GDC PSD-3000 Hard Drive recommendations?

[Ron Higgins]

Been replacing the hard drives in our GDC PSD-3000 storage units as needed for the last couple of years. But the usual drives (2.5" HGST 1TB) are hard to get these days. Anyone using anything different and having good experiences with reliability?
Thanks.

[Steve Guttag]

I would check with GDC to see what their current recommendations are. You'll want to get something that they have tested to work reliably with the PSD and in the application (cinema server).

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

To my knowledge GDC has no "recommended list", they actually prefer to sell you the drives. The more important thing is not what brand drives, but that they all be the same. I.E., all 5600 RPM or 7200 RPM and as with any RAID it is best that all drives are the same brand and type. My customers all get their PSD-3000 drives either from Amazon or Newegg. I still have the best luck with HGST drives, then WD drives. Also, it they are all 4 to 5 years old, then replace all the drives at the same time. When installing new drives, replacing one drive at a time and letting it rebuild with each new drive will maintain the current content... Replacing all three or four at a time and you lose all content, and then you have to go into the Maintenance level log on to create a new RAID. All content will have to be re-ingested. If you don't have Maintainance Level access, then only replace one drive at a time. It will automatically go into rebuild each time a new drive is inserted. (Power Off First)!

[Ron Higgins]

Mark,
Do you have a reliable source for the HGST drives? I haven't been able to find any qty that aren't coming from a (unreliable) 3rd party seller.
Most times, all the drives are swapped at the same time. They are always the same make/model/speed.
I've got some Seagate's that will be tried since I can't get the HGST's.

On a related note, anyone have any gut feeling if the drive failures are related to anything in particular? Like vibration, or heat, or drive orientation?

Thanks.

[Steve Guttag]

Any time I've asked GDC tech support, they've told me what their current recommended drives are. I have not seen a published list though. I now that the GDC software can be fussy about what drives you use and I have had to update the software to accept a newer drive.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Any time I've asked GDC tech support, they've told me what their current recommended drives are. I have not seen a published list though. I now that the GDC software can be fussy about what drives you use and I have had to update the software to accept a newer drive.

Updating the PSD firmware is done to match the firmware in the SX-3000 and that RAID firmware is part of the update firmware.. This should really be done as part of any update done to the SX-3000. The problem is that everything is lost on the RAID, so no one seems to do that part of the update consistently. If the firmware versions get too far apart they often won't work well together and the result is usually skipping. I've had luck with a number of different drives in them, HGST and WD,. You just have to make sure all 3 or 4 drives are the same. . IE... Either all 5600 or all 7200 RPM. The PSD is also a pretty slow RAID, so installing 7200 RPM drives is probably not going to show much benefit, although they are generally easier to find and some times cheaper to buy.. I have had original drives go way past the 5 year mark. I also put in quite a few that were 4 drive boxes.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Mark,
Do you have a reliable source for the HGST drives? I haven't been able to find any qty that aren't coming from a (unreliable) 3rd party seller.
Most times, all the drives are swapped at the same time. They are always the same make/model/speed.
I've got some Seagate's that will be tried since I can't get the HGST's.

On a related note, anyone have any gut feeling if the drive failures are related to anything in particular? Like vibration, or heat, or drive orientation?

Thanks.

Ron, Like I said... Newegg or Amazon. They would not be considered third party suppliers. With Amazon if you click on "All BUying Options" then you can see if these are any contracted Amazon vendors and if they are new drives or not. Note that the original drives are probably no longer made. So you select the manufacturers current replacement for the old part number. If you want the best drives and don't mind paying a price then get them from GDC. They will warranty any new drives they sell for one year. And no... I have not had any considerable number of drives fail in the PSD-3000. I just recommend to my customers to replace them every 4 years or sooner if needed. You also need to discern if the problem is because the PSD firmware has never been updated or if you have an actual bad drive. Use either the Seagate or WD drive test programs to test the drives for bad sectors. Or send your logs to GDC and they will tell you which drive is failing or if your firmware is way out of date. .

