Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: DOREMI SHOWVAULT HARD DRIVES

This is topic DOREMI SHOWVAULT HARD DRIVES in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Oscar Ibanez Benavides (Member # 8843) on 04-27-2018, 06:02 PM:

HELLO, can a doremi showvault server run with three 2TB hard drives ?.
And can I change them all at once?
Thanks for the help.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 04-27-2018, 06:07 PM:

They have to be Enterprise drives....

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 04-27-2018, 07:13 PM:

- yes, 2TB is fine. With the latest software release, 3*4TB drives are possible. If you have a 2k4 chassis with 4 RAID slots, even 4 drives are an option.

- Doremi/Dolby has a list of approved drives. Other drives will work as well, but you may run into trouble if your unit is still under warranty, as the Doremi log analyzer will complain about these non-approved drives. The ShowVault will still work fine if you buy suitable drives. They do not need to be strict enterprise drives, but should be NAS compliant. WD RED e.g. work well and are not too expensive.

http://www.film-tech.com/warehouse/manuals/DOLBY-DRIVE-DEC2016.pdf

- You may change all drives at once, but you will lose your content then.
If you want to benefit from the larger drives, a full raid reinit is necessary. You may need to backup your content first to a separate drive or computer through LAN/ethernet, then reinit the new RAID, then restore your content by reingesting it. That's usually no big deal for a 3*1TB unit. These operations usually take a few hours, so it's advisable to perform them over night.

- Carsten

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 04-29-2018, 11:27 AM:

It's available to download on dolbycustomer.com.

However, as noted in this thread, it's only essential to use drive models on the approved list if the server is still under warranty and you want to replace them as a preventative maintenance measure rather than because one has gone bad (if one goes bad, it should be replaced under the warranty).

If the server is not covered by a Dolby warranty, then as long as you use drives branded as enterprise or for NAS use (not "desktop" or similar), you should be OK. There are various theories and opinions out there as to the difference between these drives, and the closest to a consensus is:

"Desktop" or similar drives are given the lowest extent of QC checks at the factory, and their firmware optimizes them for standalone use.

Drives branded as being for NAS use are slightly more expensive than desktop ones, but not as expensive as "enterprise" ones. The hardware QC is probably similar to that of desktop drives, but their firmware is optimized for use in a RAID.

Enterprise drives - more extensive factory QC (and possibly better quality spindle bearings, though claims have been made either way), and optimized for RAID use.

The only other thing that might be worth pointing out is that drives badged as being for "archival" use (essentially, in write once, read many type applications) use a technique called shingled magnetic recording, and are no good for use in DCP servers. You can spot them by the simple fact that they will appear to be much cheaper than a drive of that capacity should be. For example, 8TB drives of this sort go for around $200. Host managed ones simply won't work in a DCP server, and device managed ones will have an unusably slow write speed.

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 04-29-2018, 03:04 PM:

Enterprise drives are optimized for RAID use. Desktop drives have some error correcting process, this should be handled by the RAID controller. The drive error correcting takes some time - in a RAID that delay can cause the controller to disable the drive as it seems unreliable.
The desktop drive firmware can be told not to do the error correction - this is done for video storage drives where a bad byte is less of a problem than a delay in the data stream - but using enterprise drives is recommended.
I would use drives on the approved list. If you can't afford them maybe it's time to find a new hobby.

Posted by Mike Moreno (Member # 4887) on 05-04-2018, 03:16 PM:

my showVault used to be DCP2000 and it was upgrade for hobbit HFR movie.
it has 3 HDD slots. How can i check if it can handle 3 or 4TB hard drives?

Mike Moreno
Mexico

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 05-04-2018, 04:40 PM:

It needs to be on software 2.8.18 or 2.18.19. Previous versions only supported drives up to 2TB.

http://www.film-tech.com/ubb/f16/t003205.html

- Carsten

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 05-05-2018, 07:27 AM:

Sorry, of course, 2.8.18 or 2.8.19...

- Carsten

Posted by Mike Moreno (Member # 4887) on 05-07-2018, 11:21 AM:

thanks Carsten [beer]

Mike Moreno

Posted by Marco Giustini (Member # 4544) on 05-07-2018, 12:19 PM:

I wouldn’t just say “non-approved drives will be fine”. I feel there is some information required before we can say that.
The manufacturer tests the server with some specific drives. Those are the ones on the ‘qualified drives list’. Other drives may work or may not. Simply the manufacturer won’t be able to tell you that.
On my personal NAS I use non qualified units (mostly because netgear stopped testing on that unit and I wanted bigger drives). On a server playing to paying customers I’d like to stay on qualified drives to be honest.
Those drives will last years and the extra price (which is really limited as you really shouldn’t install cheap desktop drives for the reasons explained earlier on this thread) shouldn’t really be a concern.

So a random drive should work but if your movie stops in the middle of a full house show, don’t complain to the manufacturer and don’t blame the server! 🙂

Posted by Oscar Ibanez Benavides (Member # 8843) on 05-14-2018, 09:52 AM:

Thank to all, it is very useful. [Smile]

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 05-14-2018, 11:13 PM:

Our Showvaults came with Western Digital "Black" drives. There's nothing exotic about them. I replaced mine with 2Tb drives last year with good results.

The drives are guaranteed for 5 years, which is about the time I started having problems with mine. Now, they're on a calendar for periodic replacement.

It is true that if you change the size of your drives and replace them all, you'll lose your content.

If you happen to have more than one screen at your location with showvaults, just network them together and copy anything you don't have available on distributor drives to the other server. After you change the drives (and wipe everything from the new array), just copy the content back over. You'll have to ingest your keys again, but you won't lose anything.