I recently asked a question about a combination of disks & server which is not vendor-supported (link here), in short adding EOL disks from another vendor to servers currently in use. The setup was to be used for a low-cost dev/test environment.

Please don't answer here for the original question, answer about your opinion on questions policy.

Although it got answered successfully, it also got several downvotes and upvotes, and a comment discussion about the validity of questions for vendor-unsupported configurations. It seems there could be a confusion between unsupported and unauthorized.

Moreover, in my opinion tech questions about designing systems in a non-vendor predicted way should be valid as long as they cover a valid business need. It seems that to a lot of members, using a setup not offered by presales is not a valid question.

I strongly disagree with dumbing-down IT role to do just procurements and scheduled maintenance. As an engineer I consider it my obligation to explore ways to minimize company costs as long as the risks are explored and accepted. I'm also feeling I'm arguing the obvious. When you design something for business, vendor support is just another (important) parameter to consider, not what dictates the design. And for those systems which are offered by the vendors, there is always the official "vendor support" channel.

For software there is of course a consensus that the above is accepted. For example installing FreeBSD is valid, while it is not vendor-supported. (hotmail.com, a valid buisiness runs (or used to run) in FreeBSD)

It seems that SF prefers questions already answered elsewhere, in some manual or "best practices" paper, and are given here in better clarity. Questions that involve even a minimal design are considered bad.

EDIT: As there seems to be some confusion this question is only about unsupported as in "not officially manufacturer-supported", i.e. something that the manufacturer doesn't provide documentation for. It's not about unmaintainable systems or about absurd questions. Examples include:

1. Unsupported O/S (i.e. installing FreeBSD or debian on a server which only officially supports Windows, RedHat, Ubuntu, etc
2. EOL O/S (e.g. install an old O/S on a recent server in order to replace an ageing server which runs a critical app)
3. Unsupported software (by the O/S manufacturer). E.g. a kernel driver like trueport
4. Unsupported but protocol compatible parts (i.e. 3rd party memory, disks, etc) E.g.
5. Unsupported but protocol compatible peripherals (usb/scsi/FC devices)

Most of the above are commonplace and I consider them valid.