Unexpected Drive Size Received for a NetWitness Platform Drive RMA

Issue

An RMA for a failed hard drive of a given size was submitted to RSA NetWitness Support. A drive of a different but larger size was received. Should this be a concern?

Resolution

Starting March 2020, any Advanced Warranty Replacement RMA (standard NetWitness Support RMA) of hard drives has a chance of being of a different, and larger, size then was original within the RSA NetWitness server or external storage shelf. The reason for this is due to the changing landscape of hard drive capacity availability. There will be an effort to continue to match appropriate sizes of drives for all RMA requests. However, at some point, the size of the drive being requested will no longer be available. When this happens, a substituted size will be provided. The substituted drive will always be of a larger size so no data storage issue will occur. If the drive size received is smaller, please let your RSA NetWitness Support Engineer know immediately.

As part of this effort, a print-out will start to accompany all hard drive RMAs. On this printed sheet, there will be something similar to the notice found below. This notice does not mean that the drive that was received is different than what is expected, only that it could be different. This is to provide everyone with ample warning that such a switch can occur. There is no extra charge for this change in drive capacity as it is still covered under the standard support contract.

Dear RSA NetWitness Platform customer,

Thank you for being a valued customer.

As the hard disk drive industry moves towards larger capacity drives, smaller capacity drives are no longer manufactured. If the drive that you requested is no longer available, we might ship you a larger capacity drive, which is qualified by RSA and compatible with the NetWitness Platform solution. There will be no change in the overall size of the array as the larger capacity drive will only use the original capacity. Also, there is no change in the replacement procedure.

For the latest hardware setup documentation, please visit:
https://community.rsa.com/netwitness/hardware.

Thank you,
The RSA NetWitness Product Team

Product Details

RSA Product Set: NetWitness Platform
RSA Product/Service Type: All Appliances
RSA Version/Condition: All Versions
Platform: CentOS
O/S Version: EL7

Summary

As RSA moves to larger capacity drives, RSA's Advanced Warranty Replacement vendors may send out larger than expected drive sizes.

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