Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Adding USB 3.0 to a Doremi 2K4

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Posted by James Skinner (Member # 7385) on 03-21-2014, 03:58 PM:

We are starting to receive more movies on USB 3.0 external hard drives. Our Doremi 2K4 has only USB 2.0 ports. This means ingestion is very slow.

I've asked Doremi if they have a supported add-in PCI USB 3.0 card we could add to the system. Their short response was 'External cards are not supported on the servers due to driver limitations'

Not sure if I really buy this response. Given that the 2K4 appears to be just running on debian linux wouldn't some PCI USB 3.0 add-in cards likely work with the kernel that is already built in?

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 03-21-2014, 06:31 PM:

The Doremi kernel is pretty old (2.6.18 afaik). Linux supports USB3.0 from 2.6.31.

Not far away, but still...

- Carsten

Posted by Manuel Acevedo Civantos (Member # 7567) on 04-12-2014, 03:03 PM:

If you have another computer in the same network, you can do it there. Probably the manager computer?
It needs to have USB3 or be able to accommodate the card, and you need a gigabit connection to the projection network. Set up an ftp server (Filezilla?) and play a bit to understand how it works.
Kind of a a poor man LMS [Smile]

Good luck!

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 04-12-2014, 05:54 PM:

You can use SATA though... the USB3 CRU adapter I've seen doesn't have a SATA connector but the older USB2 ones do. You just need an eSATA adapter plate for the server and a short eSATA to SATA cable. Install the plate, connect its SATA cable to an open SATA port on the motherboard, connect the CRU adapter using the sSATA-SATA cable, and voila! The SATA connection should be faster, according to what I've read, than USB3. It's definitely pretty fast but I haven't done any timed comparisons to USB.
I asked Doremi if adding the eSATA adapter plate was OK, they had no objections. Adding an active eSATA adapter card is not allowed (if you have an old Intel motherboard server you are out of luck as there is no extra SATA port) but putting in the adapter plate that extends a motherboard SATA port to an eSATA connector is OK.

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 04-13-2014, 08:36 AM:

quote: Dave Macaulay
Adding an active eSATA adapter card is not allowed

Because it voids warranty? Because DCI won't allow it? Because the kernel doesn't support it? Why is it "not allowed"?

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-13-2014, 10:27 AM:

Dave's method is by far the most practical and literally costs almost nothing to do. You will end up with the exact same ingest speed as if you had an eSATA card in there which is the SATA 2 rate of 3 gbps max. If you really want to get fancy you could also buy an external ingest bay from Dataport and mount it on a rack shelf. When we install SX-3000's this is actually what we do.

When booting up the server make sure there is no "other" drive connected as the server boot up may stall at that point. Connect the disk after the server is up.

Mark

Posted by Marco Giustini (Member # 4544) on 04-13-2014, 11:14 AM:

Ken,

Because it hasn't been tested. You can possibly do whatever you want with the server, it's a Linux machine after all.
But if the playback stops during a performance and you have to refund your customers, then it's your problem.

Adding a SATA cable won't hurt though.

Posted by Steve Moore (Member # 4753) on 04-13-2014, 11:52 AM:

I've tried Dave's method twice now, as in extending the available SATA port on the motherboard to a e-sata socket on the rear. On both occasions the ingest works on my first attempt.

The next time ingest manager starts up (when I insert another feature drive) the server still thinks the previous drive is plugged in and never shows the contents of the newly connected drive.

I presume you guys are either rebooting after a SATA ingest or going to command line and ejecting the drive?

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 04-13-2014, 12:08 PM:

quote:
quote: Ken Lackner
Because it voids warranty? Because DCI won't allow it? Because the kernel doesn't support it? Why is it "not allowed"?

It certainly voids the warranty. But the main problem: Harddrive access is mission critical for a server. You don't want to mess around with that by establishing another 'alien' driver level. Especially since it is not necessary, as the Doremis have free internal SATA Ports that only need to be routed to a slot bracket with a passive cable.

There are, however, two issues with it:

- it doesn't help to speed up USB3.0 only harddiscs, as James requested above - and we DO get a lot of them recently as well. There is no SATA->USB3.0 bridge.

