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mimizone

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 22, 2006
12
1
I am currently looking for a storage solution for home that is easy to maintain and future proof in terms of disk maintenance and size.
I found an expensive one call drobo which is pretty much answering all my needs when I suddenly wondered if Apple could just be working on one as a sort of extension of the digital life they create with all their apps and devices.

time machine is nice for backups, but it doesn't solve the storage headache.

I am more and more scared of losing a drive when they basically reach 1TB; not only because of the files lost, but also for the work it takes to recover from it....

just an opened question.
 

Apple Ink

macrumors 68000
Mar 7, 2008
1,918
0
Doesnt seem like it (Capsule was released lately) but you never no Apple!

Also, Drobo is really expensive! I'd get the HP MediaSmart!

You can terminal TM to backup on it and work with it like a NAS (Mac OS's SMB client can read and WRITE to NTFS) while install the console on a Win you have somewhere lying around! (You only need the console to edit the settings)
 

mimizone

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 22, 2006
12
1
I was thinking also about this topic in the context of ZFS and multiple external drives.
It could be more a software solution in the OS that could be in a new mac mini or your main machine (with support at boot in case of a system restore).

Just the idea of being able to buy any mismatched disks at anytime and put them in the zfs pool (with some scripting magic for automatic provisioning/deprovisioning), plug it and you're good to go, your files ("blocks") are safe and replicated, sounds pretty good and useful to me for consumers that don't have a clue about hard drives crashing anytime.
(still need time machine for actual backup of course)

Do we need a special box for this like the drobo or "just a bunch of disk" in esata/usb? I'll prefer a box for possible lower power consumption, less mess, easy maintenance and more an appliance approach as a mac is.
But doing it with a bunch of disk is possible for much cheaper right now, but only once the software is available or you can try to do it yourself (I am warming up my old disk for giving it a shot ;) ).
 

MasterNile

macrumors 65816
Apr 9, 2008
1,218
1
San Antonio, TX
I use My Book World Edition from Western Digital, got mine for $180 for 500gb version, and they have up to a 1tb for $280, but I don't know much about networking and wanted something simple to hold my itunes library on for my imac and macbook
 

kgarner

macrumors 68000
Jan 28, 2004
1,512
0
Utah
I haven't researched the HP MediaSmart so please let me know if it does this as well, but the amazing thing about the Drobo compared to any other product is that you get the redundancy of a RAID but you can easily add more storage as your needs increase. I have seen a few RAIDs (the ReadyNAS for one) that allow you to upgrade the RAID, but it involved buying 4 (or however many drives are in the RAID) new drives and then inserting them one at a time while the RAID is rebuilt until you had replaced all the drives.

Drobo allows you to easily pop out a drive and replace it. You don't need to match drive sizes and you can replace them as your needs grow, one at a time. There really isn't anything like it out there that I have seen. It's expensive, and that is why I don't have one myself, but it would be my first choice if I were in the market.
 
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