Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: GDC server disk failure

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Posted by Paul Willmott (Member # 3904) on 01-16-2014, 08:36 AM:

We have a GDC SX2001 server in which one of the disk drives has failed. We have tried to replace the drive with a Western Digital SAS drive - WD2001FYYG but the drive is not recognised. Could this be a formatting issue (we have not formatted the drive but I have no idea if it was pre-formatted) or perhaps because we have used a different size (2TB rather than 1TB)?

Any ideas?

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 01-16-2014, 08:59 AM:

You need to do a format/RAID rebuild in the server. Do you have the necessary manuals or trained staff? Take care, or you will loose your content.

If it's really a SAS drive (FYYG), it will not work.

Try to get a 1TB SATA drive. A 2TB drive could only be used up to 1TB in a RAID system with other 1TB drives.

- Carsten

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 01-16-2014, 04:34 PM:

With the GDC...you really do want to match drives and ensure that the read/write speeds match across all of the drives.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 01-18-2014, 11:06 PM:

Actually 1TB drives can be mixed in a GDC. I've done it before but make sure the replacement drive has very similar specs as the drives presently in the server.

I have had a lot of issues with new Hitachi drives of lately. Out of two batches of a dozen drives in the last month two were defective out of the box. So if you are buying Hitachi drives in bulk I reccomend you bench test all of them upon receiving to be sure they all actually work. I just hope WD is not messing up the quality on these drives!!

Posted by Paul Willmott (Member # 3904) on 01-24-2014, 07:38 AM:

Just as an update, I got a replacement drive that was very similar to the failed drive - 1TB, SATA, with same spin speed and read/write times and all is now ok. It took about 5 hours for the RAID to rebuild itself.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 01-24-2014, 07:54 AM:

With mixed drive types, you should have a close eye on playback performance now. If you are not short on money, you should think about buying two other identical drives as the new one. You can replace them one by one, and put the old drives on the shelf as emergency spares.

- Carsten

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 01-24-2014, 08:50 AM:

Thats an average rebuild time for any raid using 1 tb drives. At least the GDC Raid Status page gives you an idea in minutes how long it's gonna take.