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Topic: Dolby DSS200->NEC2500: Only White Image

Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 08-15-2011 01:59 PM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Everyone uses an OS hard drive. If that failed on a Friday night there is a high probability that you'd be down all weekend on that screen... The originator of this thread seems to be in that predicament.

Indeed this is a HUGE reason where Dolby shines. If you have for example a Doremi server, you are at the mercy of that flash drive. (I have seen a 25% failure rate.) If you have a GDC server, you are at the mercy of a plain old SATA hard drive and we all know what the saying is, it isn't IF it will fail, but WHEN.

ALL hard drives fail.

With Dolby storing their OS on the raid, you can lose a drive and still not lose anything...including your shows! Even if there was a catastrophic failure and you somehow lost 2 drives, the re-install disc can be put into the machine and no you DON'T have to re-load that kdm. All is wonderful again.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-15-2011 03:00 PM

That isn't true for the100 SS where the OS is spread across both a single drive and the RAID. Flash drives as used in the Doremi are failure prone but SSD's on the other hand are quite different and are not failure prone. GDC has offered that as an option at my request... Have not gone that route yet but as a read only device I wouldn't expect it to ever fail...

Mark

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 08-15-2011 03:46 PM

quote: Brad Miller
That's true Jim, because film equipment has never, ever failed either.

True, just some of the users failed. [Big Grin]

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 08-15-2011 08:46 PM

What system are you thinking of Mark? The DSS100 does not have an OS drive...just the same four RAID drives.

-Steve

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-15-2011 09:37 PM

It may also be that I was thinking of the Show Player... what ever. Either way, having the OS on a RAID is great but it would be better if it were on it's own RAID seperate from Storage RAID. And a seperate SSD drive for just the OS would typically be even more reliable than a sata based RAID 1 or any SATA for that matter. Some new critical Enterprise servers lately are being set up with SSD's in a RAID 1 to be dam sure! Most Enterprise type servers are set up with OS on a RAID 1 and storage on a RAID 5. Most hardware RAID cards allow this to happen quite easily... and it only adds one more 50 buck drive to the system equation.

Another question... Can you pull the RAID Drives out of the DSS-200 and move them to another DSS-200 and import the new RAID and have playable content or wiill the RAID have to be reinitialized causing it to loose all the data? Sometimes you can do this with Enterprise servers... sometimes not. Depends more on the individual RAID card used. I'm betting that isn't going to happen on the 200 since the KDM refrenced on the RAID is tied to a particuluar server. Or do you just have to enter the next server's KDM? I'm very curious as to if this would work or not. We have had situations in Southern Utah theaters with HVAC going down and having to instantly move the contents to another room. Other servers allow this to be done and with the drives placed back in the next server in no particuluar order and the RAID simply imported. Is this possible in the 200? Of course I realize that an LMS also eliminates some of the move issues.
Mark

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 08-15-2011 09:45 PM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Flash drives as used in the Doremi are failure prone but SSD's on the other hand are quite different and are not failure prone. GDC has offered that as an option at my request... Have not gone that route yet but as a read only device I wouldn't expect it to ever fail...

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
a seperate SSD drive for just the OS would typically be even more reliable than a sata based RAID 1 or any SATA for that matter.

Sorry to disappoint you Mark, but I have had a 50% failure rate with SSDs! For the time being, a good old fashioned RAIDED array for the OS for reliability and uptime can't be beat.

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Another question... Can you pull the RAID Drives out of the DSS-200 and move them to another DSS-200 and import the new RAID and have playable content or wiill the RAID have to be reinitialized causing it to loose all the data?

You can actually have a set of 4 drives on the Dolby pre-loaded with the OS and even content if you want and move them around. Moving drives is STUPID STUPID STUPID as you are just ASKING for a failure, but if you want to, yes there is nothing stopping you.

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Of course I realize that an LMS also eliminates some of the move issues.

Any theater that is installed without a library was done incorrectly and is nothing more than a big screw job to the theater. Yeah sure it seems cheaper at first and may have helped to make the sale, but when the shit hits the fan (especially when using a server designed-for-failure), the customer is extra screwed without the library. I for one won't EVER put my customers in scenarios like that. Uptime is absolutely critical.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 08-15-2011 10:18 PM

Yes, you CAN transplant drives (as a set) from one DSS200 to another DSS200. The same is true with DSS100s. However, you are transplanting the whole thing so the theatre will think it is a different theatre number and all of the IPs will be coming along for the ride too.

