DCP server hard drive bays and caddies

[Van Dalton]

Stupid question that I'm sure I should already know the answer to. I'm doing a money-is-no-object media PC build for someone and they want removable hard drives, specifically using "whatever the brand and model of SATA caddies and bays is the distributors like Technicolor use to ship DCP drives to theatres". Assuming they still distribute DCPs that way that in 2025 (do they? I honestly don't know).

Anybody have a brand and model they can throw out/name drop? That's really all he gave me to go on. Is there even one standard make/model/form factor of caddy/bay that they use or is he talking out his ass? If such a thing exists where would we buy it?

[Marcel Birgelen]

The de-facto standard for DCI distribution is the Data Express DX115 DC interface and drive bay by CRU systems, also colloquially called the CRU bay.

Still, I wouldn't use this system for my local data storage, as it's totally inefficient space-wise, doesn't support modern SATA or SAS standards and is relatively expensive. Buy a server with hot-swappable disks and an appropriate controller from any known brand like Dell, HPE, Supermicro, Lenovo, etc. and buy an external CRU bay with e-SATA...

Also, what software are you going to run on that media server? I don't know many media servers that can handle DCP ingestion, other than very cinema-specific solutions that either come with their own hardware or TMS systems.

[Van Dalton]

It's not actually going to be a DCP server, he just wants to use that component for his external drives. It's going to be a souped-up PC that's going to live in his den at home, running Debian and Myth-TV with the removable drives used for his (rather large) collection of movies and TV series. Maybe also the occasional Doom deathmatch all-nighter. He's wanting to get a video projector but for the time being it'll be using his existing 65" Vizio wall-mount monitor for display.

I've tried to convince him there are much more modern drive bay systems available nowadays but he's not budging. But, you've given me an idea of a starting point for a potential backup/expansion system I might try to implement on my own PCs.

I have a couple fairly old CRU Dataport 8442-5002-0610 SATA bays and caddies here; are those similar of/compatible with the DX115s?

[Marcel Birgelen]

The DX115 Dataport was designed specifically for cinema by CRU, so I don't think yours are compatible. Keep in mind that the DX115 is limited to 6 GB, while that is plenty for most classical hard drives, many modern NVMe SSDs exceed that.

I've "digitized" my personal (s)VHS, Betamax, Video8, DV, VideoCD, DVD, BluRay, vynil, cassette, DAT, MD, CD and limited 16 and 35mm media collection "long time" ago and that lives on multiple NAS systems nowadays...

[Randy Stankey]

Get one of these babies! https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/thun...rbolt-3-raid-5

It's got four sleds that'll fit full-size hard drives, laptop drives or SSDs. It'll run in almost any RAID mode or, if you don't like RAID, it'll run as a JBOD. You can daisy chain up to five of them and they'll do in excess of 1500 MB/s, depending on how you set them up. (i.e. Different RAID levels affect transfer speed.)

I've got one, similar, and the thing is virtually bulletproof! When I first got it, I loaded it up with four blank hard drives and transferred all my stuff onto it using a desktop hard drive dock. I loaded two of my old drives into the dock and started copying them onto the RAID box. When they were done, I'd start over with a couple more. I did six drives in that fashion, running almost continuously for nearly a day. Never even so much as a hiccup!

I'm even considering getting another one so that I can keep all my ordinary files on one and my video and stuff on the other.

[Van Dalton]

Nice! A bit rich for my blood (probably wouldn't be able to have one in my own systems, unfortunately) but I'll have to somehow convince the customer to open their mind to using an external system.

For my own machines, I do love the idea of telling people, "I put 'movie projector computer' parts in my own PCs at home... do you?".

[Randy Stankey]

You can get a bare ThunderBay box for just a few hundred bucks. If you want to spend some cash, there are some that cost up to eight or nine grand.

I bought mine as a bare box, with no drives inside. I bought cheap WD-blue drives from the local Best Buy. (I know... I should have bought red drives but, as you say, they can get pricey.)
I also bought the RAID software which added a couple hundred to the price but it was worth it, for me. It took a little bit of tinkering to get the RAID set up the way I want it but, once I got it working, it has been virtually transparent. The whole box appears on my desktop as one, single volume. I just throw files onto it and it just works.

I have edited video, using it, and it works just the way I expect. I'm hoping to do a bigger video project, some time soon, and I want to see how it stands up to the torture test. From what I've seen, so far, I have good expectations.

One thing I like about it is that, as an external device, I can disconnect it and carry away if I ever need to. If, ever, one of the drives has trouble, I can just pull the old one out, slap in a new one and rebuild the array.

[Ryan Gallagher]

It sounds like this customer has an aesthetic preference for the classic industry "CRU" drive, do they have a hollywood or projection background? You can certainly entertain that requirement, but performance wise it is not what a big spender would use these days, they would be looking for contemporary SAS3 or NVMe backplanes and associated sleds from the server industry... but if all this has to do is shove a movie file around from an array of drives for playback, SATA internal or eSATA external would be adequate. USB3 might struggle with 4K less compressed formats.

If he wants to add the "industry" flare and don't mind USB3 speeds, just give them an external CRU dock complete with pelican, buy a couple more blank sleds for them to expand into?
https://cdsg.com/products/dcp-kits?c...d+Case&image=8

You can certainly buy the internal 4.25in bay receptacles to accept those carriers too.

Should also remind them that while convenient back in the HDD era... removable drive sleds are not the most data secure way to keep files, unless it's specific use case is for mirroring an off-site-ready backup drive of an otherwise data redundant setup. But transfer speeds might be on the low side compared to contemporarily USB-4 USB-C external drives if you go the CRU route.