HGST or Toshiba for DCP-2000

[Shai Skiff]

Hi,
I checked the prices of Hard Drive for storage to DCP2000 and DCP 2K4, According the list of Dolby/Doremi Cinema Server Qualified Hard Drive List (October 2017).
And my dilemma is between HUS726040ALE610 (HGST) and MG04ACA400E (Toshiba) 4TB.
The HGST is more expensive like twice than Toshiba.
Doremi uses RAID 5 and we ingest from NAS so we covered by backup, both companies provide 5 years warranty.
I thought to buy the Toshiba. Any recommendations?

[Leo Enticknap]

If it's out of warranty, any drive that is branded as Enterprise or NAS grade (not "desktop") should be fine. We tend to use WD Red and have never had any problems with them.

The only situation in which you really need to use drives on the approved list is if the server is covered by an active warranty, in which case using non-approved drives could violate its terms, and therefore invalidate it.

[Steve Guttag]

Non approved drives are also flagged by the log analyzer but that is all it does...flag them. The current list is from December 2020. Screen Shot 2021-01-30 at 8.36.54 PM.png

HGST (Hitachi) was acquired by WD so, in a 4TB the approved drive is the WD4003FRYZ. There are now two 4TB Toshiba drives. I have no experience with Toshiba drives. I used to swear by Hitachi drives but since the WD purchase, I've had some issues with the 1TB versions (2TB seem okay).

[Shai Skiff]

Now more complicated
The difference between WD & Toshiba is 45$ here.
I know WD made great HD... but Toshiba is more cheap.
Any good or bad experience with Toshiba?

[Steve Guttag]

Since it is a RAID5...why not give the Toshiba drives a try since they are $45 cheaper? You'd have to lose two at a time before you'd crash the RAID and if they come with the same 5-year warranty, I'd think you'd be covered pretty well. Certainly, the show performance would not be compromised using them since Dolby has QCed them in order to put them on the list above. If you are still nervous, spend the extra $135 for the WD drives (presuming a 3 drive RAID, $180 if 4 drive) as that is a relatively trivial amount compared to consumables like xenon lamps that you'll change more rapidly than 5-year rated drives. The decision shouldn't be a hard one since Dolby has qualified the drives for you.

[Carsten Kurz]

I used quite a number of 2,3 and 4TB 3.5" Toshiba drives in recent years (I guess about 12-15), and they never had any issues so far. I would go with them. The somewhat cheaper WD red NAS drives are not on Dolbys list, but still perform solid in Doremi servers. I upgraded a couple of them with the 2TB and 4TB reds.

[Shai Skiff]

Perfect! I will go with Toshiba. Dolby has qualified the drives and you have good experience....
I saw the difference between the two, Buffer, 128MB in Toshiba and 256 MB in WD.

[Carsten Kurz]

These buffer sizes don't matter much in this application. They are already huge for both drives, and I guess they are more important during writing. And ingest speed really is not an issue.

The Doremi mainboard features SATA-II ports (3GBit/s), while these drives already offer SATA-III (6GBit/s). They are more than fast enough for what is needed in the Doremi RAID. That means, the Doremi SATA-II ports will probably be saturated by these drive speeds easily.
Keep in mind, these Doremis worked without issues with drives initially that appear as dinosaurs now. Every modern drive with NAS specs will easily outperform these old drives. Especially given that Dolby qualified them.

[Shai Skiff]

Thank you!

[Carsten Kurz]

You know you have to run fairly recent software on your Doremi in oder to use 4TB drives? Something in the range of 2.8.2x
4TB support went public in 2.8.18. The most recent is 2.8.30

[Shai Skiff]

Yes. we use 2.8.20-0