HPE Disk Enclosures

When a ProLiant server fills its internal drive bays, the usual options are a new server or moving to a SAN — both of which involve significant cost and complexity. HPE Disk Enclosures connect directly to the server via a SAS cable and a Smart Array controller, presenting additional drives to the server as though they were internal. No SAN fabric, no additional networking, no separate management platform. Up to eight enclosures can be chained from a single controller port, giving the server access to up to 200 additional drives before the infrastructure needs to change.

The D3600 and D3700 are the original models, designed for older ProLiant server environments. The D3610 and D3710 are the updated versions aligned with current ProLiant server design and compatible with the Smart Array controllers used in those platforms. The hardware function is identical — the D3610 replaces the D3600 and the D3710 replaces the D3700. Buyers with current ProLiant servers should select the D3610 or D3710; the D3600 and D3700 are relevant for environments running older server infrastructure where controller compatibility needs to be verified first.

The D3600 and D3610 hold twelve 3.5-inch large form factor drives — the same physical size used for high-capacity HDDs. They are the right choice when the priority is maximum raw capacity per enclosure at the lowest cost per terabyte, typically for bulk data, archive, or secondary storage. The D3700 and D3710 hold twenty-five 2.5-inch small form factor drives, which includes both SSDs and high-density HDDs. They suit environments where either drive density per unit of rack space matters, or where SSD-based storage is needed in a direct-attach configuration alongside higher-capacity disk.

Yes. All four HPE Disk Enclosure models support SAS HDDs, SATA HDDs, and SSDs in the same enclosure simultaneously. This allows a single enclosure to serve as a tiered storage layer — faster drives handling active data and slower, higher-capacity drives holding less frequently accessed content — without requiring separate hardware for each tier. Drive type mixing is managed through the Smart Array controller connected to the ProLiant server, using the same tools already used to manage internal server storage.

No. HPE Disk Enclosures are managed through the same Smart Array tools already used for the ProLiant server’s internal storage — the same interface, the same configuration utilities, and the same RAID management process. Drives in the enclosures appear alongside internal drives in a consistent view. There is no separate enclosure management software to install or learn. For teams that have managed ProLiant server storage before, adding an HPE Disk Enclosure requires no new skills.

Each HPE Disk Enclosure includes redundant power supplies and fan modules as standard, so neither a power supply failure nor a fan failure takes the enclosure offline. RAID protection — including RAID 6, which tolerates two simultaneous drive failures without data loss — is managed by the Smart Array controller in the connected ProLiant server. For environments with dual-domain cabling, two separate data paths run from the server to the enclosure, so a single cable or I/O module failure does not interrupt access to the drives. All components in the enclosure are hot-pluggable.