Re: can POWER6 IBM i or System i run on non-IBM disk drives?

[Lukas Beeler <lukas.beeler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 00:25,  <elehti@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> "If you need additional disk drives for your POWER6 IBM I machine, you
> don't need to buy expensive disk drives from IBM.
> Just buy some cheap 1-terrabyte Western Digital drives from Egghead,
> etc. ÂTheir drives will work just fine."

No, they won't. As far as i know, V6R1 can run on 512 bytes drives -
this has been made for the merge with System p, since AIX uses 512
byte drives.

However, due to market segmentation, IBM will only allow IBM purchased
drives to work. The reasons for this are not technical, but come from
the fact that IBM wants more money from you.

The same goes for Memory - current machines use plain old DDR2 memory
with ECC - except if you buy it from IBM 16GB in form of 4GB modules
costs roughly 8k. If you buy the exact same memory for a System x
server, it costs 2k. If you buy it noname, it costs .5k.

IBM's System i pricing is part of "manage the decline" - they'll get
as much money out of their legacy customers while they still can, all
the while making the system as unattractive as possible for new
customers.