I'm just browsing around at storage servers like the Dell MD1000/MD3000 and the Sun J4200, and although the storage server pricing seems reasonable (approx $3000-$4000 AUD) the hard drives that you buy to go along with them seem exorbitantly expensive. And I'm not sure why. Surely at most they are using good quality RAID level 7200rpm SATA drives, but even then they are still charging almost 4 times the price. What is the advantage to buying these from them?
I can see if one fails then the vendor replacing it is convenient. But at that price you could buy double the number of HDDs, keep the spares on hand, and just claim on warranty directly with the manufacturer. It would be much cheaper and you wouldn't be relying on someone else to fix your problems.
Is this the case of "you don't get fired if you buy IBM?" mentality, or is there some reason I'm not grasping here?