Backup solutions like Drobo

rgrebby

rgrebby

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Im going to try and sort out my backing up, right now I backup the internal drive to a usb 3 external then replace the internal with a new one when the year is done.
I can then hook up the external usb3 as a working drive if I need to go back to previous years.

However, im now getting messy with the amount of drives I have and changing around the cables is annoying.

I was thinking of getting a Drobo, that way i'd have all the years on the drobo plus the other drives as the backup.

However, the drobo things are not cheap and im wondering if there is another option, perhaps even better.
 
personally ive read too many bad instances of issues with drobo and zero support from the company.

they are expensive but so are other multi bay devices out there. best deal around at the moment is the HP Microserver, which if theyre still doing cashback works out around £150 (there was some site doing them for £90 after cashback).
 
neil_g said:
personally ive read too many bad instances of issues with drobo and zero support from the company.

they are expensive but so are other multi bay devices out there. best deal around at the moment is the HP Microserver, which if theyre still doing cashback works out around £150 (there was some site doing them for £90 after cashback).
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Just brought one to backup my synology box with

And yes they are still doing the cash back
 
An alternative to fiddling with the cables is converting one of your 5.25" bays to a hotswap bay like this
 
Not sure how much data you need to backup, but Adrive offer 50GB online backup space for free.
 
..or Skydrive at just a few quid for around 30Gigs.

Not free of course, but as it's Microsoft's solution I'd expect them to be around for a while.

Works well too.
 
rgrebby said:
Thanks guys, 50gb is about half a month of work ;)
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What's your upload speed like. I use BackupSolutions which is unlimited for £60/year (I have 500GB up there at the moment), but clearly impractical if you only have a wet string to the internet...
 
So you are looking at 1Tb a year (minimum).

As this is work, I would recommend (should be standard) 2 backup locations, 1 local and 1 offsite.

Offsite - Seriously think about this, you can go for BackupSolutions as arad85 uses, or I have just signed up with Amazon Glacier (I want a company I can trust) which costs me $0.011 a Gb a month, this would work out as $11.24 a month for 1Tb, so this will increase, but is a reliable backup solution. These backups are compressed, so depending on files, you may save 10% ie 1000Gb gets compressed to 900Gb.

I would also recommend a local backup solution, but you could use something like the ReadyNas Duo with 2 3Tb drives mirrored. This would give you 3Tb of local storage (about 3 years) and then you can add another NAS as needed in the future.
 
Pedantic :p

Why not tough their storage products?
 
They're not the best in my opinion. Had shockers from their support. Our unit we use for misc storage at work is always doing consistency checks despite the disks being healthy, the interface is postage stamp sized on the screen and the permissions handling are a joke.

Synology, a little bit more money but much better kit and support. In my opinion of course :) had two netgear nv+ 4 bays and got shot for one synology 5 bay :D
 
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Fair enough, my first NAS, went for a cheap dell server at home and dell servers at work, so playing with it.
 
Synology or QNAP - can't go wrong with either.
Drobo is a great idea for a mix of drives with varying capacities, but with their reputation for failing, you'd be a brave user to daly with them, especially given the amount of data you're talking about.
Also, make sure the drives you opt for are Enterprise grade (5 year warranty) and with Seagate Constellation (iirc) you get a nice fat 64GB cache.

Another brand you may not know of, but is definitely worth considering is Sonnet - http://www.sonnettech.com/product/index.html
 
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I use a 4 bay drobo (hindsight...should have bought the 5 bay networked one) and it's been fine, I had the first unit changed because I thought the fan was noisier than it should have been....the new one was exactly the same though, guess it sounds loud when the mac is silent :D . Drobo support were actually very good and fed ex'd a new unit with a returns label for the old unit.
 
rgrebby said:
Im going to try and sort out my backing up, right now I backup the internal drive to a usb 3 external then replace the internal with a new one when the year is done.
I can then hook up the external usb3 as a working drive if I need to go back to previous years.

However, im now getting messy with the amount of drives I have and changing around the cables is annoying.

I was thinking of getting a Drobo, that way i'd have all the years on the drobo plus the other drives as the backup.

However, the drobo things are not cheap and im wondering if there is another option, perhaps even better.
Click to expand...

I have two drobos, had them now for say 4 or 5 years. Can't remember really. They are in daily use, I cycle disk packs through them, I've upgraded my disk packs to larger sizes online through them...

Not a single problem with them.
 
I have an lgnas n2b2 which has a blue ray writer in.
Can highly recommend them
 
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