There was a period where we had a player in our shop and a customer wanted to upgrade their player in the field from 400GB to 1TB drives for the increased storage capacity. Doing a, from scratch 3TB formatting and system loading in the field could be VERY lengthy when starting from blank, unformatted drives.

I was able to put the new drives in the player in the shop, load the OS onto them (overnight)...then set all of the IPs and other theatre specific info, load the standard CPLs (clips) (Blanks and such).

Then when I was in the field, I copied the various clips they wanted to keep to my CRU...swapped the drives, put their clips back and I was done. The drives woke up in the player as if they had always been there...everything connected back up (to the projector) without having to do ANY programming in the field.

One point you keep getting wrong is that the KDM is ONLY tied to the MEDIA BLOCK, not the DSSx00 player. That is, the KDM affects updating a Cat 862 or a DSP100...neither of which run the OS or TMS.

I agree that having a mirrored OS drives and a RAID data drives would be the most ideal. However, I'll take a RAIDed OS over a single point of failure single drive OS.

As for a Library...with Dolby, one really isn't needed until the 4th Screen...one screen can also function as the LMS effectively enough (single point of entry, can pull/push schedules...etc.

-Steve

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 08-15-2011 10:29 PM

quote: Steve Guttag
load the OS onto them (overnight)

Really??? It takes less than 10 minutes.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
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Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-15-2011 10:48 PM

It's good to hear the drive sets can be moved around, something I've never tried to do on any of the Dolby's. AND moving them it is not as touchy as Brad makes it out to be. Sure... you don't want to drop them but when a drive is in it's dead state the heads are parked and damaging the platters is actually pretty difficult to do. Drive maufacturers take into account shipping drives around in worst case conditions and that can mean a fall off a conveyer belt in a sorting facility or even worse. Think about the abuse that the DCP's get in shipment... many many times. A live drive on the other hand IS touchy. Treat any dead drive like it was a xenon lamp and it'll last for ever.

I've never seen or had an SSD fail. Ever. I have them in all of my laptops and tablets, a couple of them are going on 6 years old now. The flash drives used by Doremi are very different from am MLC or SLC and really, Doremi should just use a high end SATA there. It would probably be more reliable than the flash memory! A good quality SSD comes with a very good controller that over sees any internal memory issues and writes out those sectors. You never even know there are any bad sectors. With drives yous get what yous pay for... just like with SATA drives there are cheap drives and higher end drives. As for SATA reliability... I've seen high end SATA drives last a very long time, not on a par with SCSI but still typically 5 years. There will always be that occasional drive failure no matter what...

I don't know of an OS that takes longer than ten min. to load. He may be thinking of rebuilding the raid. That typically does take overnight with 1 tb or larger drives.

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 08-15-2011 11:29 PM

You are probably right on the raid. With the 1TB drives that is pretty much an overnight thing.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 08-16-2011 12:58 AM

Yes...I said starting with BLANK (well, from scratch was the exact word) drives but I did mention FORMATTING as well as loading the system on. To do 3TB can take up to 17-hours to fully format from factory fresh drives with nothing on any of them. Mind you, the system woke up pretty fast but in the System>Server tab, it said "formatting" for a long time.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
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Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-16-2011 09:53 AM

Interesting that it says formatting when it is actually most likely just initializing the RAID.... You wouldn't format until after initalization has taken place. Again depending on the RAID card there can be "Quick Initialization" or "Full Initialization". The latter is always best to run on a full set of new disks. Then a quick format instead of a full format can be done either as part of the OS install or done manually before it is installed.

Mark

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 08-16-2011 12:06 PM

You are probably correct that it says initializing. Thus far, I've only had to do this once (start from blanks).

-Steve

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Kevin Fairchild
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 125
From: Kennewick, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2008

posted 08-16-2011 03:38 PM

I know the DSS100 has a flash card inside. It is mounted on the side wall behind the CRU bay. I thought the OS was loaded there. If the OS is on the RAID, then what is on the flash card?

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Carsten Kurz
Film God

Posts: 4340
From: Cologne, NRW, Germany
Registered: Aug 2009

posted 08-16-2011 08:55 PM

You can boot the Doremi from a USB stick if the original flash drive/SSD ever fails.

- Carsten

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