A SAS disk in RAID5 array failed yesterday and I'm about to replace it, however I noticed the front enclosure wasn't matching the rest of the disks. The array consists of 300GB 10K SAS disks with the left enclosure. I found a 300GB 10K SAS disk with the right enclosure. Before opening the sealed package, are these interchangeable?
The server is a HP Proliant DL360 G8, I think (not on location at the moment).
You can use the old enclosure and put new disk in to that enclosure, i had done same for my Dell R620 Ensure you not misplace any screws and fit all screws
These are the two different drive tray/carrier/sled designs. The Gen8+ Smart Carrier is on the left. The G7 style is on the right.
You can swap the bare drive into the Gen8 carrier and be fine.
HPE changed the design of the HDD carriers from Gen8 onwards. The carrier is called a 'Smart Carrier'. It has a small chip which logs the entire life of the HDD, and then the data is used to identify the failure details in the factory.
The SAS drives till Gen7 were interchangeable with older generations, however it is NOT recommended to use HDDs from Gen7 in Gen8.
Even if you do swap it with the Smart Carrier, the older SAS drives may not work as expected in the RAID array. This is because of the difference in firmwares of the HDDs, and the way they function.
The spare part number for the 300GB 6G 10K SAS drive for the DL360p Gen8 server is 653955-001
Further details - 300GB hot-plug dual-port SAS hard disk drive - 6Gb/sec transfer rate, 10,000 RPM, 2.5-inch small form factor (SFF), Enterprise, SmartDrive Carrier (SC) - Not for use in MSA products - For use with Gen8/Gen9 or newer
