RAID controllers have dozens of OEM-tweakable settings that can affect reliability and performance of the storage system.  OEM's have drives adjusted to work seamlessly with those controller settings, so they behave in a consistent way.  Non-certified (non-Dell) drives may or may not work on a Dell controller, depending on their settings.  If they are too different, the controller will assume that the drive is malfunctioning.  This can happen when using any generic or OEM drive on any other OEM controller for which the drive is not certified.  Generic/retail drives and controllers will generally work with each other, as they have very "loose" settings with more leeway.  OEM settings generally have such tight tolerances that unless a certified drive is used, there will be some problem, somewhere.  This has been the case with all OEM's for a very long time, but is more pronounced in the high-performance SAS arena. "Does this PERC work with 3rd party drives?" It is not officially supported, but may work ... it will be trial and error on the users part, with no support/help from Dell. "I've read elsewhere that in the past Dell didn't support 3rd party drives but people raised such a fuss that they changed it with newer firmware upgrades." This was only on the newer H700 RAID controllers, which initially locked out non-certified drives to ensure Dell could guarantee performance/reliability.  They removed the lock-out in July 2010 via firmware update, which no doubt forced the scaling back of certain performance/reliability settings to allow a wider array (although not universal) of drive settings to be used.  This does not apply to the PERC 6, as they never locked out non-certified drives.
I am using a PERC 6/i Adapter in my server. My boot LUN is using WD Blacks (500GB) and i'm trying to setup another logical disk with 3 2TB HP Drives in a RAID 5.   Everything sets up fine but the problem is the controller is giving me fits. I get errors like: "Device failed: Physical Disk 0:0:2 Controller 0, Connector 0" and "Controller event log: Fatal firmware error: Driver detected possible FW hang, halting FW.:  Controller 0 (PERC 6/i Integrated)"   My server has managed to lock up too. So I'm wondering if it is a failed disk or the PERC doesn't like the HP enterprise drives? Does this PERC work with 3rd party drives? I've read elsewhere that in the past Dell didn't support 3rd party drives but people raised such a fuss that they changed it with newer firmware upgrades.   My firmware on the PERC 6/i Adapter is: Firmware: 6.3.1-0003Driver: 4.05.01.64Storport Driver: 6.1.7601.17577
PERC 6/i Adapter with non Dell drives?