Ok, I'll chime in too, things to look for when purchasing a server drive. Drive: Performance Mean Seek Time, RPM Speed, Cache, Burst Transfer Rate, Sustained Transfer Rate, Mean Failure Time Control Function SCSI, IDE, Serial ATA SCSI - I can name six incompatible flavors f internal SCSI drives IDE - All are backwards / forwards compatible to some extent SATA - Two forms, but the first was never in popular use and I believe newer drives do work on older controllers. Interface/Physical connection What kind of connector do you have? Do you use a standard cable connection? Or do you have a high-speed back plane? Hot Swap Are your dives/backplane hot swappable? RAID What kind of RAID are you using? How will this disk fit in your configuration? If you using something like RAID 5 and you plane to make this drive a volume member then you should get the exact model number of the drive. Purchasing from some one other then the manufacturer. I use SCSI-3 UWLVDSCA-2 drives in my servers, but I never purchase the drives rite from Dell, but since I do put them as member drives in my RAID I typically purchase the exact same model of drive each time. I personally like Seagate Barracudas ________________________________ From: plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us [mailto:plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us] On Behalf Of Shawn Badger Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 7:33 AM To: Main PLUG discussion list Subject: Re: OT: SAS drives I can't answer this question specifically, I can say that in my past experience the only thing different on the server drives has been the carriers to insert them into the chassis. Yes, there are the different spindle speeds and life expectancies, but as long as you stick with a brands like Seagate or IBM, you should have no problems with the drives for some time. On Jan 17, 2008 5:31 PM, Jason Hayes wrote: Quick question for the group. I have a friend that is trying to set up an IBM blade server and is looking for SAS drives. The IBM drives are around $600-ish and HP drives are $3-400. So he is wondering if the bladecenter drives are standardized or proprietary. He's also wondering where in the valley he would find them at a reasonable price. He said that the SCSI expansion module in his bladecenter is model #26k4851. Thanks -- Jason Hayes E-mail: jason@jasonhayes.org Blog: www.jasonhayes.org --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss