Sonnet Raid D800 – have I set this right?

[Ken Jones]

Did you tell Sonnet tech support the behavior the drive is exhibiting?
Perhaps one of the drives in the RAID is failing?

[Peter Dunphy]

Have emailed Sonnet Tech will all my info and waiting on reply – will repost with my findings and hopefully it will be of use to anyone else reading this thread.

It’s a brand new D800 enclosure and new hard drives also – so would hope that they’re not failing, but you never know!

Thanks for your feedback Ken :o)

[Jeremy Garchow]

Thanks for that info. Did you rebuild this raid or did you just plug it in?

It says you have 7 members in your setup. It should have 8, unless you have some sort of other configuration.

To get a speed test download the free AJA System Test and run it on the volume with “1920×1080 10-bit”
selected and choose a file size of at least 8.0GB. No need for a Kona card to run this software.

Also, what PCI slot is the SAS card in and do you have any other PCI cards in the machine?

Shouldn’t have to touch the NVRAM.

Jeremy

[Peter Dunphy]

Hi Jeremy

Gulp *nearly faints* I had one of the drives designated as a ‘hot spare’ as backup should something go wrong with a drive (automatic rebuild on the hot spare).

Aja Test: Disk Read/Write

Volume: Sonnet D800 Raid 5

Video Frame Size:

1920×1080 10-bit RGB

File Size:
8.0 GB

Disable file system cache – ticked ‘yes’

Sonnet D800 Raid 5.DiskWhackTest – 8192.0 MB

Write: 489.0 MB/s
Read: 553.0 MB/s

* nearly faints again *

Okay from those low(?) write and read speeds I guess I’m going to need to amend my current Raid Group of 7 drives to include the 8th. What would be the ‘safest’ way of doing this? I have hours and hours of video captured and trimmed onto the Sonnet as it stands – I understand that there’s a chance I could lose data by modifying the Raid – but do you think it’s possible that I could successfully modify the Raid to include all 8 drives without any data being damaged?

* faints*

I have a ATI Radeon HD 4870 in Slot-1

and the ATTO ExpressSAS R380 card in Slot-3

* feels pains in heart *

I just plugged in this Raid by the way – it is brand new.

Any advice you can offer would be dearly appreciated Jeremy!

peter

[Jeremy Garchow]

You call 489MB.sec low? Dude, that’s flying. At least it’s running fast.

There’s no need for a hot spare (in my opinion) unless you want it. This means that the capacity of one of those seven drives is recording the parity data in your raid 5, and you have a hot spare that is sitting idle. That means you can afford to lose 2 drives, but really I think you’d be safe with running just RAID5 with all 8 drives, which means that you will get the capacity of 7 drives. Right now, you are getting the capacity of 5. This means you will only be able to lose one drive in the array. Once you lose that drive and don’t rebuild the array with a new one, you will essentially be running RAID0. If you then lose a second drive, the raid goes down. Unless you are in very very hot and inclement conditions, I think you can spare to lose one drive. If it does go down, just do your very best to get a new drive from Sonnet and rebuild as soon as you get it replaced.

[peter dunphy] “but do you think it’s possible that I could successfully modify the Raid to include all 8 drives without any data being damaged? “

No, you would need to move the media to another temporary drive and then restripe and rebuild the array from scratch, then move the media back on to the raid.

I’d also try moving the card to slot 4.

Jeremy

[Peter Dunphy]

Hi Jeremy

Thanks so much for replying so quickly – that’s terrific advice.

Do you think running Raid 5 with 8 drives might make things run even quicker, in addition to the extra capacity?

I’ll proceed as I was with logging and trimming all of my clips. Then once I have all the clips trimmed, prior to starting to edit using the timeline etc I’ll move the Media to temporary storage while I move the PCI card and restripe and rebuild the array from scratch.

You’re a great help.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[peter dunphy] “Do you think running Raid 5 with 8 drives might make things run even quicker, in addition to the extra capacity? “

Theoretically, yes. You will get a bit faster speeds, and as the raid fills up, your speeds will stay higher.

[peter dunphy] “You’re a great help.”

No worries, just make sure to read the Sonnet manual and make sure you have the proper ATTO drivers and firmware that are available from Sonnet’s website. Make sure to setup email and audible alarms in the ATTO config so that you will get notified if a drive goes down.

Make sure to leave some time for the RAID5 to build once you start the process. It can take hours.

Jeremy

[Peter Dunphy]

Hi Jeremy

Will do!

Just now buying an additional 1TB internal drive for a bay in my MacPro to assist me with temporary storage of my captured media.

Happy days! Thanks again!

Peter

[Jeremy Garchow]

No worries. Also, stop fainting and having heart attacks! You’ll be all good.

Make sure to write back after you made some progress.

Jeremy

[Ken Jones]

[peter dunphy] “It’s a brand new D800 enclosure and new hard drives also – so would hope that they’re not failing, but you never know! “

I have only had a few drives fail over the years. It seems like they either fail when they are brand new or once they have a lot of miles on them. The last drive I had fail was a only a couple of weeks old.