Drobo, good idea?

treeman

treeman

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Thinking of tidying up my storage and just using swappable HD's with just one enclosure.

I like the idea of the 4 bay Drobo, just wondered if there's anything else on the market worth considering? :)
 
Drobo is slow, I use 2 with FireWire 800 & to whilst they are good for backups quick they are not.
The Drobo fully populated with WD 2Tb drives give useable space of 6Tb, probably more than enough for most, I use them purely as backup with faster work drives.
Never had a problem with either of mine, I have not required more space but they may take 3Tb drives now.
 
My friend has one he found it had problems but they seem good in theory and I'm sure they are but there expensive I find I myself just use the 2tb wd externals and there good value that's just my opinion
 
I think they're good in theory, but when it goes wrong you'll find out exactly what proprietary technology means
 
neil_g said:
Usb2, usb3, FireWire or eSata?
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So many questions :-) usb2 and FireWire its for an iMac

boyfalldown said:
I think they're good in theory, but when it goes wrong you'll find out exactly what proprietary technology means
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Unless I'm missing the point, isn't the only thing that can go wrong Is drive failure, which would be the same with any ext HD?
 
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treeman said:
So many questions :-) usb2 and FireWire its for an iMac


Unless I'm missing the point, isn't the only thing that can go wrong Is drive failure, which would be the same with any ext HD?
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i think what he means is that drobo use a proprietary file system, which may cause you problems if the unit fails and getting the data off.

but then its like any storage and needs to be backed up.
 
neil_g said:
i think what he means is that drobo use a proprietary file system, which may cause you problems if the unit fails and getting the data off.

but then its like any storage and needs to be backed up.
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So there are other systems that are easier to recover data from?

I'd be running two Hd's mirrored, for one lot of data, so chances of both drives failing at the same time has to be fairly limited......doesn't it ??

The Hd's are purely for storage and not for working from, so speed is not critical either.
 
treeman said:
So there are other systems that are easier to recover data from?

I'd be running two Hd's mirrored, for one lot of data, so chances of both drives failing at the same time has to be fairly limited......doesn't it ??

The Hd's are purely for storage and not for working from, so speed is not critical either.
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Depends. If you're wanting mirrored that be raid, sometimes you can extract a drive from a dead enclosure and run it stand alone in a pc. But that will vary on units and the file systems they run.

Please don't rely on the mirrored drives as the only copy of your data also, it's still a single copy and is vulnerable to file deletion, corruption, fire, theft and some types of enclosure failures that destroy all attached disks.
 
treeman said:
Unless I'm missing the point, isn't the only thing that can go wrong Is drive failure, which would be the same with any ext HD?
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That's what I thought with my thecus until the motherboard/backplane went faulty.
 
Ok, I fully understand about keeping a copy off site, which is what I do via Seagate Go flex units.
But what your saying is if an enclosure fails it can wipe out all the HD's in it, and that's why mirrored is only 1 copy?
And can not all HD's can be read by another unit or computer?

So what is the the ultimate solution? (in layman's terms please) :)
 
Ive had my two drobo's now for years...Fast they are not, but then again they are fast enough to edit HD Video in real time across the USB2 link to my Mac...So how much faster is required? The difference between theory and practical reality I think...

The biggest advantage is of course the ability to grow on the fly, you don't have to fill it up when you start, once it is filled up you can swap out individual hdd's for bigger ones and it grows with you automatically....It is a very easy and convenient system.
 
Don't forget that Mac's have their own backup system called Time Machine. This backs up your files ,automatically, for you to an external drive. Simply get yourself a nice big external Hard Drive and let TM do the work for you.

Alternatively if you want to use swop outable drives get one of the many drive docks that are on the market.

Personally I let TM back up the contents of my hard drive, but all my images are stored on external drives. I have a set of LaCie drives that I use for back up, using Integeo Back up Assistant, which comes free with the drives ( Only works with LaCie drives though). Everything is initially backed up to a single 2TB drive. Integeo then only backs up the changes. So if you add images it only backs up the new ones not everything. The chances of two drives failing is fairly remote, but once a month I then back up to a third drive.

If you want the simplest solution, use Time Machine to back up to a large hard drive, preferably twice the size of your internal drive, that'll give you lots of space for back ups
 
treeman said:
Ok, I fully understand about keeping a copy off site, which is what I do via Seagate Go flex units.
But what your saying is if an enclosure fails it can wipe out all the HD's in it, and that's why mirrored is only 1 copy?
And can not all HD's can be read by another unit or computer?

