DoReMi film lagging

[Andrew Freeman]

Hey gang,

my doremi server has finally gone and kicked the bucket. It can no longer make it through a film without freezing/lagging several times.

the raid has been degraded for some time, but I think we all know how tight all of our budgets are right now.

I have finally bit the bullet and grabbed a new Hard Drive. Any installation tips so I don’t turn this into a much costlier job?

thanks everyone!

[Leo Enticknap]

I take it you're certain that only one of the drives is bad.

If so, the rebuild option is in the diagnostic tool somewhere (but not at all, IIRC, in the web UI version of it - only the VNC one).

Apart from being careful not to let a screw fall while you're swapping drives in and out of the cartridge (which can easily cost you 10-15 minutes crawling around looking for it), I can't think of anything specific. I don't know if that model allows you to hot swap and rebuild, but I'd always want to avoid hot swapping drives if I don't absolutely have to, anyways.

[Dave Macaulay]

Just go through "repair". The bad drive MUST be highlighted first. Follow the steps for replacing the drive. Content will be ok. It says you can play during rebuild but I avoid it. Takes a couple of hours with 1TB drives.

[Leo Enticknap]

Also, be sure that you're swapping out the correct drive. In the diagnostic tool's section on the RAID, it should have a detailed entry for each individual drive that gives its serial number. Note the serial of the bad one, and check that this is the one you replace against the label on the actual drive. If the SATA to motherboard connections are miswired, it may not be a case of 1 = top, 2 = middle, and 3 = bottom in the drive cage.

[Jim Cassedy]

You didn't mention which model of DoReMi serverthingy you have, but I assume
you've checked the "official" list of Dolby approved drives for your unit. Other
drives may work, but I've always tried to stick to the ones recommended on the list.

DoReMi's do not tolerate "hot swapping" well. (From The DoReMi Manual)
DoreMi_DriveRules.jpg
Except for the above, it' pretty much a 'no brainer' . Have fun!

[Leo Enticknap]

The only real significance of the approved list is that you can be in warranty trouble if you put non-approved drives into a server that is still under warranty. But given that they will provide you with replacement drives for a unit in warranty if any fail, why would you? For non-warranty units, the only important thing is to use drives branded as for NAS or Enterprise use (e.g. WD Red), not desktop, because of important firmware differences.

That manual clip seems to state pretty convincingly that the drives in Doremis are not hot swappable.

[Marco Giustini]

It was a long time ago but I remembered there was a procedure for replacing a drive. Just switching it off abs swapping a drive won’t work - if memory serves and if SW hasn’t changed since.
maybe it was a matter of going through a wizard, selecting the bad drive, power off, replacing, power on?

[Dave Macaulay]

Yes you can change the drive when powered. You can change the drive first if you want, then go through the wizard. It "deregisters" the drive then prompts you to do the physical swap. Confirm that and the rebuild starts. So either follow the wizard and change the drive then, or have already installed the new one. Same result.
Don't remove a drive when it's running except for this. You'll have to do this process to return it to the RAID afterward.

[Elia Orselli]

The HDD replacement procedure is described in this article https://kb.dolby.com/CinemaKnowledge...y-Dolby-Server (with a nice video).
It's also possible to trigger the repair procedure from the web interface:
Screenshot_211.png

[Marco Giustini]

Glad I remembered that right!