I had a problem Saturday

nextgen1 · June 06, 2011, 11:28:04 PM

I had a problem Saturday. First off I don't blame OTS at all I'm pretty sure my problem was caused by my raid 5 setup which is 4TB (4 drives 1TB each). My normal way of starting my new system is after everything is up and running. I start my Raid 5 system it normally freezes the mouse for about 5-10 seconds as the drive is getting recognized. Most of the time there is no problem (Esata) if I don't see the drive I just reboot and try again. On Saturday the drive started fine and everything I thought was good.

I then started OTS and tried to play a song. Nothing happened at all, the song loaded but would not start. I noticed the little OTS guy in the upper right hand corner that normally spins was whited out. I tried opening and closing the program and the same thing kept happening. I rebooted and it was the same thing. When I tryed it again I rebooted and I left the drive off and started OTS first, it played no problem any song that I had on the computer just. I then started the drive and it seemed to be ok at that point.

I have never had a problem with this system before and it runs video and everything I throw at it. So you can see why I think its this drive. The thing is I have used it like 5 times before and there was no issue at all. I don't believe I was using up all my resources on my system. Any help finding out what happened would be great. I do have an extra drive and computer there so I could switch them out. All of this stuff happened 2 hours before the event so it caused no problems other than adding stress to my day.

My System: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZH0FrJWpW4

milky · June 07, 2011, 12:32:12 AM

I would be more suspicious of the eSATA connection or cable than the actual RAID drive. Unfortunately, for such a critical component, SATA ans eSATA cables are NOT very robust. I would investigate a docking station or some better way to couple the drive to the Asus.

nextgen1 · June 07, 2011, 12:43:12 AM

There is always USB but the esata was a big thing for me. And has been said the drive worked well and I could see it in the system. All cables seemed to be well in place I did check them all. What would make OTS hang like that do you have any idea.

clover-leaf-productions · June 07, 2011, 11:42:05 PM

Here is a crazy thought. I watched the video; nice rig! Then I wondered if you had put any shielding on that ESATA cable? Your RAID drive is low in the rack, far away from your lappy. That cable is passing by a lot of magnetic, high energy fields on its way from point A to point B.

nextgen1 · June 08, 2011, 12:43:49 AM

What kind of shielding would you suggest.

Dj Buik · June 08, 2011, 07:05:30 AM

(External) eSATA cables are already shielded.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

Also passive eSATA adapters can only support maximum of 1m eSATA cables.

Also use a good quality eSATA cable for critical environments.

clover-leaf-productions · June 08, 2011, 11:59:00 PM

I can honesty say I have never seen an external esata cable, but recognizing you are a fan of Monster equipment, I wonder if they make an external esata cable?

Another thought I had was grounding might be an issue. We earth ground equipment racks in the data center world to avoid signal noise issues. You might try a separate ground strap, or cable on the RAID chassis.

Dj Buik · June 09, 2011, 08:27:47 AM

Quote from: milky on June 07, 2011, 12:32:12 AM
I would be more suspicious of the eSATA connection or cable than the actual RAID drive. Unfortunately, for such a critical component, SATA ans eSATA cables are NOT very robust. I would investigate a docking station or some better way to couple the drive to the Asus.

Just wondering if you can use a NAS (Network Attached Storage) box in these situations.
A 1 Gbit link (crosscable) must be suficient. But it is more expensive!

http://www.synology.com/products/spec.php?product_name=DS211j&lang=enu#p_submenu

Two times 3 Tb => loads of OTS (mirrored) files....

Darryl · June 09, 2011, 10:12:30 AM

I'm using eSATA without any trouble. eSATA cables have a different plug as well as extra shielding. There's more details and a picture on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESATA#eSATA.

The RAID NAS devices are rather good, but expensive. The idea of a raid mirrored/striped storage is very nice - network connections with copper are at 1Gb though whereas eSATA handles up to 3Gb. So currently eSATA is the fastest external hard drive connection.

Note: USB3.0 has the potential to go faster than eSATA but the practical tests on available hardware have so far shown eSATA to be quicker: http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/02/05/esata-is-faster-than-usb-3-0-at-least-right-now/. I expect this situation to change very shortly with USB3.0 being the faster external storage connection.

Of course, if you can get a NAS with a 1000Gb network interface (probably using a fibreoptic connection) that will outshine both eSATA and USB3.0 (assuming a fast interface on the hard disks in the NAS).

As always, the cost is mostly the killer. eSATA enclosures and SATA 3.5" hard drives are cheaper at the moment. Something with both eSATA and USB3.0 connectivity would be a good choice.

Have fun,
Darryl

milky · June 09, 2011, 10:00:07 PM

My studio uses 1Gbit NAS and it works perfectly with Ots. Speed is more relevant when copying to/from the device. Ots works even when accessing it wirelessly at 54mbps. The NAD is RAID too, so it could be used in exactly the same way that nextgen1 is.

Darryl · June 09, 2011, 11:15:55 PM

Sorry. I forgot to point out that the speed only really matters when you are shifting around large amounts of data. For instance I run two identical systems. One is used day-to-day at home in between gigs. The other is kept packed up out of the way. When I purchase a new DVD I rip it on machine A. When I get to a gig, I might have acfew DVDs on the A system that need to be copied to the B system.

With eSATA there us sufficient bandwidth for OtsAV to play tracks whilst I am copying in the new tracks from the other disk. With USB2.0 I would see the video from OtsAV freezing.

Also when I do need to make a full backup (example due to buying a larger hard disk) the copy operation is quicker.

For normal playing duties, USB2.0 is suffient.

nextgen1 · June 10, 2011, 01:23:44 AM

This is the drive that I purchased. Everything seems to work ok now. Maybe I'm in to much of a hurry and I'm not waiting for the drive to become fully available.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/RPM3F8Q04.0T/

Dj Buik · June 10, 2011, 06:41:07 AM

Quote from: nextgen1 on June 10, 2011, 01:23:44 AM
This is the drive that I purchased. Everything seems to work ok now. Maybe I'm in to much of a hurry and I'm not waiting for the drive to become fully available.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/RPM3F8Q04.0T/

Activating a RAID protection can take a lot of time.

One tip (if you running for example RAID 5):
Buy a couple of spare drives and store them in a save place.
If one of your drives is failing in the future, you need to replace it with the same brand/model number.
It is sometimes difficult to buy the same brand and model after a couple of years.

If you running in JBOD (just a bunch of disks) than this is not the case.