Don't give them a choice.. Once the disk is presented to the machine it can be formatted any way you like.. I wouldn't bend on this topic.. Reformat it when you get it. There are some topics that are not open for discussion and this is one of them.

3y.. Hm, Actually I consider that old.. And I would argue it does make sense. Especially in light of things like hardware maintenance agreements that for after a certain period the vendor won't do OR jacks the price up. I think HP/Compaq does this.. This radically increases the risks associated with a hardware failure and that hardware might not be availabe to replace and you are then forced into a disorderly upgrade. So yeah, I think it makes sense. And in a lot of ways is good since we have a predictable maintenance schedule but the machines should be spaced so not ALL or even a substantial number get replaced at a time.

I like more spindles, so 15 isn't a problem, but of the 15 I would keep one out as a hot spare, but thats me.. I would break the remainder down the way I discussed earlier.. I was thinking same number of spindles less machines connecting to it..

Also, how will the connection to the SAN be made, Fiber? iSCSI?, other?

CEWII