I know the question has come up before about Drobos, but I know I am exposed for a data disaster over here and would like to come up with the best solution to my data problems over here. I am thinking about getting the new Drobo-S (which is esata capable). Couple q's 1) how many drives do i need as a min to get redundant RAID and 2) can you add new drives on the fly to add additional disk? Also, do they all have to be the same sized drives or can they be mix and match? Can people speak to their expereinces with it?
Thanks in advance.
RichieV
Posted by Phillip Noll on January 22, 2010 at 3:03 PM
You can add/remove drives on the fly.
You can add/remove drives of different sizes.
I have four 1TB drives in mine. That gives me something like 2.7TB of actual space. A drive can fail and I will not lose any data. If a drive did fail, I would just slide a new one in and Drobo takes care of everything.
It pretty much sits there and does its thing. On the down side I find the Drobo to be quite noisy. It always seems to be doing something with the drives and the fan is loud too. Its very annoying if you are trying to sleep in the same room! (My studio is also a guest room)
If you are on a Mac, you can run into trouble using a Drobo and Time Machine. Time Machine is set up to start deleting old backups once your drive is full. But the Drobo expects you to add a larger drive--hence your "drive" never really gets full. This confuses Time Machine. The two do not communicate well and I've had the thing crash on me. Didn't lose any data but it was a pain. Google Drobo and Time machine or send me a PM if you want more info on how to set it up so it works properly (you have to back up to sparsebundle files).
Posted by Paul Wegemann on January 22, 2010 at 3:07 PM
Richie, after my recent data mishap, I've been doing a lot of research on this. I'm looking at the Drobo or the ReadyNas. I haven't used either, but from the Drobo website, you'll need at least two drives for their raid implementation. This is true of any raid though. You can add drives on the fly, and yes, you can mix and match. Go to the configurator on their site - http://www.drobo.com//resources/drobolator.php
to see the data capacity you'll get with different size drives. Also, give the ReadyNas a look. Their X-raid and X-raid2 do the same thing as the Drobo in that they allow for online dynamic raid expansion. Hopefully some folks who actually use the Drobo will chime in. Some of the forums are claiming that Drobo tech support isn't very good. Can anyone here comment on that?
@Phil, Would I use it like my current external drives where I leave it off unless I am going to need the data from that drive or do you leave it on all the time?
RichieV
Posted by Mel Ladewig on January 22, 2010 at 5:54 PM
The first question is whether you want to use RAID 5 or RAID 1.
RAID 5 requires 3 drives minimum and gives a larger portion of the total disk space. RAID 1 requires 2 drives and gives just half the total disk (assuming equal size disks) because it is a mirroring solution. Both disks contain the same information. I prefer RAID 1 or RAID 10 for my data.
However, I would also strongly encourage you to look at a NAS product rather than the DROBO. The DROBO is great for a single computer, but a NAS or dedicated file server is more flexible in a network. You can have all the disk swapping advantages of the DROBO this way. There is a slight throughput advantage to eSATA over Gigabit ethernet, but I'm not sure it would show to a photographer in a practical situation.
Mel-
Posted by Phillip Noll on January 22, 2010 at 6:45 PM
@Richie, Usually I leave mine on all the time (same as my computers) and I have Time Machine set up to back up both my Macs (and all my images) to the Drobo twice a day. I only use the Drobo for backups--I have no other data on it. I suppose you could unplug it and only use it when you are doing backups.
As far as customer support, I've sent them emails with questions and they have usually gotten back to me the next business day. So if you ask a question on Sat you'll have to wait till Monday. They have also followed up to make sure I worked out whatever issue I had.
Posted by Kalin Wilson on January 22, 2010 at 7:02 PM
I've been using the same (older) Drobo for several years with NO issues. I've gone through at least 2 drive failures with it and lost nothing. I can't say that about a raid-1 array I had set up on a motherboard controller. You can network the device if you need to. The older units needed another device but I think the newer ones have built in networking. Most of us use it with a single machine in any case, so eSATA or Firewire are the better choices for that.
I think the Drobo is cheaper or on par with other NAS solutions and MUCH easier to manage. As Phil mentioned, it stays on all the time and just does it's job.
I use mine with time machine but don't now. I have about 1TB installed partitioned into two drives. With each the target of a full disk backup of other drives. I don't use it for routine storage, just backup.
You can format it for NTFS, HFS+ or whatever.
As always - Highly Recommended.
Posted by Don Grall on January 22, 2010 at 11:00 PM
Re: Leaving the Drobo on all the time. How well does it handle power outages? At my house we get power outages about 1-3 times a month!
As a result of all these outages I always shut down my computers and drives after each session to prevent a variety of possible errors that can occur when windows is not shut down properly.
Posted by Kalin Wilson on January 23, 2010 at 10:02 PM
Hey Don,
Yeah, I deal with the same power quality at my house. I have most of the computer gear sitting on a UPS, but even that doesn't prevent shutdowns sometimes. The Drobo seems pretty resilient, it's usually powered up and waiting for the computer to come back up when I come home and find we've taken a hit. But if you're in the habit of shutting everything down you shouldn't have any problems. My Mac seems to be pretty good at dealing with unexpected outages.
Do you guys use it in dual disk redundancy? That really whacks alot of space. Opinions?
