One of the more common calls we get isn’t “do you sell this?” — it’s “can you find this fast?” That was exactly the situation for one of our clients, an IBM Business Partner, when their end user came to them with an urgent need.
The end user — a financial firm in the middle of a data migration — was running an IBM Storwize V7000 and needed a significant capacity upgrade to support the project. That meant a large batch of IBM Feature Code AHH4, the 1.6TB 2.5″ RI Flash Drive (12Gb/s SSD) built for that system. There was just one problem: the AHH4 is no longer available new through IBM.
For a lot of resellers, that’s where the trail goes cold. For us, it’s exactly the kind of request we specialize in.
The Turnaround
The project needed more than just drives. Beyond the 20+ AHH4 flash drives, the upgrade also required expansion shelves, cabling, and controllers to support the added capacity — all sourced and supplied on a timeline that matched the urgency of a live migration. The IBM Business Partner was able to complete the upgrade for their end user without the project stalling on a single hard-to-find component, and the financial firm’s migration stayed on schedule.
This is the part of the business we enjoy most: not selling what’s easy to find, but solving the whole sourcing problem — drives, shelves, cabling, controllers — when a critical system depends on parts that are technically discontinued but still very much in service in the field.
Still Running a V7000?
We carry a full range of IBM Storwize V7000 parts in stock — not just drives. Whether you need AHH4 flash drives, expansion shelves, controllers, or cabling, reach out and we’ll get you a quote fast.