[Scott Norwood]

1TB 2.5" should be pretty standard. There is a hard disk shortage right now due to chia mining (yes, really), but I would be surprised if that affected the 2.5" drives in smaller capacities.

Agreed with using whatever GDC recommends. If they don't have a list, and if their prices are significantly inflated, I would probably buy one from them, then buy the rest from Newegg (etc.) and make sure that they were exactly the same model with the same firmware, assuming that GDC isn't using custom firmware (unlikely, but...).

There might be issues with disks larger than 2TB, since they will probably have 4k sectors and "advanced format". I don't know about that specific GDC, but it probably wants 512 byte sectors.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

1TB 2.5" should be pretty standard. There is a hard disk shortage right now due to chia mining (yes, really), but I would be surprised if that affected the 2.5" drives in smaller capacities.

Agreed with using whatever GDC recommends. If they don't have a list, and if their prices are significantly inflated, I would probably buy one from them, then buy the rest from Newegg (etc.) and make sure that they were exactly the same model with the same firmware, assuming that GDC isn't using custom firmware (unlikely, but...).

There might be issues with disks larger than 2TB, since they will probably have 4k sectors and "advanced format". I don't know about that specific GDC, but it probably wants 512 byte sectors.

Yea, I honestly do not know it it will take 2TB drives or not. But it does do either a 3 or a 4 drive RAID. So there is extra storage gained from that 4th drive. I have several second run customers that have 4 drives in theors and they have never run out of space.

[Scott Norwood]

I'm not sure why the server vendors bother with RAID5 at this point. A RAID1 mirror of two 2TB drives is much simpler to implement, will have plenty of space for the average cinema, has the same read performance, and has much better write performance than a RAID5 of three 1TB drives. RAID5/6 made sense for cinemas when drive capacities were smaller, but seems pointless in 2021.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I'm not sure why the server vendors bother with RAID5 at this point. A RAID1 mirror of two 2TB drives is much simpler to implement, will have plenty of space for the average cinema, has the same read performance, and has much better write performance than a RAID5 of three 1TB drives. RAID5/6 made sense when drive capacities were smaller, but seems pointless in 2021.

Mostly the time period the unit was designed, built and sold. The new GDC SR-1000 IMB server now use 2TB of on board memory, not hard drives, of some sort for local storage, which eliminates the outboard RAID box and mechanical hard drives. They kind of left Doremi in the dust by doing so. There is an option to use an outboard server they sell for storage that can have up to something like 40TB...

[Steve Guttag]

Scott, I'm noting most everyone still uses RAID-5 for cinema servers (all brands), including new models. It could be just keeping what has been tried and true, could be the space and getting large 2.5" drives are significantly more expensive than more smaller drives. (2TB drives in a 2.5" size are a LOT more expensive than 1TB drives, for example, let alone 4TB or larger drives). Even on things like Dolby's IMS3000 with a NAS storage, they are using a 4 drive RAID-5 to achieve a 10.5TB storage. FWIW, the incremental cost of going to that, including the NAS itself is much less than the jump from internal 2TB drives from 1TB drives to have storage capabilities of 2TB and 4TB respectively (minus the RAID-5 consumption).

[Ron Higgins]

It would be nice if SSDs were supported in the GDC PSD3000's.

Stuck a batch of Seagates in one box, and while they appear to work okay, the reporting of some data is off. For example, the drive temps report as 3 and 4 degrees, which wouldn't be correct for either fahrenheit or celsius.

[Greg Routenburg]

So whenever you have a playback issue and request support from GDC, they almost always ask for results from a HBR Playback Test accompany the logs. One of the things that test does is check that the drives are on their "validated list". I would just give their support desk a call and ask as Steve mentioned. They're great to deal with and always give timely responses to any requests.

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