For the longest time I was interested in Drobo but kept hearing bad things about it. Finally, a professional photographer friend recommended it to me and I took the plunge. It's been great for me. I love it.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Drobo Announces New Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 Storage Devices
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
In no way do I mean this to be snotty, but, you say build your own server. Why don't you do a write up and show us how?
I would * LOVE* to build my own server, because I don't trust these appliances either. But I don't know where to start, ie, which motherboard should I get, how much processor and RAM do I need, etc. Since I have been a Mac-head, I don't read about hardware that much anymore. I don't really understand what SATA or eSATA is. How many eSATA ports do I need on a motherboard? Can more than one SATA drive plug into an eSATA port? Can I buy a basic motherboard and plug six eSATA drives in? Then how would I do RAID? Or do I need a RAID card with 6 eSATA ports? Can SATA3 be read by 2?
I want to buy a shallow-depth rackmount server and put 4-6 drives in and run it as a raid and have it setup to just show up as a single network share in my network places. How?
no offense taken.
send me a PM and and i'll walk you through the components on Newegg. you're guaranteed to save hundreds of dollars
OK. So 4+ HDD's can get FW800 speeds. Not impressive. I know it is not made for actual connected use and should be for backup only but c'mon. I have other things to do and 4+ HDD's should get you at least 250MB/s+ regardless of the RAID level and inherent overhead. Truthfully 4 HDD's should net you 400MB/s. Just saying it is a miserably slow tech.
Their old technology is slow. They are claiming, their new technology is very fast. Are they telling the truth? I can't wait to see the benchmarks!
Got to love the way you are raising the bar here. First you complain that it can't even saturate USB2 (20-30MBps) so it isn't worth buying with a faster interface. Now you are suddenly setting the bar at 250MBps? If you read my earlier posts I note that the current gen speeds are not mind blowingly fast, but they are at least the equivalent of my other internal (non SSD) drives during normal use.
I also think most current gen Drobo users would disagree with your assertion that it is not intended for connected use. That is EXACTLY what mine is used for - it is my central audio/video storage/streaming volume. For that role it is perfect for me. No more dealing with running out of space as my library grows or re-organizing my data across multiple drives as they fill up. Plus as drives reach the end of their 'safe' lifespan, I just swap them out with new and bigger drives one at a time.
I've tried most of the 'roll your own' solutions out there, and for total cost (especially when you factor in the ability to mix and match drives) and ease of use the Drobo won hands down for me at the time I decided to buy it. Is it 'perfect', no. Is it the right choice for everyone, no. But most of the reasons being tossed around for not buying are more fear mongering than fact:
One reason is that it is too slow for normal use, but that has not been true with at least the current Drobo S. It WAS true with the prior gen devices. If your need for this type of device is maximum speed for video capture/edit/etc., a Drobo is NOT the device for you - you want the new Pegasus drives.
Another reason given is that it is proprietary. So are most of the RAID solutions out there. If you have to go disk by disk through the disks in a failed raid array trying to recover data and piece together the bits of files spread across multiple volumes - you have a serious failure in your backup strategy somewhere. RAID is NOT backup, it is redundancy/protection and usually allows for zero downtime with limited drive failure scenarios.
A third reason is that hardware failures corrupt the data. Same is true for any RAID solution. Bet most 'roll your own' proponents would recommend using the on-board MB software raid solutions to keep the cost below a Drobo, and there are plenty of horror stories about data loss and drive incompatibilities/failures with those.
Who cares...its just another way for drobo to fail and take your data with it.
I finally sold my drobo a week ago...and haven't look back. No more having a drive go bad and take the other 3 drives with it, while drobo's customer service was joke during the whole process.
I'll never buy or endorse another one of their products again.
I finally sold my drobo a week ago...and haven't look back. No more having a drive go bad and take the other 3 drives with it, while drobo's customer service was joke during the whole process.
I'll never buy or endorse another one of their products again.
Last edited:
Admittedly, I haven't used the direct-attach Drobo models (not what I'm after) but my second NAS device, after a ReadyNAS NV+, was a Drobo FS. My co-worker ended up going with a Synology unit at basically the same time and we were comparing our experiences. Long story short, now I have a Synology.
The Drobo FS was horribly slow, sometimes if I were lucky I could get 20-30MB/sec but most of the time speed was in the teens and only if I only had one device accessing it. As soon as a second device tried accessing data it fell on its face.
Some other issues I had:
- Unit would stop showing up in Drobo Dashboard, would have to powercycle it to get it to show up again
- Drobo Dashboard would sometimes be unable to login to the device even if it did show up
- The Drobo FS still used an MTU of 1500 even if I specified jumbos (9000) in the GUI. sshing into the unit and looking at the NIC showed 1500 still.
Also, some people are incorrectly talking about how flexible "BeyondRAID" is. If you have 5x1TB drives and you replace one with a 2TB drive you do not get any more usable space. That extra 1TB is "reserved for expansion" until you have a second 2TB installed. This is the same with any array, even the Synology. For obvious redundancy reasons the you cannot protect a 2TB drive with a 1TB drive.
