Posted by Sean Bagshaw on January 7, 2008 at 1:28 PM
This is in response to Ryan's drive failure/data back-up thread. I posted it separately because I thought it was worth sharing with everyone.
I currently have a system of "working" external HDs + off site "back-up" external HDs similar to many of you. It has saved me twice, but storing the back-up HDs off site means that I don't back up as often as I need to. It also means that eventually I'll have dozens of external drives to manage.
I'm just starting to look into a product that might be a good solution. It is called Drobo (www.drobo.com). It allows you to continually add new drives to increase storage capacity and one or more drives can fail simultaneously without any loss of data. When a drive goes down, just add a new drive and keep working. The unit automatically distributes data so that it is safe. If you fill up the available space, just replace a smaller drive with a bigger one and automatically increase capacity. It uses standard internal drives, which are cheaper than buying external drives with their own housing and power source. The only thing I need to figure out before going this route is how to deal with off site storage in case of fire, flood or theft. Perhaps everything still needs to be on separate external drives as well, but how to manage that I'm not sure.
If anyone knows about Drobo or has an off site storage solution that would work with it, I'd love to hear.
Posted by Marc Dilley on January 8, 2008 at 10:40 AM
Sean: I was just reading about this in a book I purchased, "Photoshop CS3 for Nature Photographers" by Ellen Anon & Tim Grey. A solution that they put forth is to use a RAID system: Redundant Array of Independent Devices. Quote: "A RAID system system consists of two or more hard drives that function together. There are several different types of RAID devices, but we use RAID-5. When you back up to a RAID hard drive, the data is automatically copied to all the drives. If one hard drive develops an error, it uses the information on one of the other drives to correct it. We think this provides the best storage system currently available." This might be the same as the Drobo thing, but thought I would mention it anyway. Sounds good, but probably spendy, but it still doesn't address the issue of theft or fire. I guess you could burn gold DVD's and store them at your bank. But what a hassle.
I'm really hanging my butt out. I only have my computer and one lonely portable hard drive. But then I'm strictly an amateur.
Posted by Rick Lamb on January 8, 2008 at 10:59 AM
I'm looking into using the Drobo solution. Right now I have external drives and I make DVD's that I take to our safe deposit box. The Drobo as you mentioned is VERY versatile and a much more efficient solution compared against either external drives or internal RAID.
But it still leaves the question of off site storage. So when I do knuckle down and purchase a Drobo and several drives I will still have to create DVD's for off site storage.
The Drobo adds single site networked large storage that is flexible and ought to allow for long term growth. It's only weakness might be in the fact that drive technology is on the verge of going fully solid state in the next 5 - 10 years. Which would mean a completely different form factor. But for the time being I think the Drobo is a wonderful investment.
Here is a demo video that does a great job of demonstrating how a Drobo works:
Posted by Bryan Swan on January 8, 2008 at 10:49 PM
Drobo is definitely one of, if not THE coolest storage solution I have ever seen. I'm totally on board, but I dunno if I can justify spending the money on the unit AND the drives right now. Gonna have to wait until my next contract pays out.
I should mention that right now I have a pretty bad backup system. I have 2 200GB internal HDD, one for the OS, one for my pictures, and a 100GB external I use as an emergency repository, plus a spindle of archival DVDs I got when I was in Japan back in August (which I realized I hadn't even touched yet a few days ago - soon to be remedied). This sort of automated size independant pseudo-raid system would very much play into my lazy methods of backup.
Discussion
3 repliesI currently have a system of "working" external HDs + off site "back-up" external HDs similar to many of you. It has saved me twice, but storing the back-up HDs off site means that I don't back up as often as I need to. It also means that eventually I'll have dozens of external drives to manage.
I'm just starting to look into a product that might be a good solution. It is called Drobo (www.drobo.com). It allows you to continually add new drives to increase storage capacity and one or more drives can fail simultaneously without any loss of data. When a drive goes down, just add a new drive and keep working. The unit automatically distributes data so that it is safe. If you fill up the available space, just replace a smaller drive with a bigger one and automatically increase capacity. It uses standard internal drives, which are cheaper than buying external drives with their own housing and power source. The only thing I need to figure out before going this route is how to deal with off site storage in case of fire, flood or theft. Perhaps everything still needs to be on separate external drives as well, but how to manage that I'm not sure.
If anyone knows about Drobo or has an off site storage solution that would work with it, I'd love to hear.
I'm really hanging my butt out. I only have my computer and one lonely portable hard drive. But then I'm strictly an amateur.
But it still leaves the question of off site storage. So when I do knuckle down and purchase a Drobo and several drives I will still have to create DVD's for off site storage.
The Drobo adds single site networked large storage that is flexible and ought to allow for long term growth. It's only weakness might be in the fact that drive technology is on the verge of going fully solid state in the next 5 - 10 years. Which would mean a completely different form factor. But for the time being I think the Drobo is a wonderful investment.
Here is a demo video that does a great job of demonstrating how a Drobo works:
Drobo Video
I should mention that right now I have a pretty bad backup system. I have 2 200GB internal HDD, one for the OS, one for my pictures, and a 100GB external I use as an emergency repository, plus a spindle of archival DVDs I got when I was in Japan back in August (which I realized I hadn't even touched yet a few days ago - soon to be remedied). This sort of automated size independant pseudo-raid system would very much play into my lazy methods of backup.