1U / 3U Hard Disk Upgrade or Replacement Question

[Calm-One]

Since being told by support that my original 1TB drives were only good for use via a trade-in program I have been curious about the following:

There is a sticker on each disk cartridge that states "This Kaleidescape Disk Cartridge has been designed and factory certified for use with Kaleidescape Systems. Use of an uncertified Disk Cartridge is prohibited, may result in damage to the Kaleidescape Server, and will result in a loss of Server warranty coverage."

How can the threat of loss of warranty coverage by the vendor not be in conflict with the Magnusson-Moss Act?

For those that do not know, this is the same act that is referenced for protecting consumers in various ways, such as the ability to put a different hard disk or memory into a laptop computer, using an enhanced non OEM battery on a cell/mobile phone, or put different brand of tires onto a car.

I have been extremely curious if anyone has ever tried to get a new hard disk identical to what Kaleidescape provides and place it into the disk cartridge where a hard disk has failed; e.g. I would use a Western Digital WD2002FYPS in a KDISK-2000-L disk cartiridge.

Would a unused drive in the above scenario be formatted and then married to the security of the system for use by the server?

Again, just curious if anyone has tried. If not, is it fear of the invalidation of warranty (which it shouldn't be due to Magnusson-Moss Act protection) or other technical reason?

Cheers

 

[Transepoch]

The actual warranty itselt doesn't say that, just how they don't cover any damage that occurs as a result of using non-K components. I don't have my spare drive handy to verify the stocker phrasing, but if correct, it does seem to come off a bit harsher in an effort to be shorter.

However, it wouldn't surprise me if they could get an exception on the grounds of how ingrained reliability is to the product, or more likely on IP-rights protection.

 

[Calm-One]

Thanks for the reply; I am not knowledgeable in legal issues beyond being emboldened by articles on the Internet and some common sense developed by several years in data center / IP networking technologies.

If the KWARR-EXT-DISK lists for $75 USD, and a new 2 TB WD seems to have a street value of near $200 USD, the economics and convienence of a self-service or even dealer-service model for replacement seem to be attractive.

That is why I thought someone has probably tried this; especially someone with a multidrive 3RU system or systems having a quantity of disks.

The other question would be, could a KDISK-1000-L-S 1TB disk cartridge be fitted with a blank WD 2TB drive to upgrade. $200 USD against what used to list at $1,245 USD (I think that has been revised downwards a little) makes that a very attractive idea.

Cheers

 

[Mr.Poindexter]

My guess is that the discs are not formatted with NTFS but probably some proprietary disc format. The Magnusson-Moss Act is not going to require them to provide that disc format tool. If another person comes up with the ability to format the drives and sell them, then the consumer would likely be protected by Magnusson-Moss but the person selling the drives would have to explain how they were able to develop it without corporate espionage or violating some the DMCA if they simply reverse engineered the system.

I suspect that if one did that, there is no guarantee that Kaleidescape's system of checking health status would be compatible since they list the serial numbers of the drives and if that is the primary key in their database they could claim there is no way to guarantee that a third party drive won't accidentally get an existing serial number to be reused, which would give them a tenuous ability to justify dropping a system from their health monitoring although that would be bad for their support reputation and I doubt they would go that far.

There would be a lot of work and/or cost to develop the format tool that one is unlikely to recoup or justify unless they started selling drives or licensing the program to others to make up for the cost/time/effort. Doing it for yourself is one thing, but making it a commercial venture that competes with Kaleidescape's revenue stream on their own hardware is a totally different animal.

Certainly it would represent a potential loss of revenue that could sting the bottom line a lot and they wouldn't be happy about that. Given that it would likely be something they probably could find a legal remedy for and that they have been willing to stand toe-to-toe with the DVD CCA for 7 years in legal battles when other large companies just buckled, I certainly wouldn't want to be the one sticking my neck out that far just to save myself a couple thousand dollars.

 

[cinelife]

There is also the SLA we all agreed to when we purchased the system. There are separate provisions in that document that arguably touch this area of discussion as well.

Certainly arguments can also be made that the "services" they provide are outside Magnusson-Moss (which generally does not cover Service) and that could impact using third party parts.

On a separate note, while I understand the desire to reduce storage costs, we all agreed to abide by the terms and conditions of the SLA. K is a small company, with a lot of dedicated, skilled, people constantly working to improve our experience. There are costs of doing business with the model they have that require reasonably steady cash flows, and disk sales contribute to this income. I'd rather be paying more and insuring the company remains financially viable then saving a few thousand dollars over time only to lose K's product support.

I don't speak for others, but there is also a non-legal consideration in my view. I "signed" an SLA (agreed to the terms and conditions) and whether I like it or not that document contains specific language about hardware, modifications, etc. that I clearly understood to mean I would be using only their products. Could I make a legal argument in an attempt to bring in the MM Act, sure, I'm a trial lawyer, that's what I do. Would that be fair? I'm an adult, I agreed to terms, and I own the equipment based on those terms.

Sad, but there was a time when our word meant something, now we have people sign long documents and hope they decide to keep their word.