RichieV
Posted by Kalin Wilson on January 24, 2010 at 11:43 PM
No. Not sure what that is, must be a new option.
In terms of space usage. I have 2x500GB + 2x320GB for 1.63 (1.49 actual) TB of storage.
Drobo has it allocated:
1.03 for storage
335GB for expansion
134GB for protection
1GB for overhead.
Hey Richie, check out the following site for a walk through of the original Drobo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sENCMKXBUc
I just picked up a 4 bay original Drobo, as they are discounting and offering a rebate on it. I got mine for like $299, which is really cheap. So far I am extremely pleased with the unit. It is incredibly easy to work with, no tools or anything required. I already feel so much safer knowing that all my pictures, music and movies are backed up. Granted, this does not protect me in the case of a house fire or natural disaster like that, but there are plenty of options available there already.
The rule of thumb Data Robotics gives is that you take the largest drive you have plugged into the thing and that drives space is removed from your overall capacity. This is not 100% exact, but it is a good rule of thumb.
The nice thing is that good 1TB drives are running $85 right now. That is more than enough space for me for a long time. =) If that becomes a problem, I can just swap a couple drives to 2TB. It really is a nice piece of equipment.
Discussion
11 repliesThanks in advance.
RichieV
You can add/remove drives of different sizes.
I have four 1TB drives in mine. That gives me something like 2.7TB of actual space. A drive can fail and I will not lose any data. If a drive did fail, I would just slide a new one in and Drobo takes care of everything.
It pretty much sits there and does its thing. On the down side I find the Drobo to be quite noisy. It always seems to be doing something with the drives and the fan is loud too. Its very annoying if you are trying to sleep in the same room!
If you are on a Mac, you can run into trouble using a Drobo and Time Machine. Time Machine is set up to start deleting old backups once your drive is full. But the Drobo expects you to add a larger drive--hence your "drive" never really gets full. This confuses Time Machine. The two do not communicate well and I've had the thing crash on me. Didn't lose any data but it was a pain. Google Drobo and Time machine or send me a PM if you want more info on how to set it up so it works properly (you have to back up to sparsebundle files).
http://www.drobo.com//resources/drobolator.php
to see the data capacity you'll get with different size drives. Also, give the ReadyNas a look. Their X-raid and X-raid2 do the same thing as the Drobo in that they allow for online dynamic raid expansion. Hopefully some folks who actually use the Drobo will chime in. Some of the forums are claiming that Drobo tech support isn't very good. Can anyone here comment on that?
RichieV
RAID 5 requires 3 drives minimum and gives a larger portion of the total disk space. RAID 1 requires 2 drives and gives just half the total disk (assuming equal size disks) because it is a mirroring solution. Both disks contain the same information. I prefer RAID 1 or RAID 10 for my data.
However, I would also strongly encourage you to look at a NAS product rather than the DROBO. The DROBO is great for a single computer, but a NAS or dedicated file server is more flexible in a network. You can have all the disk swapping advantages of the DROBO this way. There is a slight throughput advantage to eSATA over Gigabit ethernet, but I'm not sure it would show to a photographer in a practical situation.
Mel-
As far as customer support, I've sent them emails with questions and they have usually gotten back to me the next business day. So if you ask a question on Sat you'll have to wait till Monday. They have also followed up to make sure I worked out whatever issue I had.
I think the Drobo is cheaper or on par with other NAS solutions and MUCH easier to manage. As Phil mentioned, it stays on all the time and just does it's job.
I use mine with time machine but don't now. I have about 1TB installed partitioned into two drives. With each the target of a full disk backup of other drives. I don't use it for routine storage, just backup.
You can format it for NTFS, HFS+ or whatever.
As always - Highly Recommended.
As a result of all these outages I always shut down my computers and drives after each session to prevent a variety of possible errors that can occur when windows is not shut down properly.
Yeah, I deal with the same power quality at my house. I have most of the computer gear sitting on a UPS, but even that doesn't prevent shutdowns sometimes. The Drobo seems pretty resilient, it's usually powered up and waiting for the computer to come back up when I come home and find we've taken a hit. But if you're in the habit of shutting everything down you shouldn't have any problems. My Mac seems to be pretty good at dealing with unexpected outages.
RichieV
In terms of space usage. I have 2x500GB + 2x320GB for 1.63 (1.49 actual) TB of storage.
Drobo has it allocated:
1.03 for storage
335GB for expansion
134GB for protection
1GB for overhead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sENCMKXBUc
I just picked up a 4 bay original Drobo, as they are discounting and offering a rebate on it. I got mine for like $299, which is really cheap. So far I am extremely pleased with the unit. It is incredibly easy to work with, no tools or anything required. I already feel so much safer knowing that all my pictures, music and movies are backed up. Granted, this does not protect me in the case of a house fire or natural disaster like that, but there are plenty of options available there already.
The rule of thumb Data Robotics gives is that you take the largest drive you have plugged into the thing and that drives space is removed from your overall capacity. This is not 100% exact, but it is a good rule of thumb.
The nice thing is that good 1TB drives are running $85 right now. That is more than enough space for me for a long time. =) If that becomes a problem, I can just swap a couple drives to 2TB. It really is a nice piece of equipment.