Drobo storage

santana007 · 31 Jul 2012

Hi

does anyone know how good or bad Drobo storage is .. I have 2tb of photo's now stored on an external HD .. And want a system to back them up safely ..

cheers

Rog

peely · 31 Jul 2012

I have the standard 4 bay Drobo connected via a Droboshare. To be honest it's performed brilliantly so far. I have 3 disks 2 x 2tb & 1 x 1tb. It's a very easy to use solution, but mine has not been put through its paces yet as it hasn't had any disk failures yet.... touch wood... so can't tell you how well it performs then.
However a mate of mine has had various Drobo devices for several years (It was his recommendation that made me I got one). He's had a couple of disks go and everything rebuilt itself with no intervention or any loss of any data
So if you're after a simple solution without the bells and whistles of a full blown NAS then I fully recommend it

santana007 · 31 Jul 2012

Cheers for the reply , Fingers crossed you don't have to find out how good it is when a drive fails .. Easy to use sounds good to me ...

What is Droboshare .. Is it just the use of the 4 bays and the way it spreads data ..

What i don't understand is if a drive fails how does it shift the data to another drive .. If it is a catastrophic failure then surly all is lost ...

Arwensarah · 31 Jul 2012

santana007 said:
Cheers for the reply , Fingers crossed you don't have to find out how good it is when a drive fails .. Easy to use sounds good to me ...

What is Droboshare .. Is it just the use of the 4 bays and the way it spreads data ..

What i don't understand is if a drive fails how does it shift the data to another drive .. If it is a catastrophic failure then surly all is lost ...

It's because the data is stored logically over 4 drives so if you lose one drive it can recover What's been lost because it's small bits it's easy to recover

It sound like a raid drive

neil_g · 31 Jul 2012

remember you still need a second backup copy of your data. if the drobo fails for some reason and trashes all data on the disks then youre up the creek.

likewise if you delete files accidentally or have file corruption etc.

jokeruk · 31 Jul 2012

Just a thought for those of you who use/thinking of using a Drobo,

Chris Marquardt (tips from the top floor podcast) had one - now he doesn't, but writes about it at http://chrismarquardt.com/blog.php?id=6088084470171323023

neil_g · 31 Jul 2012

jokeruk said:
Just a thought for those of you who use/thinking of using a Drobo,

Chris Marquardt (tips from the top floor podcast) had one - now he doesn't, but writes about it at http://chrismarquardt.com/blog.php?id=6088084470171323023

which is why like i said you always need a second backup copy, no matter what storage system you run.

if his data was important it should be BACKED UP. simples. no excuse.

JonathanRyan · 31 Jul 2012

Arwensarah said:
It sound like a raid drive

It is like a RAID drive but

1. more expensive
2. proprietary tech

Now #1 doesn't really matter but #2 may do. If you have a problem with a RAID drive then lots of 3rd party monitors are available to warn you and worst case there are plenty of firms that can recover RAID arrays.

If you have a problem with a Drobo you talk to....Drobo. And if they can't/won't help you then it's bye bye data.

Drew Gardner is one of several who used to use Drobo.... http://photography-thedarkart.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/end-of-my-tether-with-drobo-iscsi.html (there are lots of articles on his blog about his Drobo - by comparison I never mention my storage drives - possibly because they work.)

neil_g · 31 Jul 2012

again where a backup system comes in handy, even if its a USB3 drive that can be plugged in and worked from while the issue is resolved.

EdMoss · 1 Aug 2012

JonathanRyan said:
It is like a RAID drive but

1. more expensive
2. proprietary tech

Now #1 doesn't really matter but #2 may do. If you have a problem with a RAID drive then lots of 3rd party monitors are available to warn you and worst case there are plenty of firms that can recover RAID arrays.

If you have a problem with a Drobo you talk to....Drobo. And if they can't/won't help you then it's bye bye data.

Drew Gardner is one of several who used to use Drobo.... http://photography-thedarkart.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/end-of-my-tether-with-drobo-iscsi.html (there are lots of articles on his blog about his Drobo - by comparison I never mention my storage drives - possibly because they work.)

That article is 2 years old, do they still have the same problem with 10.6?
I use a 4 bay Drobo, so far no problems, buy one now before the more expensive thunderbolt versions come along.

santana007 · 1 Aug 2012

Cheers for all the replys .. very helpful

JonathanRyan · 1 Aug 2012

Edtog said:
That article is 2 years old, do they still have the same problem with 10.6?
I use a 4 bay Drobo, so far no problems, buy one now before the more expensive thunderbolt versions come along.

It's out of date because AFAIK he hasn't used one since. Scott Kelby spat his dummy out over Drobo recently.

For me from a system POV there's an inherent design issue because you are relying on a single firm to help you if things go wrong. That's a theoretical issue (or risk) if it's very rare.

But I know of 3 high profile cases where Drobos have failed and support has been less than forthcoming. I'll bet there are many more we don't hear of. For one thing in Kelby's case I think it made him look pretty stupid for not backing data up properly so I'm surprised he shared the problem with us.