CO (the OP), these comments are NOT directed at you, or anyone else. I know you are just asking the question, and not suggesting action in this regard.


Jim

 

[Transepoch]

My guess is that the discs are not formatted with NTFS but probably some proprietary disc format. The Magnusson-Moss Act is not going to require them to provide that disc format tool. If another person comes up with the ability to format the drives and sell them, then the consumer would likely be protected by Magnusson-Moss but the person selling the drives would have to explain how they were able to develop it without corporate espionage or violating some the DMCA if they simply reverse engineered the system.

I think the formatting is really only a problem for new-storage drives. You could probably get away with it if your 3U system suffered a failure event, because hot spares are usually bare drives anyway. Whether you could stick multiple "hot spares" into the box and have the system provision and format them for you is something I've never had/[knowingly]-tried to do. So, it may be a non-issue all around, as long as you had a viable system to graft from.

The problem then goes back to being that if you ever had a server issue, and K could point to the new drive as being at fault, your warranty goes up in smoke (at least in regard to that problem.) Plus it would make selling the system trickier, and you can pretty much kiss reinitialization off, as an SLA violation.

 

[Mark H]

Interesting debate.... yes the K disks are expensive compared to off the shelf generic ones but then look at the professional systems support you get whether it be technical or bookmarking disks to improve our viewing experience. Support costs money and yet it is free at the point of delivery so I am sure that part of the premium charged funds that support that we all know, expect and love.
Let's not confuse price with the value add and inovation that we all love and for me like I am sure so many others it was one of the key deciding factors as to why we bought these systems.

 

[JerryL]

Good points fellas. The way I see it is no one forced me to buy a Kaleidescape system. Its a luxury and its one that I made an agreement with the vendor to use only their products. I suppose if you could find someone else's products to use you could use them but perhaps the vendor doesn't have to give you warranty coverage then- kind of like how auto companies don't like it when you install someone else's exhaust or modification. Granted they can't invalidate the warranty for the stereo if you change the exhaust, but they can do it as it pertains to the drive train if you change a drive train part. I would like to see the price come down as well but I accept that this is a high end product and Ive gotten such good service that I am a happy camper.

 

[awil1966]

Agree and for what it is worth, i am a happy camper as well!

 

[Croptop]

A stock, off-the-shelf HDD will not work with a Kaleidescape System.

 

[Transepoch]

A stock, off-the-shelf HDD will not work with a Kaleidescape System.

SATA, no, but off-the-shelf SAS should... unless they lock it by firmware (which I would rank just slightly above serializing UPCs so customers can't price match among different retailers.)

 

[andrej770]

I am in no way condoning this, but technology advances, from a hard drive standpoint, are catching up with K-Scape just like CD's did for the music industry. There is no need to format the drive with their proprietary format before you use it. Bit for Bit Hard drive cloning software will do this for you. Again, I don't recommend this, but if you are already out of warranty, and you can block the port on your firewall that prevents their "updates" (system checks), and you choose to add HD's that have been bit by bit cloned, what can they say? I read someone mention earlier (in this thread) that there was an SLA that was signed. Yes, but I also signed on my drivers license that I won't go over the limit and stop (completely) at every stop sign. Again, I am not condoning going around K-Scape, I am merely stating, that the music industry charged high prices forever until they ultimately lost 75% of their revenue cause they didn't want to change their prices. Yeah, no one forced me to buy a K-Scape, but no one forced me to buy my BMW either, but I am not forced to buy the tires from the dealer. The only thing you are not forced to buy from K-scape (before or after warranty expires) is the power cord! LOL I'm just sayin'!!!

 

[Mr.Poindexter]

While it is possible to block the port on the firewall that prevents "updates", that would also prevent getting your system's new meta data for the movie guide service. I suspect that without the meta data, one would find the Kaleidescape experience degraded more than most would be want.

In other words, once you buy the Lamborghini, it is best not to try and save some money by getting the tires and oil changes at Walmart.

 

[justingn]

I found the thread I was looking for! As I look into entering the K ecosystem, I'll admit that the use of proprietary cartridges was something that irked me (especially once I saw the profit margins they ask for online - hooboy, and I thought HP was insane!), and I was hoping that some sort of compromise was/would be offered for owners of older K systems that want to use newer drives (like the 5U server or original C1), like offering the empty carts with some sort of firmware flash utility embedded in the OS itself (to lock the disks to that specific system, preventing a third-party supply of disks from cropping up for newer systems). I totally understand the reasoning of not offering such a solution for 1/3U servers, though, since that's K's primary recurring revenue stream (and a juicy one at that), but with the 5U and KCINEMA-1 offering 1TB drives in an age of 1.5TB+ drives available to consumers, it's pretty disappointing; then again, it seems the 5U might be old enough to be using PATA and/or SCSI drives, which would explain the exorbitant cost of the cartridges they offer currently.

If this is still the case, then sorry I resurrected the thread for naught. If things have changed, though, I'm eager to hear from the Dealers/Integrators!