HP part number GC551A identifies the GC551A - HP 250GB 7200RPM SATA 3GB/s non Hot-Plug 3.5-inch Hard Drive, an enterprise-grade Desktop Hard Drive unit appropriate for data-center, server-room, and workstation deployment. Technical specifications include capacity of 250 GB, spindle speed of 7,200 RPM, form factor of 3.5-inch, interface of SATA, data rate of 3 Gb/s, features of Hot-Swap. Typical workloads include VMware ESXi datastores, Veeam / Rubrik / Cohesity backup repositories, RDBMS data files (SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Oracle), and log-tier storage for Splunk and Elastic. Pro Disk Network maintains the GC551A in our enterprise inventory and verifies each unit against manufacturer datasheet specifications prior to listing. New stock ships factory-sealed where available; refurbished units are tested under load before dispatch and ship with a 90-day Pro Disk Network functional warranty. Same-day dispatch on in-stock orders placed before 3pm ET; free standard ground shipping on US orders over $150.
The GC551A is a HP desktop hard drive component with capacity 250 GB, spindle speed 7,200 RPM, form factor 3.5-inch. Pro Disk Network sells the GC551A for $376.57 with same-day US shipping and a 30-day return guarantee.
Quick Answer: Will the GC551A work with my RAID controller?
The GC551A operates with any standard SAS/SATA/NVMe-compatible RAID controller (Dell PERC, HPE Smart Array, LSI/Broadcom MegaRAID, Adaptec, IBM ServeRAID, Lenovo ThinkSystem RAID). Mixing this drive in the same RAID volume with drives of different speed/capacity is supported but never recommended.
How fast does the GC551A ship?
GC551A orders placed before 3 pm ET ship the same business day from US warehouses. Delivery is next business day to most metro ZIPs via FedEx/UPS overnight; ground delivery covers remaining US in 1-4 business days.
The GC551A is deployed by US enterprises, MSPs, government, and education customers across multiple infrastructure scenarios. Below are the most common deployment patterns Pro Disk Network sees in real-world orders.
Veeam Backup Repository — Cost-optimised backup target for Veeam B&R, Rubrik, or Cohesity primary backup tier. RAID 6 over 8–24 drives delivers 100+ TB usable per server.
Splunk Warm/Cold Tier — Appropriate for Splunk warm/cold/frozen indexes where ingest write rates are below 200 MB/s per node. Avoid for hot-tier indexes — use NVMe instead.
File Server / SMB Shares — General-purpose Windows Server / Samba shares for departmental file storage. RAID 5 for capacity, RAID 10 for IOPS-sensitive workloads.
Object Storage (Ceph / MinIO) — JBOD presentation behind Ceph OSDs or MinIO erasure-coded pools. Mix with NVMe metadata drives for production object stores.
What is the GC551A?
The GC551A is a HP enterprise-grade hard drive with capacity 250 GB and spindle speed 7,200 RPM, manufactured by HP. Pro Disk Network ships this part new and certified-refurbished from our US warehouse with same-day dispatch on orders placed before 3 PM ET, backed by a 30-day return guarantee.
Pros & Cons of GC551A
Pros
Direct-to-rack shipping on multi-pack orders
Sequential serial-number bundling for cluster builds
Cons
Designed for capacity tier, not write-intensive cache
Not a drop-in for desktop NAS without verifying caddy
Some firmware revs locked to specific RAID-controller families
Frequently Asked Questions about GC551A
Is the GC551A a genuine HP part?
Yes. Pro Disk Network sources every GC551A as factory-original HP inventory. New units arrive sealed in OEM packaging; refurbished units are pulled from decommissioned HP servers, surface-tested, and re-warranted by Pro Disk Network for 90 days.
Will the GC551A work with my RAID controller?
The GC551A operates with any standard SAS/SATA/NVMe-compatible RAID controller (Dell PERC, HPE Smart Array, LSI/Broadcom MegaRAID, Adaptec, IBM ServeRAID, Lenovo ThinkSystem RAID). Mixing this drive in the same RAID volume with drives of different speed/capacity is supported but never recommended.
How fast does the GC551A ship?
GC551A orders placed before 3 pm ET ship the same business day from US warehouses. Delivery is next business day to most metro ZIPs via FedEx/UPS overnight; ground delivery covers remaining US in 1-4 business days.
What is the warranty on the GC551A?
New GC551A units carry the full HP manufacturer warranty (typically 1 to 5 years depending on product line). Refurbished and bulk-OEM units include a Pro Disk Network advance-replacement warranty (90 days refurbished). DOA replacement is free within 30 days of receipt.
Do you offer bulk pricing for the GC551A?
Email sales@prodisknetwork.com with the quantity and target ship date for a quote within one business day.
Pro Disk Network Buyer’s Guide: Desktop Hard Drive
How to Pick the Right Drive Capacity for Your Use Case
For VMware vSAN deployments, the GC551A is best deployed in the capacity tier with NVMe cache drives in front. Size the cache layer at 10% of usable capacity for write-intensive workloads and 5% for read-leaning workloads. For Veeam backup repositories, plan around 1.5× the size of your protected estate to allow for incremental forever chains plus synthetic fulls. Splunk warm tier sizing should follow the daily ingest rate × retention days × 1.6 compression overhead.
Drive Health Monitoring: SMART, Workload Rating, and Predictive Failure
For VMware ESXi 8 hosts, enable vSphere's predictive-failure analysis on the GC551A via the host's storage device list. The host queries SMART on a regular cadence and surfaces yellow/red warnings in vCenter before the drive fails outright. On Linux, use smartctl piped to your monitoring system; on Windows Server, Storage Spaces exposes health state directly in Server Manager.