Some folks may have an issue with thin provisioning as well that compounds this issue and that is the device reporting maximum volume size, not the usable size. In my case, my mounted shares were reported to be 16TB in size even though I only had about 3.6TB of usable space.
Did Drobo finally address the performance issues? I hope so, even if they did manage to get their 5-bay products to churn out a couple hundred MB per second that wouldn't be revolutionary, that would finally be catching up.
My Synology DS1511+ with the same drives that were in the Drobo has been nothing short of stellar. The unit is quiet, it's blazingly fast no matter how many devices are using it, management doesn't get much easier either. Not to mention being able to run the CrashPlan client locally on the box, it does everything I need with speed and room to grow.
It will be interesting to see how the new units do in the real world, but at this point Synology has earned a customer for life and Drobo has lost one.
The Drobo FS was horribly slow, sometimes if I were lucky I could get 20-30MB/sec but most of the time speed was in the teens and only if I only had one device accessing it. As soon as a second device tried accessing data it fell on its face.
Some other issues I had:
- Unit would stop showing up in Drobo Dashboard, would have to powercycle it to get it to show up again
- Drobo Dashboard would sometimes be unable to login to the device even if it did show up
- The Drobo FS still used an MTU of 1500 even if I specified jumbos (9000) in the GUI. sshing into the unit and looking at the NIC showed 1500 still.
Also, some people are incorrectly talking about how flexible "BeyondRAID" is. If you have 5x1TB drives and you replace one with a 2TB drive you do not get any more usable space. That extra 1TB is "reserved for expansion" until you have a second 2TB installed. This is the same with any array, even the Synology. For obvious redundancy reasons the you cannot protect a 2TB drive with a 1TB drive.
Some folks may have an issue with thin provisioning as well that compounds this issue and that is the device reporting maximum volume size, not the usable size. In my case, my mounted shares were reported to be 16TB in size even though I only had about 3.6TB of usable space.
Did Drobo finally address the performance issues? I hope so, even if they did manage to get their 5-bay products to churn out a couple hundred MB per second that wouldn't be revolutionary, that would finally be catching up.
My Synology DS1511+ with the same drives that were in the Drobo has been nothing short of stellar. The unit is quiet, it's blazingly fast no matter how many devices are using it, management doesn't get much easier either. Not to mention being able to run the CrashPlan client locally on the box, it does everything I need with speed and room to grow.
It will be interesting to see how the new units do in the real world, but at this point Synology has earned a customer for life and Drobo has lost one.
Wait, so you're saying Drobo is the ONLY electronic device out there that ever fails???
If you're saying that a Drobo fails more often then a standard RAID system, then you need to provide some statistics to back up that claim. Otherwise, you've mentioned a worthless point: anything can fail.
A Drobo isn't the be-all, end-all to data storage and backup. A Drobo is just one aspect of proper data management and isn't meant to be a 100% fail-proof devise.
has any consumer gear actually hit those numbers?
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-charts/index.php
----------
truth.
I've just read through the details on the Drobo website but just to confirm,
The Drobo mini says it takes 4 x 2.5 inch HDD/SSD drives is this correct? anyone have any idea how much this will set you back? this is exactly what i need with the amount of laptop hard drives i've got lying about.
The Drobo mini says it takes 4 x 2.5 inch HDD/SSD drives is this correct? anyone have any idea how much this will set you back? this is exactly what i need with the amount of laptop hard drives i've got lying about.
I dont understand too (I need read more etc...) but question:
ok a drive fails, I reemplace the drive and I recover the info right?? that is RAID 0?
if yes! cool but thats not magic, If you have 2gb drive, you need other 2gb drive for clone the info... so not magic here... just one drive is a mirror of other right? for that is you recover the info when replace the fail drive, RIGHT? or Im lost
Not exactly an ideal solution for people that don't want to speed much of their time putting it together, installing the software, and then having to deal with 3 or more vendors just incase something fails.
It works the same for those that choose Apple in the first place. Sure you can build your own PC and hackintosh it, run Linux, or Windows or all three. But then you essentially become your own IT person and tech. That has to troubleshoot any issues, then correct them yourself.
The money saved is moot when you consider the time put into building and implementing the solution. It works great for someone specialized in that area, not so much for someone that has other tasks to keep in mind, or someone who wants a set it and forget it type of solution.
You are doing something VERY wrong. I have a first gen Drobo S connected with eSATA over a TBolt hub with 5 SATA I drives in it and I get a consistent 145 - 170 MB/s. I would love to see the performance with SATA II drives.
As all drives and enclosures do at some point. This point it moot. I've had LaCie, G-Technology, and Seagate enclosures crap out on me because of boards, power supplies, etc. I've had drives crap out after 1, 2, 3, years and have had some for longer and give me no problems.
I've had four G-Technology drives turn to bricks after a year or shorter and would still recommend their drives because I've had far more drives in harsher conditions perform without an issue.
