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Author Topic: Degraded array ? John Eickhof Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 588 From: Wendell, ID USA Registered: Jan 2000 posted 05-30-2014 02:13 PM                        Running 13 GDC SX-2100A servers, just had the second array crash in two years of use! (all three drives) Is this going to start being a problem? I would think they would hold up longer than a couple years?  |  IP: Logged Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 05-30-2014 02:23 PM                     I've seen disks fail within hours of being installed, and I have one still in use that's over fifteen years old. I think two failures in two years is too small a sample to draw any conclusions from. While three drives all failing together is possible it's very unusual; are you sure you don't have a RAID controller problem?  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-30-2014 02:35 PM                     John, It depends on the brand of drive. Seagates pretty much suck. Hitachi's are much better but also seem to have slightly gone down hill since bought out by Western Digital. I'd consider three to four years on time the average expectant life span of any SATA drive. Out of well over 100 cinema servers I have installed in the last few years I've lost less then 8 drives total. It is very uncommon to loose more than one drive, has only happened to me once on a DSS-200. In your case I doubt that all three drives are actually bad. I'd rebuild the raid and see what happens with it. After rebuilding it look at the SMART info in the raid panel for bad sector counts. If they are high then replace those drives. Since GDC warrants their servers for three years you should still be in warranty and get new drives for free. Also... If you loose one drive and someone accidentally pushes one of the green illuminated buttons next to the drives then you loose the entire raid!! On the OS drives....since you are an important location and can't afford any down time you should seriously install an extra OS drive into each server, there is plenty of space next to the existing OS drive. You will have to get this drive from GDC because it has to have the SN (Certificate) burned into it in order to work. Not expensive to do and it could save you up to 4 days of lost screen time if you lost a drive on say a Friday evening. All of my furthest away sites and important locations have extra OS drives in them. I have yet to loose an OS drive but some of the GDC's are approaching four years old. Getting back on screen is as easy as moving the SATA connectors over and rebooting the unit. As far as drives failing... there is no set frequency but I also consider them an expandable like a lamp. A complete extra set of raid drives ready to plug in place and go can also save your day! I monitor some of my customers drives quarterly to see what the bad sector count is at. Mainly the sites that run lots and lots of hours. Mark  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 05-30-2014 03:03 PM                     Mark, you can clone the GDC OS drives. Get it on whatever firmware you deem the most stable (what do you recommend anyway since you're Mr.GDC) and then clone it. Since you love solid state drives and the OS doesn't need to be a large drive, that's actually an even better option. I do agree with you I think something went stupid in the software raid. I would simply delete it and re-create the raid and re-load content. Odds are it will be fine.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-30-2014 07:02 PM                     Yes, they can be cloned... Just didn't want to get into that on here. The OS drives they sell have been dam reliable for me. Not sure on the SSD aspect though. I'll have to try that. Mark  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-30-2014 07:16 PM                        Statistically, SSDs are _less_ reliable than mechanical drives. Strange, but true. Intel and Samsung seem to be the most reliable brands of SSDs at the moment.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-30-2014 08:50 PM                     I have quite a few SSD running in various computers over the last four years and no failures... Mark  |  IP: Logged John Roddy Expert Film Handler Posts: 114 From: Spring, TX, United States Registered: Dec 2012 posted 05-31-2014 03:58 PM                        SSDs still need some work before they're ready to be used in a commercial environment like this. For media storage, a RAID of mechanical drives is vastly superior. It's just a matter of which brand. In my experience, Western Digital has been very reliable. Overall, Hitachi/HGST is considered the best. If you're a masochist who loves facing regular issues though, definitely go for Seagate. Every GDC server we got here had a RAID of Seagate drives in it. Over the past year or so, I ended up having to replace every single one of them. Even GDC seems to agree that Seagate is crap. Whenever I reported issues with a Seagate RAID, they sent me an entire new set of Hitachi or HGST drives instead of one replacement Seagate. Blech.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 05-31-2014 05:14 PM                     quote: John Roddy For media storage, a RAID of mechanical drives is vastly superior. In case there was confusion of my suggestion to consider a SSD (since Mark loves them) was because the GDCs entire operating system relies on one NON-raid consumer mechanical hard drive, which is why I suggested they be cloned and for the consideration of putting them on an SSD. I must be the only person without any real issues on Seagate drives. My drive failures have been minimal. I don't think I'm doing anything special.  |  IP: Logged John Roddy Expert Film Handler Posts: 114 From: Spring, TX, United States Registered: Dec 2012 posted 05-31-2014 05:20 PM                        Ohhhhh, right. Yeah, an SSD for the OS would be fine. Not really sure if it's worth the investment though. I would argue that a mechanical drive is better for its longevity there. The biggest advantage of an SSD is the enhanced speed, but that's really not a big deal for this particular use. As long as it's not Seagate, it should be fine. Also, in all fairness, the Seagate drives I had here never gave me trouble until recently. It took about three years of constant use before they started crapping out.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 05-31-2014 08:26 PM                     Brad, you ARE the only one that doesn't have Seagate problems. I want nothing to do with them...they are the same crapola that Osrams are to xenon lamps. I can't disparage them enough. It isn't that there aren't good examples of them...(Osrams too) it is that there are enough bad examples to make them worth going out of business so as to not infect anyone else with their crap.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-31-2014 09:55 PM                        Which Seagate models are failing for everyone? I have had good luck with their Constellations (SATA and SAS) and Cheetahs (SAS only) in an IT context. What are the D-cinema systems using? I agree that Hitachis are good (at least the ones pre-WD-buyout). I have no opinion on Western Digital, since they mostly make consumer-grade drives and don't really do anything enterprise-y.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 05-31-2014 10:14 PM                     I've had Seagates fail at every level from consumer to Enterprise..eff em all. I've had nothing but success from Western Digital. Why do you say they don't do Enterprise grade drives? http://www.wdc.com/en/products/internal/enterprise/  |  IP: Logged John Roddy Expert Film Handler Posts: 114 From: Spring, TX, United States Registered: Dec 2012 posted 06-01-2014 01:27 AM                        It's to my understanding that Seagate had pretty solid products up until around 2010. Everything after that was apparently designed and built by Satan himself.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 06-01-2014 07:23 AM                     http://blog.backblaze.com/2014/01/21/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/ Interesting graph of failure rates in there. They are, however, using consumer grade drives, but very large quantities. Seagate sucks, it seems... - Carsten  |  IP: Logged

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