Gdc sr1000 storage

[Shibu Paul]

I am using GDC SR1K for some of my screens and I need additional storage as it has limited storage.
My doubt is can I use the unused but functional DOREMI DCP2000 servers configured with GDC SR1K as additional storage? ( like NAS).
Valuable comments are expected.

Advance Thanks
ShibuPaul

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I have sucessfully converted an old GDC server into a NAS, and it's still working fine at that theater quite a number of years later. The full size GDC servers used a pretty standard Super Micro mother board that can run Linux or Windows. Doremi may have used similar motherboards. But truthfully, the easiest way is to build a NAS and use Open Media Vault. You can do this with a cheap PC or base it around a Raspberry Pi. I have done it both ways here at home and the Raspberry Pi is my preferred version. Doesn't generate heat, is very stable and can be done inexpensively. There are hundreds of videos that show how to build your own NAS on YouTube, so that would probably be a good place to start. I still back up all my stored data to a cloud service as well as multiple hard drives kept in different locations, so I have little chance of losing much of anything if something crashes.

[Leo Enticknap]

What current storage do you use with your SR-1000? Onboard flash memory ("CineCache") or one of the external eSATA RAID boxes ("Enterprise Storage")? If the former, this can't be expanded, but if you have either the 4 x 2.5" or 5 x 3.5" hard drive RAID boxes, you can add more and/or bigger drives. I believe that the firmware will only see drive models that are on GDC's approved list, so there would be that restriction, but this would give you the ability to increase your storage capacity without having to buy a whole new storage unit or use your Doremi, which would require you to transfer content backwards and forwards from the internal storage via FTP all the time.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I kind of assumed because he mentioned that it had limited storage that he meant it has Cinecache. I have serviced a few Indian theaters back in the film days and they tended to have a lot of film around back then. Do today they have lots of digital to deal with instead. IN this day and age 2GB is not much storage.

[Leo Enticknap]

Agreed. Bollywood movies tend to be 3-4 hours long, and it doesn't take many DCPs that big to fill up a couple of terabytes. If Shibu has the 2.5" eSATA external box with only three 1TB drives in it (which is how I believe it comes from the factory unless you specify that you want a drive in the fourth slot as well), then that will only give him around 1.8 TB of usable storage, and again, it doesn't take that many Bollywood epics to fill it up. One limiting factor of those 2.5" units is that the drive slots will only take 7mm or 9.5mm tall drives (not 12mm or 15mm ones, like the Alchemy will): I don't know if there is a 2TB drive available that would physically fit, let alone be recognized by the RAID unit's firmware. But if he has the 2RU, 3.5" RAID box, it should be possible to find larger drives to go in it. I'm sure that GDC would be able to advise on models that would work.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

2 TB SSD's would fit. Weather they would work, I have no idea. I do know people on here have posted that they installed SSD's in the PDP-3000 box. I'd sure want to check with GDC before buying three or four of them...

[Barry Floyd]

I have the GDC Enterprise Storage Plus units with my GDC SR1000's. It has space allocated for 5 drives, but we are using the default 3 drives that came with it. I think we opted for the 8TB storage per screen. What I like about the Enterprise Storage Plus is that it has a built-in CRU slot. Sure makes like easier when ingesting something that doesn't come in via DCDC.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I have the GDC Enterprise Storage Plus units with my GDC SR1000's. It has space allocated for 5 drives, but we are using the default 3 drives that came with it. I think we opted for the 8TB storage per screen. What I like about the Enterprise Storage Plus is that it has a built-in CRU slot. Sure makes like easier when ingesting something that doesn't come in via DCDC.

I like the Enterprise storage too, but it costs almost as much as the SR-1000. I think almost any server could be used to do the same thing via FTP, or the TMS program... CRU Bays are no problem... All my TMS systems have them.