So what is the the ultimate solution? (in layman's terms please) :)
Click to expand...

Potentially. I've had it at an enterprise level a couple of times where the controller board has failed and written rubbish all over the attached disks.

All hard drives can be seen in computers but the file system may prevent you from seeing the attached data. An identical unit should be able to see everything (I know my synology does, although I think someone on here tried it with a drobo and failed?).

Ultimate solution is at least 2 copies of the data (remember raid=one copy) with one off site, beyond that it doesn't really matter too much why hardware.
 
Chappers said:
Don't forget that Mac's have their own backup system called Time Machine. This backs up your files ,automatically, for you to an external drive. Simply get yourself a nice big external Hard Drive and let TM do the work for you.

Alternatively if you want to use swop outable drives get one of the many drive docks that are on the market.

Personally I let TM back up the contents of my hard drive, but all my images are stored on external drives. I have a set of LaCie drives that I use for back up, using Integeo Back up Assistant, which comes free with the drives ( Only works with LaCie drives though). Everything is initially backed up to a single 2TB drive. Integeo then only backs up the changes. So if you add images it only backs up the new ones not everything. The chances of two drives failing is fairly remote, but once a month I then back up to a third drive.

If you want the simplest solution, use Time Machine to back up to a large hard drive, preferably twice the size of your internal drive, that'll give you lots of space for back ups
Click to expand...

Personally I've found LaCie enclosures extremely unreliable (again in a working environment).

Chances of two drives failing at the same time even with mtbf being an average figure is quite possible, especially if those drives are from the same manufacturing batch. For example we had 3 drive failures in our San at work within a week and all drives were purchased at the same time from the same supplier so chances are they're all from the same batch.
 
neil_g said:
Potentially. I've had it at an enterprise level a couple of times where the controller board has failed and written rubbish all over the attached disks.

All hard drives can be seen in computers but the file system may prevent you from seeing the attached data. An identical unit should be able to see everything (I know my synology does, although I think someone on here tried it with a drobo and failed?).

Ultimate solution is at least 2 copies of the data (remember raid=one copy) with one off site, beyond that it doesn't really matter too much why hardware.
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I move my disks between the two drobo devices...And that is why I have two, one on my site and another at another location. Also was able to get a cheap LTO-04 Ultrium tape drive where I keep my proper backups, and they go offsite as well.

And on a corporate level I've moved many a disk (set) between MSA's without any problems other than that all the flipping physical connectors are different between various model :D
 
dejongj said:
I move my disks between the two drobo devices...And that is why I have two, one on my site and another at another location. Also was able to get a cheap LTO-04 Ultrium tape drive where I keep my proper backups, and they go offsite as well.

And on a corporate level I've moved many a disk (set) between MSA's without any problems other than that all the flipping physical connectors are different between various model :D
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Like I said I think i remember someone had problems with drobo, I can't remember without doing a search though.

Msa is a little different to a consumer device also :D
 
I think you can always find someone with problems :) Heck as you know the big corporate system have loads of them as well. However by design the functionality is there with the Drobo's, I know as I am doing it ;) That is all I am saying...
 
treeman said:
Unless I'm missing the point, isn't the only thing that can go wrong Is drive failure, which would be the same with any ext HD?
Click to expand...

you're missing what I'm saying a little. If you have a HD fail in the encolsure then you can just swap it, but if the DROBO itself fails, it will take all your hard drives with it, leaving you with drives you have no choice but to format and lose all the data from
 
boyfalldown said:
you're missing what I'm saying a little. If you have a HD fail in the encolsure then you can just swap it, but if the DROBO itself fails, it will take all your hard drives with it, leaving you with drives you have no choice but to format and lose all the data from
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Or pop them in another drobo enclosure :thumbs: and just continue where you left off...No different compared to many hardware redundant drive array controllers...
 
dejongj said:
Or pop them in another drobo enclosure :thumbs: and just continue where you left off...No different compared to many hardware redundant drive array controllers...
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There's alot of reports out there suggest its that simple in theory, but the reality is different. The propiatry format strikes me as the big issue
 
I have a 4 bay drobo running off the FireWire connection on my mac, speed seems ok to me. I can back up my photo archive and watch a film streamed from it at the same time. I use 2tb discs in it.

