Drobo Announces New Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 Storage Devices

[sigamy]

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.

The point is that when Drobo's fail, due to the proprietary storage and poor support, you are often left with little to no recoverable data and little to no help from support.

I've had this happen twice after a brief flicker of the power in my house. All my other external FW hard drives were fine. The Drobo? Lost. Couldn't read the library/directory structure. Called support and was told to spend another $100 to buy Disk Warrior.

All the data stored on my two $30 FW enclosures from ebay were fine. data on my Mac was fine. Only the Drobo lost data.

Sold the Drobo as soon as I could...

 

[Yahooligan]

Yeah.... That probably would be a problem too... However I have 350Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload so Crashplan might not be a chore if I only seed my photos and some other data to it.

I have 75/35 service, the problem with CrashPlan is that they throttle connections. Right now I'm getting 760Kb/sec. Not KB, Kb. Sometimes it'll ramp up to 1Mb/sec but that's about it. Yes, I have turned off bandwidth and CPU limitations in the client so that it can run as fast as it can. This is a problem with every offsite/cloud-based backup service I've tried, none of the consumer-level services have let me push data to their service anywhere near what my connection is capable of.

 

[Digital Skunk]

Maybe you didn't mean to, but the way you worded it actually did imply all of those options on a single enclosure. Re-read your own post.

Naw, at that point it would still be you inferring and making an assumption. Asking me if I meant to say that it was one unit would have been the best course of action. Instead of just implying.

Besides, there'd be no reason whatsoever for a manufacturer to produce a FW800 and TBolt enclosure would there?

I must say that I don't get that. I use what offers me the features that I need at the best performance versus price ratio. I don't understand why people need to defend their purchasing decisions or be fanboyish about it, but I guess that's humanity for you.

----------


Meh, I sometimes do have a tendency to try and get my point across a bit strongly. It's all with good intentions though.

Same here, I usually just stick to what I know unless there's a compelling reason to leave. Even through all of the HDD crashes in G-Tech, and the power supply issues with LaCie, I probably wouldn't go to another manufacturer unless they offered what I need at a great price.

With that being read, I am looking into Synology because I hear tell they DO have eSATA and have the ability to drop another enclosure into your existing one via a proprietary eSATA connection and expand your storage.

Very interesting.

 

[theSeb]

With that being read, I am looking into Synology because I hear tell they DO have eSATA and have the ability to drop another enclosure into your existing one via a proprietary eSATA connection and expand your storage.

Very interesting.

The eSATA port on the Synology is not for connecting to a computer though. It's only for connecting external drives or for the expansion units. I know some people make that mistake so I thought I would point this out.
I have the DS1511+.

 

[Digital Skunk]

The eSATA port on the Synology is not for connecting to a computer though. It's only for connecting external drives or for the expansion units. I know some people make that mistake so I thought I would point this out.
I have the DS1511+.

AH, good to know. I was looking into the DS1812+. I may look into the 2011 iMac's ethernet port to know for sure if it's GbE and hook up the array to that. Avid's forums are loaded with users that can't get a NAS to work well as scratch.

Haven't looked into Premier CS6 yet though.

I am going to stop while I am ahead and wait for TBolt offerings to be benched.

 

[Yahooligan]

Naw, at that point it would still be you inferring and making an assumption. Asking me if I meant to say that it was one unit would have been the best course of action. Instead of just implying.

This is a silly argument, but unless someone can read minds there's only one way to take what you posted. The fact that you didn't intend for it to be written that way doesn't change meaning.

Let's substitute some wording in your sentence, maybe then you'll realize what you said.

To quote you...

"Right now, from a media production standpoint, there's no other drive that I see that connects via eSATA/FW800/TBolt that offers smart RAID."

You did not say company or product line, you said drive. Technically speaking, Drobo doesn't even offer drives, they offer drive enclosures, but let's look past that and instead pretend we were talking about cars.

"Right now, from a transportation standpoint, there's no other car that I see that runs on gasoline/ethanol/diesel that offers hybrid power."

No one needs to make any assumptions about anything, you referred to a singular object that could do multiple things when in fact no such thing exists. If you want to discuss technology, great, but at least acknowledge when you mis-type or use the wrong terminology. It's not my fault you wrote something and meant something else, nor is it my fault you're still defending your improper wording and placing the blame on me for misinterpreting it.

Good day, sir.

 

[Sarlacc]

You shouldn't solely rely on a RAID enclosure as your working and backup storage. RAID does not automatically mean that you have backup as well. This holds true for any RAID devices.

I agree...which is why I keep copies of data elsewhere.

But the drobo advertises that if one drive goes bad, you simply pop it out, put in a new a drive and keep on trucking.

I had a drive go bad...and it managed to take out the 3 drives (which now work perfectly fine after being formatted put in enclosures) Drobo basically threw their arms up and made excuses.

