Drobo opinions?

[Chiefcrowe]

Does anyone have one of these? I was considering looking at a solution like this for running video editing storage since sometimes regular external drives aren't that reliable...

 

[Sherman Bay]

I have used a 5-bay Drobo FS for a few months now. Overall, I'd say it's pretty good. My unit has 5 3TB Hitachi drives, and since it is set to allow a possible 2-drive failure at once, the max capacity is 8.12TB.

Some thoughts...

This unit is attached to my network with a 100Mb/sec Ethernet router, and my main computer is running XP SP2. This limits the speed and XP doesn't understand the capacity, so it reports 15TB usable, not correct.

It is my opinion that the internal coding in the Drobo is not efficient and the internal hardware is not the fastest. But security is paramount to me, not speed, and I have had no failures or loss of data.

But it is quite disconcerting when suddenly the unit isn't recognized by my computer after a firmware upgrade or the drive directory shows no files at all. The Drobo techs were quite helpful, knowledgeable, and not in India, which I consider a major plus, and the problem was fixed.

There are some annoying glitches, but you expect that with most everything, right? Some error messages make no sense and the intelligence of the Drobo Dashboard (control panel) is minimal. Example: it now tells me to replace a drive with a larger one as I am running low on capacity, but replacing a single drive would not increase it -- I would have to replace two of them at once because of the two-drive backup setting.

And when you're working with 2,3 and 4TB drives, just be prepared to wait a long time for a new drive to be resynced after replacement if your unit is pretty full. I estimate it would take 6 days to resync if I replaced two 3TB drives with two 4TB ones; meanwhile, backup protection is reduced. And the Drobo techs didn't dispute my estimate.

So if you really want to be safe, you are going to need two Drobos or some other backup functionality! Work that in your budget if you can.

 

[greenhawk]

XP doesn't understand the capacity, so it reports 15TB usable, not correct.

There are some annoying glitches, but you expect that with most everything, right?

Some error messages make no sense and the intelligence of the Drobo Dashboard (control panel) is minimal. Example: it now tells me to replace a drive with a larger one as I am running low on capacity, but replacing a single drive would not increase it -- I would have to replace two of them at once because of the two-drive backup setting.

1) that is how the drobo addresses the issue of expanding the drive size without having your OS re-size to a larger size. It fakes it's official size to the OS it is connected to.

2) you can expect it, but the drobo has been around for years and has not really changed. I would expect little "glitches" to mostly be ironed out by now, espically given the asking price.

3) with two drive protection, I would expect you would need to swap out 3 drives, not 2. 2 only works for 1 drive protection. When already using 3 or 4Tb drives, buying a second drobo will probably be a better idea than upgrading drives.

But then, Personally, I find the drobo too expencive for what it is. Now if they sold the software so I could run my own NAS with it, I would consider paying for it. As it is, that is not a option and so I find other ways to store my data (but I do not need online access to it).

One thing that drobo does well is supports expanding of the system, which means buying one and maxing out the drives from the start defeats the main advantage of the unit, so if you have the money to do that, looking at a small, high end NAS would be a better use of your money.

 

[Sherman Bay]

3) with two drive protection, I would expect you would need to swap out 3 drives, not 2. 2 only works for 1 drive protection. When already using 3 or 4Tb drives, buying a second drobo will probably be a better idea than upgrading drives.

I think you're right about needing to swap 3 drives. Which makes the error message even more wrong.

As my capacity needs increase, the drives keep getting bigger, so I will probably upgrade. If I get another unit, it will be to backup the first, not to expand capacity. I hate putting all my eggs in one basket.