used car salesman BS.

But I was curious.

Am I mistaken, or is this guy the used car salesman I think he is?

If you are a used car salesman, no offence intended.

Seems like such business practices could be illegal.
(Anti-trust type stuff)

[sammiev]

You met a used car salesman

[QIII]

cough... cough ... BS ... cough ... cough

[KiwiNZ]

What a load of cobblers, I would cancel the Dell order and go to IBM or HP

[sandyd]

So I am setting up a file server for my brothers company.

We are going with a Dell PowerVault MD3200I (With 12 4TB Drives)

Dell charges $1,000 per drive. (Ouch)

And they do not sell the empty drive trays.
(They expect you to buy the drives from them)

I found empty trays on ebay for $27 each, and 4TB Seagate Constellation SAS ES3's for $427 each.

This plan saves us $6,552.

IMHO, the hard drive I selected is the absolute best option on the market for 4TB SAS.

I explained my plan to the Dell salesman.

First, he tried to tell me that using those drives instead of the Dell drives would void the warranty on the entire system.

After a lot of arguing, he admitted he was mistaken, but Dell still would not support the drives themselves.
(Fortunately, Seagate does though)

But then, after all of that, he fed me a line about how major manufactures (Dell, HP, IBM, etc) get first pick from Seagate, WD, etc.

The way he worded it was...

"We get first pick from Seagate, and the drives that fail our tests get sent back, and those are the drives that are sold in the 3rd party market. (Newegg, Tiger Direct, Best Buy, Etc)

So any time you buy a hard drive anywhere, your buying one that we rejected"

I'm fairly confident, that this was just made up used car salesman BS.

But I was curious.

Am I mistaken, or is this guy the used car salesman I think he is?

If you are a used car salesman, no offence intended.

Seems like such business practices could be illegal.
(Anti-trust type stuff)

Yes, and no. Firstly, that is a total exaggeration, mainly because they left some info out. The QA tests that they run are _not_ only if the drives are at top running quality. Any drives with slights scratches on the cover, .etc .etc .etc will be rejected. A scratch on the cover isn't going to shorten your HDDs life by 10 years. So technically, the statement that they make is completely incorrect.

However, it is true that companies like Dell and HP get the first pick. They get it because they have contracts to do so. The money they earn from us consumers is peanuts compared to what they earn from contracts.

As a result, it is totally legal. Its just like in one of those really-sold-out-concerts. You pay more, you get a better seat/position/section. You pay less, you don't.

[cbanakis]

Yes, and no. Firstly, that is a total exaggeration, mainly because they left some info out. The QA tests that they run are _not_ only if the drives are at top running quality. Any drives with slights scratches on the cover, .etc .etc .etc will be rejected. A scratch on the cover isn't going to shorten your HDDs life by 10 years. So technically, the statement that they make is completely incorrect.

However, it is true that companies like Dell and HP get the first pick. They get it because they have contracts to do so. The money they earn from us consumers is peanuts compared to what they earn from contracts.

As a result, it is totally legal. Its just like in one of those really-sold-out-concerts. You pay more, you get a better seat/position/section. You pay less, you don't.

So your saying, they do get first pick, but only so they get them sooner.

So dell can sell the new hotness, whereas your local retailer won't have any in stock for a while.

But nothing to do with functional quality?

[QIII]

Urm...

I used to ride herd over an electronics manufacturer.

We filled OEM and consumer orders off the production lines as the orders needed to be filled. We didn't cherry pick for OEMs. We didn't have time. The OEM and consumer stream were the same.

We got rejects from both streams, which we either fixed in house or jobbed out for refurbishment and then sold as refurbished.

"First pick" is hooey. First orders filled, for sure.

[cbanakis]

Copied and pasted from my email.
Directly from the Dell guy:

Reason #1: If you were to call support with performance/configuration issues, the first thing they’ll notice is that the drives were not purchased with the array, and that will void any support contract, mainly since we can’t guarantee the quality of the hardware selected.

Reason #2: We do not sell the hard-drive carriers separately.

Reason #3: This is the most important reason, and the entire reason we do not support 3rd party hard-drives. All the major vendors (Dell, HP, IBM, etc…) have contracts with the major HDD manufacturers. As the complete manufacturing runs, the first-choice of these drives to the major vendors. Drives that do not meet the quality standards set by each vendor are then sent to 3rd parties (NewEgg, Amazon, etc…). So, when you purchase a 3rd party drive, in most cases, you are literally buying a drive that did not meet our performance specifications and was rejected.

[cbanakis]

The only thing I can confidently agree with, is Reason 2.

I think reason 1 may be true to a certain extent, but not how he implied.
I do not think they will deny me phone support, or troubleshooting.
But maybe if they suspect the problem might be drive related, they will quickly pass the buck.

Reason 3 is the reason for this post.

[cbanakis]

Urm...

I used to ride herd over an electronics manufacturer.

We filled OEM and consumer orders off the production lines as the orders needed to be filled. We didn't cherry pick for OEMs. We didn't have time. The OEM and consumer stream were the same.

We got rejects from both streams, which we either fixed in house or jobbed out for refurbishment and then sold as refurbished.

"First pick" is hooey. First orders filled, for sure.

Straight from the horses mouth.

Very useful info.

Thanks