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» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Operations   » Digital Cinema Forum   » Is it necessary to wait for degraded drive or detect failure ahead Dolby Show Store.

   
Author Topic: Is it necessary to wait for degraded drive or detect failure ahead Dolby Show Store.
Eric Robinson
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 538
From: Santa Rosa, CA
Registered: Jan 2005


 - posted 08-02-2010 02:46 PM      Profile for Eric Robinson   Email Eric Robinson   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I just realized that the only way we have discovered degraded hard drives on our Dolby Show Stores is during a feature when the drive fails. Unfortunately this is also visible to the patrons while the system is unable to access the drive the screen either freezes or goes black several times before the drive is automatically kicked off line. It would be nice; however, to eliminate the step where we piss off an entire theatre of patrons and detect the dfective drive ahead of time. Is this possible? Or, must we just suffer?

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002


 - posted 08-02-2010 02:57 PM      Profile for David Stambaugh   Author's Homepage   Email David Stambaugh   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Does the server RAID controller use SMART drive error detection? If the RAID controller picks up any SMART errors from a drive before it completely fails, and alerts you, you could preemptively replace the drive and rebuild the array after-hours (although SMART isn't foolproof). Generally though drives are most likely to suddenly fail while they're being heavily accessed. If that happens and the RAID array goes into degraded mode in the middle of a show, there's not much you can do.

I say that while having no firsthand experience with the specific hardware involved. [Smile]

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Phil Ranucci
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 236
From: Carpinteria,CA, United States
Registered: May 2006


 - posted 08-02-2010 03:09 PM      Profile for Phil Ranucci   Email Phil Ranucci   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I believe that if you watch the bootup screen you'll see a report on the drives.

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Pete Naples
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1565
From: Dunfermline, Scotland
Registered: Feb 2001


 - posted 08-02-2010 04:21 PM      Profile for Pete Naples   Email Pete Naples   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Are we talking DSS100 or DSS200?

Is the software up to date>

As Phil said, you should see a report from the RAID BIOS at bootup.

I've seen plenty of degraded arrays, but never seen any playback interruption. Usually it alerts you via Show Manager, and a red light on the front panel.

Next you should perform a RAID rebuild, the procedure is in the book. If it can't see the drive to rebuild, or the rebuild fails, then replace the drive with the spare one you keep on a shelf, and rebuild again. All should now be well.

If you have DSS200 with V4.2 software, I believe that the unit has the capability to auto-initiate the RAID rebuild, which is nice.

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Kris Verhanneman
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 182
From: Belgium
Registered: Dec 2009


 - posted 08-02-2010 04:45 PM      Profile for Kris Verhanneman   Email Kris Verhanneman   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
On the new dolby soft (version V4.2.something) the rebuild has become just a click of a button. You don't even have to reboot the server.

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99


 - posted 08-02-2010 06:57 PM      Profile for Brad Miller   Author's Homepage   Email Brad Miller       Edit/Delete Post 
The auto-initiate only happens upon a power cycle, so if you are in the group of leaving the servers on 24/7, it will never auto-initiate. There is an option in the servers tab to rebuild the array though.

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99


 - posted 08-02-2010 08:39 PM      Profile for Scott Norwood   Author's Homepage   Email Scott Norwood   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
What David said. If the disks and RAID controller support SMART, this should be fairly trivial to implement. Agreed that it isn't a perfect indicator, but it should help identify impending hardware failures about half of the time, anyway.

What RAID level do these things use, anyway? Some are better able to withstand failures than others.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

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


 - posted 08-03-2010 06:06 AM      Profile for Steve Guttag   Email Steve Guttag   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
RAID 5. Three active, one hot swappable. I've never had a drive failure glitch a show (that anyone has reported to me). They normally just either see the RED LED or when they are loading a show, they notice that it is taking a very long time.

The auto rebuild thing is nice on version 4.2 Unfortunately, it already had to be used on a new DSS200 (installed in May).

Steve

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99


 - posted 08-03-2010 10:21 AM      Profile for Mark Gulbrandsen   Email Mark Gulbrandsen   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
If you are seeing drive failures often on DSS-100s then check with Dolby on the firmware versions on the drives themselves. They had a batch of Seagate drives with buggy firmware and Dolby has an upgrade disk to take care of the problem.

The first drive failure I can remember on a DSS-100 caused the player to do strange things. This was with earlier DSS-100 firmware so a drive failure could cause problems. Not on later firmware versions though...

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Eric Robinson
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 538
From: Santa Rosa, CA
Registered: Jan 2005


 - posted 08-04-2010 11:04 AM      Profile for Eric Robinson   Email Eric Robinson   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
The failures have occurred on DSP100's which have hardware RAID and run on the Linux OS. I have not seen and SMART drive monitoring for this unit and I likely would not enable just in case it would cause some type of conflict.

So far all of the drives I have removed were indeed mechanically trashed. That is you can hear that the drive bearings are shot. One of them actually fell apart and you could hear parts jiggle around inside when you shook it.

We do power the system down nightly but have not had the benefit (in all cases) of having a hard drive taken off line during the boot up.

We are running 4.08 firmware and likely will not upgrade since there is a cost involved.

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99


 - posted 08-04-2010 01:41 PM      Profile for Scott Norwood   Author's Homepage   Email Scott Norwood   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
If you have access to the Linux shell, you can install smartmontools to read the SMART information from the drives. In principle, you cound configure it to run periodically and send email to someone when there are potential issues.

Personally, I am not a believer in regularly powering down anything that has hard disks. My experience has been that disks tend not to fail when kept spinning, and do tend to fail when powered up after not spinning. That said, I am not familiar with the Dolby unit; if Dolby (or your dealer or service tech) has a recommendation either way, I would recommend following it.

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