Server vendor that allows 3rd party disks

As noted here, Dell is no longer allowing 3rd party disks to be used with their latest servers. As in, they don't work period. Which means that if you buy one of these boxes and want to upgrade the storage later, you have buy disks from Dell at significant premiums.

Dell has just given me a very strong reason to take my server business elsewhere. My company buys (instead of leasing) our servers, and typically uses them for 5 years. I need to be able to upgrade/repurpose storage periodically, and do not want to be locked in to whatever Dell might have in stock, at inflated prices to boot. As you will see in the comments of the above link, it seems HP is doing the same thing.

I am looking for a server vendor that offers 3-5 year warranty with same day/next day onsite service, and allows me to use 3rd party disks.

Suggestions?

Solution 1:

Supermicro.com do.

Solution 2:

For the same reason that I thought it was important to point out the problem, I think it's also important to point out that Dell announced that it was rolling back this policy, and that in the 2nd quarter of 2011, they will release a firmware update to the H700 and H800 controllers that allow 3rd party drives.

Thank you Dell. I'll be writing a new blog post when I get confirmation from Dell.