hot swappable HDD vs. Internal HDD with Cage

[greatmaker]

I purchased a New Dell Server and it comes with 10 Hot Swappable HDD inserts. A 1 TB Hot Swappable SATA Drive is $699.00. A Samsung 1 TB Drive is $179.00 from Dell with a $6.99 Cage that I can buy that is compatible with my server. The contents of the Hot Swappable drive box is 1 TB SATA Drive, 1 Drive Cage, 1 Set of Screws. What is the Difference between the two that could justify 513 dollars other than the company trying to make 270% additional profit? Is there some special feature with the Hot Swappable drive? I understand the difference between SATA and SAS and IDE and SCSI. I have never herd of any difference between internal and Hot-Swapppable hard drives. I would think that the technology for the hot swappable component would be in the controller card.

Thanks

 

[greatmaker]

I got my server, I found the HDD they sent me were western digital Hard Drives. I looked up the part number and found they were crap drives. I will never order Hot Swappable Drives again as I will be giving my money away.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

Physically, the drives are the same, but the ones that Dell procures from WD have a few tweaks to the firmware to optimize them for the Dell server.

Primarily what you're paying for is Dell's support. If an aftermarket 1TB drive fails in the server, then you're calling WD or Seagate or whoever, and doing their RMA process, which can take a while and they will send you a remanufactured drive as a replacement. Any firmware updates to the drives and/or incompatibilities with the RAID controller are your responsibility. With the Dell part, you call Dell, they overnight you a new one for no charge, no questions asked. They will also do extensive troubleshooting with you over the phone if required, which they are reluctant to do if you're using 3rd-party parts. All firmware updates (if required) will be applied automatically with the Dell Server update DVD that they send you quarterly, and you're guaranteed of optimal performance and compatibility with the server.