The issue that Scott Kelby has is far greater than needing an array. He needs a better storage AND archive solution. If my Drobo S ever went up like that, I'd still have access to my media files that are backed up on another drive. If I had the cash, they'd be backed up off location as well.
It's RAID 1 in the Drobo if you only add in two drives. Once you add the third it's RAID 5.
if yes! cool but thats not magic, If you have 2gb drive, you need other 2gb drive for clone the info... so not magic here... just one drive is a mirror of other right? for that is you recover the info when replace the fail drive, RIGHT? or Im lost
The magic happens when you add in a mixed bag of drives. Since every other RAID 5 on the market will make every drive the same size as the lowest capacity, you are limited to the smallest drive size in your array.
So if you have 1x 1TB drive and 3x 4TB drives your array will make all 4 drives 1TB. Drobo will actually allow you to use all of the space in your 4TB drives in a RAID 5 config.
All arrays are hot swappable, and you can replace drives one at a time. But again, you have to replace ALL of the drives if you are upgrading to start using the added capacity. With a Drobo all you need to replace are two to start getting the added benefit.
The last thing that I personally love about the Drobo, and not too many were offering at the time was on the spot reconfigs. I can switch between RAID 5 and RAID 6 (dual disk redundancy) on the fly.
Now, this is all coming from a guy that's personally used three Drobo models for over 3 years. The FS has been going 7 months or more non-stop (since I opened the box) without fail and has given me full GigE speeds. The S as stated above is as advertised, and my second gen Drobo 4Bay is dog slow even over FW800, but is just used as backup.
Last edited:
I don't think you understand how drobo works..
In a RAID array, if host device dies, you call throw your drives into a new one or tool up the drives manually to a PC/Mac and retrieve your data..
With drobo, if it dies, all you hard drives are now bricks and no more data...
If your Drobo dies you need another Drobo. You have to pull out the drives and keep the order of them the same when putting them into another device. Your drives aren't bricks along with the Drobo.
That's how all arrays work from what I understand.
In a Drobo supporting dual drive protection (such as the Pro, and FS), you can lose up to two drives before you experience data loss. I know this for a fact, because I have seen it work. I've got two Pros sitting here in the office.
As for a RAID array, if your host dies: you're making a blanket statement about RAID, when it so very much depends upon the type of RAID being used. As I've already stated, if it's a Buffalo, QNAP, or Synology, it uses MDRAID.
It's not as simple as pulling the drive and connecting it to a Mac or PC, even if it's a RAID 1. You have to know how to A. mount EXT3 or EXT4, and B. understand how MDRAID works and how to mount it. It's nowhere near as simple as you make it sound. You're doing a disservice to people reading this thread by making it seem like "Oh crap, my QNAP died; that's okay, I'll just put the drive in a toaster and connect it to my PC".
It doesn't work that way.
IF it were a hardware RAID1 mirror, AND it was formatted in a file system your Mac or PC can read, then yes, you can just pop it in a toaster and away you go. That's how some LaCie and OWC external drives often work.
Wow, not sure who did that testing but those numbers are way off, either due to the tester not configuring the units properly or something else.
First off, the Synology DS1512+ (Among others) has 2x1GbE NICs that can be configured for LACP so you're able to get more throughput. If the test PC only had a 1GbE connection, which based on the max numbers is the case, then the bottleneck is the PC, not the NAS appliance.
Second, for a number of appliances the network will be the bottleneck. My Synology DS1511+ is able to do 197MB/sec writes and 276MB/sec reads locally. Since it only has 2x1GbE NICs I will saturate them before I hit the I/O limit of the box when doing read operations.
I have done over 100MB/sec writes with my Synology over single gig-e connections, which is more than the benchmarks for the faster DS1512+ that you linked.
Hard to trust a site whose numbers don't match reality.
I was thinking the same thing, because some of those QNAPs listed we have, and they have dual GbE connections, which definitely improves things.
Right. I think people need to read up on what really separates a Drobo from a normal RAID array.
I know exactly what a Drobo does. Drobo has a place in the market to provide cheap RAID devices, running their version of "smart RAID" that hides the details from the user. This is hardly unusual in the NAS world and I am not sure why Drobo owners don't realise this. I guess it's because most have read the Drobo marketing FUD and believe it.
You're not the first Drobo owner in this thread to come out on the defensive with the "You don't know what Drobo is". You'll find that many know exactly what a Drobo is. It's not an exercise in rocket science to find out. Let me turn that argument around now: I think most Drobo owners need to read up on what normal RAID devices can do and find out for themselves why something like DSM 4.0 from Synology is miles ahead.
Right; stuff like EMC does similar things, and faster. The reason Drobos are so slow is because it's allocating data across drives using software, and with the processors they have in those devices, it's just not very fast. Obviously the faster the processor they use, the more it improves the situation.
You can also do a lot of the same "ooh wow, I've got different drive size" deal with stuff like FreeNAS, which will work with ZFS. It's not like Drobo is completely unique.