- these ports may be 'externalized' with a passive cable, yet they are not true E-SATA Ports. Typically you can't use hotplugging with them, that means, changing an ingest harddisc while the server is running is a problem - just as Steve reports above. You would have to reboot the server to recognize a changed ingest disc on that port.
Don't know how Doremi handles that on the CRU ports. Maybe they can enable hotplugging on a per-port base. Doremi sells an external CRU 19" unit for the DCP-2000 which uses the same passive SATA-bracket to connect to. Probably they connect it to an internal SATA port that has hotplugging enabled. On the DCP-2000, one additional extra port is free, used for the CRU port in the DCP-2k4 variant

A passive SATA-ESATA bracket is on Doremis official replacement part list for very little money, btw.

- Carsten

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 04-13-2014, 12:15 PM:

quote: Marco Giustini
But if the playback stops during a performance and you have to refund your customers, then it's your problem.

And this is different from having the playback stop during a performance for any other reason because...?

I've never before heard of any theatre getting reimbursed for having to refund customers due to an equipment failure. Perhaps you have?

Posted by Marco Giustini (Member # 4544) on 04-13-2014, 02:57 PM:

Frank,

What I'm saying is that - as Carsten has already pointed out - messing with Linux may cause trouble with the server. While a 2 seconds delay on a NAS server for an network may be perfectly fine, it would cause the show to stop on a D-Cinema server.
Are you prepared for this risk? - that was my point.
If you contacted Doremi for support, and they realise you have installed a card on the server, they would refuse support on the unit. I would do the same.

A similar example is when using "non approved" disks.

The Doremi NGEST unit is simply connecting to a SATA port on the MB. In the BIOS you may have the option to change the "hot-plug" value for that port even though I can't remember seeing such instructions for the NGEST.
Silly question: do you un-power the drive and wait till the blue light stops flashing before physically removing the drive?

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-13-2014, 03:19 PM:

quote: Steve Moore
The next time ingest manager starts up (when I insert another feature drive) the server still thinks the previous drive is plugged in and never shows the contents of the newly connected drive.

This is similar to how a GDC SX-3000 behaves if you do not use the "CLOSE" button when you are done ingesting. First you "OPEN" the drive and when you are done ingesting you "Close the drive. If you don't close it out then you have to reboot it to get rid of that drive. I don't remember if the Doremi has these buttons or not. Ken would probably know.

Mark

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 04-14-2014, 08:21 AM:

I think we have all realized that "Security" is the primary goal in digital cinema. Showing movies to paying customers is a close second I suppose but "Security" is definitely priority #1.
I haven't tried messing with a server installing unofficial packages or drivers. I don't much want to be the person pointed at if something goes horribly wrong.
Doremi has to support the servers, and understandably does not want to deal with oddball configurations.
If you do something and it works, good for you. If it doesn't ... don't expect a lot of sympathy from Doremi. Resolution would be at your expense and the screen would be dark until then.

Posted by Steve Moore (Member # 4753) on 04-14-2014, 12:37 PM:

Mark, the Doremi has a quit on the ingest window (not close) but I imagine it is the same thing. Basically removing a USB drive, after quitting, it's happy and gone, however following the same process when connected via "faux" e-Sata the server believes the drive is still connected.
Maybe this is just down the the way the old Intel boards (which all 10 of mine have) with probably an old BIOS behave.

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 04-14-2014, 01:01 PM:

You should be able to create a new ingest source - even a dummy one - and select it in Ingest Manager: after that's done, select "Local Storage" again and it should rescan any connected drives. I think.

Posted by Steve Moore (Member # 4753) on 04-14-2014, 05:59 PM:

Thanks, Dave, will give it a try out. Cheers

Posted by Tim Sherman (Member # 569) on 04-17-2014, 05:22 PM:

If i'm not mistaken there is no empty sata port on a 4 drive showvalt. Only running three drives I wonder if one could disconnect the dvd drive or the 4th empty drive to run the extension for external sata

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 04-17-2014, 06:17 PM:

DCP-2K4: If you're not using the 4th HDD bay (few do), its SATA port can be used for ingest. Just don't try to use the bay afterwards.

Posted by Kevin Tan (Member # 8150) on 04-18-2014, 06:25 AM:

The simple solution might be ingest into an USB3 capable PC, then transfer to IMB/Playback server with GIGA-LAN via FTP.