Infortrend is one of the large storage providers and have been listed with Gartner Magic Quadrant multiple times, alongside HPE, Netapp, and EMC. However, Unlike many large brands, Infortrend promote an open Drive policy - making it possible to use any compatible drive in Infortrend.
Native Firmware works from Toshiba, WD, and Seagate
What it means is that a drive is usable right away in Infortrned, with its Native firmware as long as it exists in the Infortrend compatibility list. You are never tied to Infortrend to buy a drive from Infortrend, you can pick up any compatible drive from any HDD vendor.
Extensive Compatibility testing
Open Drive policy doesn't mean that you could use ANY drive with infortrned. It would still have to exist in the compatibility listing. Drives that are tested for compatibility are guaranteed to work with Infortrend as intended. Newer drives ( whenever there is a model/firmware change from HDD Vendor) take some time to get tested, but they eventually make it to the list.
Compatibility list is centrally managed and made publicly available on the Infortrend website.
Advantage to you and your customer
Open Drive policy ensures that once you buy a storage unit from Infortrend, you are free to choose the drive from any HDD vendor. You are never forced to buy a drive from Infortrend so you stay competitive, have the option to choose from multiple vendors, and your customer benefits from this open arrangement.