Their support was great too when they swapped my drobo after a week. I had complained that the fan was noisy but it turned out to be the same as the new one. :( noise and the frequency of the cooling fan is the only issue for me. It's not overly loud but next to a near silent iMac it sounded louder if you know what I mean.

If I was buying again, I'd get the networked version and stick the drive unit in another room :D
 
boyfalldown said:
you're missing what I'm saying a little. If you have a HD fail in the encolsure then you can just swap it, but if the DROBO itself fails, it will take all your hard drives with it, leaving you with drives you have no choice but to format and lose all the data from
Click to expand...

Thanks, I must confess I hadn't thought that was a possible scenario, but I'm beginning to understand it now :)

So it looks like the secret is, regardless of the hardware, (LaCie, Synology,Drobo etc) once you've updated your HD's with the latest shoot, take one out so in the event of a crash you've always got a good copy.......right? ;)

I'll also have my TimeMachine backups on Goflex drives too.
 
digitalfailure said:
I have a 4 bay drobo running off the FireWire connection on my mac, speed seems ok to me. I can back up my photo archive and watch a film streamed from it at the same time. I use 2tb discs in it.

Their support was great too when they swapped my drobo after a week. I had complained that the fan was noisy but it turned out to be the same as the new one. :( noise and the frequency of the cooling fan is the only issue for me. It's not overly loud but next to a near silent iMac it sounded louder if you know what I mean.

If I was buying again, I'd get the networked version and stick the drive unit in another room :D
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I agree with the fan, it is not the quietest...For my home office I also built my own online SAN which is totally quiet (fan less psu, ultra quiet fans etc), and only uses 17W at idle running...

Out of interest as there seem to be a few here that despite me saying that I change the disks constantly between my two drobo's that it is a problem. When you got your new drobo, surely you just popped in your old disks and were up and running again? Or did you have the problems that some on here seem to suggest?
 
boyfalldown said:
There's alot of reports out there suggest its that simple in theory, but the reality is different. The propiatry format strikes me as the big issue
Click to expand...

As I say, I do it constantly :thumbs: between drobos in two locations...I circle my disk packs around...
 
No problems at all, when the courier dropped off the new unit, I powered down the old drobo, ejected the discs and inserted them into the new unit and powered it up.

Nothing changed, the mac didn't even notice a hardware change.

I have the drobo showing up on my desktop as two drives, time machine back up and storage.
 
neil_g said:
Personally I've found LaCie enclosures extremely unreliable (again in a working environment).

Chances of two drives failing at the same time even with mtbf being an average figure is quite possible, especially if those drives are from the same manufacturing batch. For example we had 3 drive failures in our San at work within a week and all drives were purchased at the same time from the same supplier so chances are they're all from the same batch.
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6 LaCie drives I failure in 6 years ( The oldest drive running 5 days/week ) and it was the interface not the drive. Recovered drive an put in enclosure Now working as a back up of a backup of a backup.... Wot me paranaoid :)
 
I've got a 4-bay Drobo connected to my iMac via FireWire which I use as primary storage for photos once my iMac's internal drive starts getting a bit full. The Drobo itself is backed up daily to another set of (no redundancy) drives. Usually, I'll access the Drobo files using Lightroom and whilst it's not as fast as having the files on the internal drive I don't expect to be doing a lot of work on them once they're moved onto the Drobo. Browsing through preview images is snappy enough, though.
 
How did you get Lightroom to access the files on drobo?

I can't get Lightroom 2.7 to access my files on drobo, they seem to need to be on the internal drive.
 
NAS = Network Attached Storage (which could be a Drobo or other similar product).
 
I would much prefer to use a 3rd party program for backing up. Also, dont some drive manufacturers have special components soldered to the hard drive inside the enclosure? I am sure Western Dig do that.
 
This is my current thinking for storing images, get one of these as I don't need four drives on the go at once http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10310

Have the two drives mirrored, then take one out to store in separate location, put in new second drive, mirror that, and keep swapping with the off site drive as soon as I add a new batch of images to it.

Once the drives are full I'll replace with two new ones and store the full two in separate locations.

Now that has to be pretty fool proof......doesn't it?
 
digitalfailure said:
How did you get Lightroom to access the files on drobo?

I can't get Lightroom 2.7 to access my files on drobo, they seem to need to be on the internal drive.
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The catalog(ue) needs to be local, the files can be anywhere.
 
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