HPE P20077-001 300GB SAS 10K HDD: Specs and ProLiant Compatibility
HPE Smart Array controllers are among the strictest in the industry at validating what is plugged into them. That strictness is a feature - it protects arrays from unpredictable firmware behaviour - but it means sourcing drives for a ProLiant requires more care than for most platforms.
The HPE P20077-001 is a 300GB SAS 12Gb/s 10K 2.5-inch drive supplied in an HPE Smart Carrier. Both halves of that description matter when ordering.
Smart Carrier: the part people forget to check
HPE ships 2.5-inch drives in Smart Carrier trays, and the carrier generation must match your ProLiant chassis. A drive in the wrong carrier generation will not seat correctly, or will seat but fail to register properly with the backplane.
This catches people migrating drives between server generations, or buying a bare drive and planning to reuse an old tray. The tray is not a bracket - it carries the connector alignment and, on newer generations, the status indicator wiring that reports drive health to the front panel.
The practical rule: order the drive with the correct carrier for your chassis generation rather than trying to transplant. HPE part numbers identify the drive, carrier and firmware combination together, which is why ordering by part number rather than by specification is the reliable approach on this platform.
P20077-001 specifications
| Part Number | P20077-001 |
| Manufacturer | HPE |
| Capacity | 300GB |
| Interface | SAS 12Gb/s |
| Rotational Speed | 10,000 RPM |
| Form Factor | 2.5 inch SFF |
| Carrier Type | HPE Smart Carrier (SC) |
| Drive Class | Enterprise Performance |
| Condition | Refurbished, function-tested |
| Warranty | 30-day TechSellerUSA warranty |
Why 10K SAS at 300GB still gets specified
A 300GB drive looks small next to multi-terabyte nearline units, and buyers sometimes question whether it makes sense in 2026. It does, for a specific reason: in performance-tier storage, spindle count matters more than capacity per drive.
An array of eight 300GB 10K drives delivers substantially more IOPS than two 1.2TB drives holding the same total capacity, because each spindle contributes its own read and write heads. For a database, a virtualisation datastore or a busy application server, that parallelism is the whole point.
SAS reinforces this. Unlike SATA, SAS provides dual-port connectivity for path redundancy, deeper command queuing for concurrent requests, and stronger error recovery reporting. Those are the characteristics that make it the default in server and SAN deployments regardless of capacity.
The 12Gb/s interface is backward compatible with 6Gb/s backplanes, so this drive works in older chassis at the lower link speed - useful when populating a mixed-generation fleet from one part number.
SKU: P20077-001 | Refurbished & function-tested | 30-day warranty
View Details & Request a Quote →What firmware validation actually does
HPE Smart Array controllers read drive firmware and compare it against what they expect. A non-HPE drive typically produces one of three outcomes.
It may work but be flagged in iLO and Smart Storage Administrator as unsupported, which is cosmetically annoying and complicates support conversations. It may work but not report health telemetry correctly, so predictive failure warnings never reach you. Or it may be refused outright during an array rebuild - the worst case, because that is exactly when you are relying on it.
None of these are certain, and plenty of people run non-HPE drives without issue. But the cost difference between an HPE-coded drive and a generic one is small compared to a rebuild that will not start on a Sunday night.
For lab, test and development systems where an array failure is inconvenient rather than serious, this calculation changes and generic drives are a reasonable saving.
ProLiant, MSA and the distinction between them
One further trap worth flagging. HPE server drives and HPE MSA storage array drives are separate categories.
MSA controllers expect array-specific firmware and will report an unsupported drive if a standard ProLiant server disk is fitted. The part numbers differ, and the drives are not interchangeable even at identical capacity and interface. If you are populating an MSA rather than a ProLiant, check the part number is an MSA one before ordering.
Our HPE drive range covers both categories, and the older ProLiant G-series and Integrity parts sit in the HP range. The full enterprise hard drives catalogue is online.
Ordering
We supply the P20077-001 refurbished and function-tested with a 30-day warranty, single spares or volume for array population. Send us your ProLiant model or server serial and we will confirm carrier generation before you order.
Common questions
What is an HPE Smart Carrier and why does the generation matter?
It is the tray HPE supplies 2.5-inch drives in. The carrier is not just a bracket - it carries connector alignment and, on newer generations, the status indicator wiring reporting drive health to the front panel. A drive in the wrong carrier generation may not seat correctly or register properly with the backplane.
What happens if I fit a non-HPE drive to a ProLiant?
Usually one of three things: it works but is flagged as unsupported in iLO, it works but does not report health telemetry so predictive failure warnings never arrive, or it is refused during an array rebuild. For production arrays the price difference is small next to a rebuild that will not start.
Is 300GB too small to be useful?
Not in performance-tier storage, where spindle count matters more than capacity per drive. Eight 300GB 10K drives deliver substantially more IOPS than two 1.2TB drives of the same total capacity, because each spindle contributes its own heads.
Will a 12Gb/s SAS drive work in a 6Gb/s backplane?
Yes, at the lower link speed. That backward compatibility is useful when populating a mixed-generation fleet from a single part number rather than stocking two.
Can I use a ProLiant drive in an HPE MSA array?
No. MSA controllers expect array-specific firmware and will report an unsupported drive if a standard server disk is fitted. The part numbers differ and the drives are not interchangeable even at identical capacity and interface.
Tell us your ProLiant model and how many bays you are populating, and we will quote with the correct carrier generation confirmed.
