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Topic: SSD drives in Doremi DCP2000

Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-15-2016 08:26 AM

Actually Brad,

That was tried here before and the server did not recognize the four other drives even though the new raid was done on the same server. Perhaps that only occurs after firmware version 4.7.2.9.3.1.5.8.0.1.01, anyway... We gave up on that in regards to Dolby and have since gotten rid of them all. Life is good!

Mark

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Carsten Kurz
Film God

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

posted 02-15-2016 08:39 AM

quote: Ken Lackner
Are you sure the order matters on a Doremi? I don't know because I haven't tried, but I know that on a GDC it does not, and frankly, I don't understand why. Can anyone explain that?

At least Doremi says in their manuals that it DOES matter. I know other servers do not care, they use a marker on the disc to identify the order by software. It certainly would be possible on a Doremi as well if they'd care enough, but after all, how often do you swap RAID drives, and even if, what's the big issue to reinsert them if you swapped them accidentally? Having proper visual labels on them is, of course, useful to get it right from the start. Factory supplied drive sets do have these markers on them.

- Carsten

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Ken Lackner
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1907
From: Atlanta, GA, USA
Registered: Sep 2001

posted 02-15-2016 08:52 AM

Yes, I've seen the labels on the factory-supplied drives. And you are certainly correct that it takes no effort to take note of the drive order when removing them. My question was more of a "how does it work?" from a technical standpoint. Like, why possible on GDC but not on Doremi?

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Dave Macaulay
Film God

Posts: 2321
From: Toronto, Canada
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-15-2016 09:25 AM

Doremi labels the drives but you can mix them up and it still works. You get some error messages about drives being different but the data is unaffected.
Sometimes you can swap in a set of drives from a different server and they are not recognized. Doremi's procedure https://youtu.be/GQrDxRJ6p3Q for server replacement has the "failed" server's drives used in the "new" server so it should work.

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-15-2016 12:59 PM

quote:
We have the server mounted in a good strong flight-case along with CP 750, line mixer, PDU etc. It's not a 'shock-mount' type though as these appeared to be very expensive. We treat the case with as much respect as possible avoiding any hard knocks - at least I do, but you never know if your assistants are equally careful!

You know your people better than I do. If you think they understand how to take care of the equipment properly then what you have is probably fine.

When it comes to deciding how much to spend on protecting equipment, consider the cost of replacement. Up to half the cost of replacement is a good starting point. Vary the figure based on your needs.

My old boss balked at putting protective grilles over a bunch of speakers because he thought $50 each was too expensive until he had to shell out $500 to replace a speaker cone. Somebody punched a hole in one with the end of a 2x4. The requisition for those grilles was approved the next day.

$50 is a good investment if it saves you from having to spend $500 in order to replace something.

Also, don't forget to include the cost of business interruption in your figures. How much money will you lose if you have to wait for repairs to be made and replacement parts/equipment to arrive?

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Carsten Kurz
Film God

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

posted 02-15-2016 07:01 PM

quote: Ken Lackner
My question was more of a "how does it work?" from a technical standpoint. Like, why possible on GDC but not on Doremi?

Well, just like the visual labels that help you with inserting the drives into the proper slots, the RAID software/controller is able to label each drive with an ID where in the RAID it does belong. So before mounting the RAID, it simply looks at these IDs and resorts the drives before mounting them in the proper RAID order. Doremi COULD do it as well, but they decided it's not worth the effort.

- Carsten

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-15-2016 08:36 PM

Both GDC and Doremi use Intel Software raid as the basis of their systems. You'll find those chips on the motherboards. Its actually a VERY robust system that offers great versatility and high reliability for Software RAID. The data on the Media drives on a cinema server are not considered to be irreplaceable data because that data still exists elsewhere and you would just re-ingest the data again. On Dolby where you also have the OS using software RAID is a bit more risky, especially for the OS to become corrupt. Doremi's and GDC's OS runs from separate drives and Dolby using the Hardware RAID makes good sense in that case because it offers the highest reliability. Cinedigm actually used Intel Software RAID on the micro TMS systems and those have also been very reliable over the last five years.

Mark

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Marcel Birgelen
Film God

Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012

posted 02-16-2016 03:34 PM

quote: Carsten Kurz
BTW - does anyone know the brand/manufacturer of the Doremi RAID disc carrier system (those with the blue latches)? I would want to buy a set of them.

I've not found them yet and I've been looking for them in the past. Although they procure their recent motherboard and some other components from Supermicro, the 4U chassis is not built by Supermicro or one of their OEM labels but one of the many other OEM manufacturers out there. You could replace the whole bay assembly with some other bay assembly, as this is an industry standard format though.

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Carsten Kurz
Film God

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

posted 02-16-2016 03:45 PM

I found a reference to RAID drive carriers in a Doremi dealer price list, at a really low price. I'll have to ask wether these are really available, though.

I'll see if I can find a manufacturer reference on one of these carriers.

We actually use a drive in the fourth (usually empty) slot of a 2k4 for backups, but would like to have 1 or 2 more carriers.

- Carsten

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Stephan Shelley
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 854
From: castro valley, CA, usa
Registered: Nov 2014

posted 02-17-2016 05:26 PM

Actually I had a raid card fail in a Dolby DSS100. I have a spare DSS 100 on hand and was able to swap drives into the spare. The DSS 100 that failed was running system 4.7.3. The one it went into was 4.2.X. I did have to run the upgrade disk for firmware update on the raid card as well as the IDE flash boot disk. Back on screen. No loss of content or SPLs. Getting a new raid card to fix the one that went down.

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Carsten Kurz
Film God

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

posted 02-18-2016 06:01 AM

My integrator quoted these Doremi RAID drive carriers now at around 35US$.

- Carsten

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-21-2016 12:05 PM

I also lost a raid card in a DSS-100 back in 2011. Even then Dolby could not supply a replacement card for it. Turned out it's a common LSI (if memory serves me) megaraid card of the era. I did not bother to fix this one however I was tempted to plug in a used identical megaraid card from Ebay and run the upgrade so it would get flashed with Dolby's version of the firmware. But alas... all the Dolbys were replaced with GDC's in the entire chain because of VPF's.

Mark

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 02-21-2016 02:40 PM

Is the DSS100's RAID card the same as the one in the 200? If so, it's a 3Ware 9650SE-4LPML as a straight swap for the one that came in the machine, or a 8LPML if you want to use the four drive bays on the right and upgrade your server to an 8-drive RAID. Both cards are still widely available online from various vendors, including Amazon.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

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

posted 02-22-2016 05:38 AM

The last version of the DSS200 used the 9750 series of RAID cards.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-22-2016 08:51 AM

Nope, the two servers have different buss. The whole key is to get the card to flash with the correct DOLBY version of the 3-Ware firmware which is certainly part of some of the Dolby full firmware Installs (but which ones?). Note that LSI and 3-Ware are now owned by Avago Technologies and unless you are a large industrial user of Avago stuff they will not even reply to your questions.

I have successfully flashed HP LSI cards with Dell firmware as the cards are identical. In Dolby's case the raid firmware is written to interface with Dolby's own OS.

Mark

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