Stuff a ML350p Gen8 with drives - best approach?

[6BQ5]

I am currently running a single Seagate Barracuda 2TB drive connected directly to a SATA port on the motherboard. The server has one SAS/SATA 8-bay SFF cage in box position 1 (bottom) but it is empty. Box positions 2 and 3 don't have any array cages - just a big empty hole concealed with a plastic cover.

What is the most practical approach to stuffing this server full of drives? Genuine HP branded SFF drives are kind of pricey but I understand that they have custom firmware on them to optimize performance. I'm OK giving up some performance if I get a substantial cost savings or massive increase in storage capacity. At the same time, I don't want to break compatibility and have my cooling fans roar at 110%.

I would love to run my drives in a basic RAID 5 configuration if possible.

Since I don't have any drives at all I'm open to all practical approaches.

Thanks!

-=- Boris

 

[Evan]

What raid controller is installed ?
You maybe surprised about how competitive price of used HPE disks are on eBay, must the same or even cheaper than plain regular disks from what I see.

 

[6BQ5]

What raid controller is installed ?
You maybe surprised about how competitive price of used HPE disks are on eBay, must the same or even cheaper than plain regular disks from what I see.

Hello again Evan!

eBay has 1 TB 2.5” drives from various manufacturers starting at $40-ish dollars. A genuine HP 1.2 TB drive for my Gen 8 server is starts closer to $90. Granted, it’s probably a faster and better drive.

-=- Boris

 

[Evan]

Never a surplus around when you want them. Probably a month ago it was the reverse, all HPE and no Dell/EMC/Netapp for example. Probably just have to keep an eye out and look at generic listings also as often the won’t mention they are HPE as well.