Electronics fail, its true. But my Drobo didn't just fail, it didn't perform as advertised...and what really turned me off to the company was how they reacted to the issue, which was pretty much "sorry it happened, but we don't care"

But then you have someone with clout and word of mouth such as Scott Kelby and all of sudden you have the CEO calling seeing what they can do to makes things right so as to avoid the bad press....F*@k Drobo.

 

[Digital Skunk]

this is a silly argument, but unless someone can read minds there's only one way to take what you posted. The fact that you didn't intend for it to be written that way doesn't change meaning.

Let's substitute some wording in your sentence, maybe then you'll realize what you said.

To quote you...

"right now, from a media production standpoint, there's no other drive that i see that connects via esata/fw800/tbolt that offers smart raid."

you did not say company or product line, you said drive. Technically speaking, drobo doesn't even offer drives, they offer drive enclosures, but let's look past that and instead pretend we were talking about cars.

"right now, from a transportation standpoint, there's no other car that i see that runs on gasoline/ethanol/diesel that offers hybrid power."

no one needs to make any assumptions about anything, you referred to a singular object that could do multiple things when in fact no such thing exists. If you want to discuss technology, great, but at least acknowledge when you mis-type or use the wrong terminology. It's not my fault you wrote something and meant something else, nor is it my fault you're still defending your improper wording and placing the blame on me for misinterpreting it.

Good day, sir.

 

[theSeb]

AH, good to know. I was looking into the DS1812+. I may look into the 2011 iMac's ethernet port to know for sure if it's GbE and hook up the array to that. Avid's forums are loaded with users that can't get a NAS to work well as scratch.

Haven't looked into Premier CS6 yet though.

I am going to stop while I am ahead and wait for TBolt offerings to be benched.

I wouldn't use a NAS as a scratch disk. It's very much a media serving or back up device since you're restricted to around 100 MB/s due to Gigabit Ethernet. A DAS device is still very much the way to go. If you cannot go SAS, then I would go with something like this:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/arec...raid-usb-3-and-2-esata-firewire-800-iscsi-aoe

It's pricey, but you get hardware RAID.

The ARC-5040 is the most complete 8-bay 3.0 Gbps SATA drive subsystem with RAID control capabilities. The ARC-5040 unleashes a truly innovative multiple hosts (with 3.0Gbps eSATA, USB3.0, FireWire 800, iSCSI/AoE and USB2.0) solution for both PC and Mac. The eSATA port delivers in excess of 220 MB per second (MB/sec) sustained RAID 0 reads and over 210 MB/sec RAID 0 sequential writes. High transfer rates make ARC-5040 well suited for audio/video application especially the rapidly growing demand from the Mac Video Editing markets. The Intelligent cooling continuously adapts to environmental conditions by automatically controlling the speed of the cooling fans. This super silent design, optimizing balance between noise reduction and necessary cooling, help the resellers to offer the cost effective storage solution to the end customers.

I quite like Caldigit's enclosures as well, but in the end I've gone with a Pegasus TB R4. It makes the most sense due to the TB port for me.

 

[Yahooligan]

View attachment 345069

It's all good, I'm not madly typing away at my keys. I find this whole tangent silly and entertaining, it's a slow day.

Back on track, I do think it's great that Drobo is coming out with Tbolt enclosures with RAID of any kind, right now that market is virtually non-existent (G-tech's Tbolt products leave a lot to be desired). Hopefully other manufacturers will follow suit, but it may take Windows PCs finally using Tbolt before it's taken seriously enough. I'm finally starting to see motherboards released with Tbolt ports, but I haven't come across any pre-built systems that include any.

 

[Digital Skunk]

It's all good, I'm not madly typing away at my keys. I find this whole tangent silly and entertaining, it's a slow day.

Hopefully other manufacturers will follow suit, but it may take Windows PCs finally using Tbolt before it's taken seriously enough.

Definitely, I posted that a bit for myself as well. I am not good at knowing someone's tone from his/her words. I've been banned enough to know when to just bow out and remember that if we were in person, we'd probably be kicking it rather nicely.

Also, I agree. Firewire didn't take off as well as USB mainly because of that. It was available in many PC models, but the consumer market just didn't care to pay the extra cash and didn't see the value.

TBolt may still end up being a niche I/O port, or one that just serves as a way to get a quick and easy hub setup, but speed demons are going to be bathing in it.

I'll wait to see the benchmarks on the Drobos before I decide to drop the $$$ on it or a Pegasus. Not that the S is slow, I just want to get that speed of TBolt going on this iMac.

 

[polaris20]

The point is that when Drobo's fail, due to the proprietary storage and poor support, you are often left with little to no recoverable data and little to no help from support.

I've had this happen twice after a brief flicker of the power in my house. All my other external FW hard drives were fine. The Drobo? Lost. Couldn't read the library/directory structure. Called support and was told to spend another $100 to buy Disk Warrior.

All the data stored on my two $30 FW enclosures from ebay were fine. data on my Mac was fine. Only the Drobo lost data.

Sold the Drobo as soon as I could...

