IBM Offers Rebates on i5 Disks and Disk Controllers

Published: October 23, 2006

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Just as we were going to press on Friday, and in the wake of product rejiggering and special price breaks on storage for certain i5 models, IBM announced a special price promotion on i5 disks and disk controllers.

The deal, which expires December 31, gives customers who buy 10-packs of disks a rebate. IBM is also giving customers rebates if they buy in blocks of 150 drives, or buy a mirror disk/controller package. And, for those who are buying new i5 550 or 570 servers and putting on Linux partitions (or upgrading to those machines to do so), they can get slightly better rebates.

Here's how it works. On the 35.2 GB 15K RPM disk, feature 4326, IBM is offering a $275 rebate. This disk costs $1,199, which works out to a 23 percent discount. On the 70.6 GB 15K RPM disk (feature 4327), which lists for $1,999, IBM is offering a rebate of $460, which is effectively a 23 percent discount as well. On the new 141.1 GB disk (feature 4328), IBM is giving a rebate of $690, also a 23 percent discount off the $2,999 list price.

On the disk mirror packages, which are features 5555 and 5556, IBM takes a feature 2780 RAID disk controller and rolls in a dozen disks; feature 5555 uses the 70.6 GB disks, and feature 5556 uses the 141.1 GB disks. They sell for $26,900 and $36,900, respectively, and under this rebate offering, they get what amounts to a 20 percent and 24 percent discount, respectively. On the 150 drive packages, IBM is lopping off from $41,360 through a rebate on the feature 4326 35.2 GB disks to $103,000 on the feature 4328 141.1 GB disks. (I could not get list pricing on these 150 disk packs before we went to press, so I am unsure of the effective percent discount these rebates work out to.)

Customers buying an i5 550 or i5 570 get slightly larger rebates on 10-packs of disks, on mirror packages, and on 150 drive packs. On the 10-pack of 35.2 GB disks, the rebate is $300 per drive; on the 70.6 GB disks, it is $500 per drive; and on the 141.1 GB disks, it is $725 per drive.