RAID arrays in general (not just Drobo) do not like power flickers, especially RAID arrays based on software (pretty much every NAS under a grand). You need a UPS to protect it. Comparing the Drobo to your FW enclosures is erroneous and silly; your enclosures aren't balancing data using software RAID. I had a QNAP go south and lose data because the techs I sent it to never connected it to the UPS I also sent. Lost data, even though it was a RAID 1.

AH, good to know. I was looking into the DS1812+. I may look into the 2011 iMac's ethernet port to know for sure if it's GbE and hook up the array to that. Avid's forums are loaded with users that can't get a NAS to work well as scratch.

Haven't looked into Premier CS6 yet though.

I am going to stop while I am ahead and wait for TBolt offerings to be benched.

iMac from 2011 is definitely GbE. I'd recommend finding a NAS that'll do iSCSI (Synology and QNAP will) and seeing if that'll work. However as someone else said, DAS is still better.

I agree...which is why I keep copies of data elsewhere.

But the drobo advertises that if one drive goes bad, you simply pop it out, put in a new a drive and keep on trucking.

I had a drive go bad...and it managed to take out the 3 drives (which now work perfectly fine after being formatted put in enclosures) Drobo basically threw their arms up and made excuses.

Electronics fail, its true. But my Drobo didn't just fail, it didn't perform as advertised...and what really turned me off to the company was how they reacted to the issue, which was pretty much "sorry it happened, but we don't care"

But then you have someone with clout and word of mouth such as Scott Kelby and all of sudden you have the CEO calling seeing what they can do to makes things right so as to avoid the bad press....F*@k Drobo.

Well, I've had three Drobos with failed drives, and in all cases, I've removed the drive and replaced, and it just worked. So......who's opinion is more relevant? The point is, anecdotal evidence is just that. Anecdotal.

Scott Kelby makes it sound like his data was just on the Drobo. If that's the case, he may be a good photographer, but he's also an idiot that should know better, as a professional photographer in the digital age.

 

[Sarlacc]

Scott Kelby makes it sound like his data was just on the Drobo. If that's the case, he may be a good photographer, but he's also an idiot that should know better, as a professional photographer in the digital age.

Actually, if you bothered to read the blog rather than assume and call names...Kelby keeps the data backed on THREE different drobos. And each of the THREE drobos failed on different occasions. Not the drives, the actual drobos.

 

[polaris20]

Actually, if you bothered to read the blog rather than assume and call names...Kelby keeps the data backed on THREE different drobos. And each of the THREE drobos failed on different occasions. Not the drives, the actual drobos.

Really? Then why can't he access his photos? In the article, he says:

Because for the fourth time one of my drobos is a brick.

One of his Drobos is a brick, he's got three, yet he cannot access his photos. Where's the replication? Where's the backup?

I actually asked for clarification from him in a response, and haven't seen anything yet.

To get my photos back, I would have to pay nearly $300 for drobocare (an extended warranty program).

Why does he have to pay $300 to get his photos back, if they're on another Drobo?

Because he's not actually using them as backup, he's using them as primary storage. If he's actually doing that way, "archiving" them to the Drobos without having them in at least 2-3 different places, that is then idiotic.

Let's assume for a moment that he was in fact replicating the data. Do you mean to tell me that one Drobo died, he didn't get it fixed or replace it, a second died and he didn't get it fixed or replace it, and finally a third? Drobo may indeed have terrible customer support (not in my experience though) and the device failure is completely they're fault. But either way, the data loss is the blog writer's fault, plain and simple. There's no reason he should be without the photos, no reason to have to pay to have them recovered.

If my Linux server dies, my WD drive dies, AND the Drobo, I drive to my other location (or have the drive shipped) and recover data. Just gas or shipping. And this is just my personal stuff, not business.

 

[Macman45]

[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]


Drobo has announced a pair of Thunderbolt and USB 3.0-capable storage devices. The company has not released official pricing and availability information, other than saying they will be coming next month.

Image

YouTube: video​

Users interested in the Drobo 5D and Mini can sign up to be notified of availability on Drobo's website.

Article Link: Drobo Announces New Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 Storage Devices

Pricing and reliability will be the key here...If Drobo want the same money as I paid for my R4, which is rock solid and reliable, I'm not sure they will sell well. The tower closely resembles the Pegasus except for the colour...If they do prove to have shaken off the reliability tag, and price the units sensibly (The Pegasus cost me £859, or $1321) a lot of money for a device so it has got to be 100% rock solid reliable....and cheaper.

 

[thederby]

iMac from 2011 is definitely GbE. I'd recommend finding a NAS that'll do iSCSI (Synology and QNAP will) and seeing if that'll work. However as someone else said, DAS is still better.

if only there was an iscsi initiator for osx that didn't cost $90..

 

[polaris20]

if only there was an iscsi initiator for osx that didn't cost $90..

True, but if you're spending $500 or more on a NAS and want higher performance, $90 isn't that big of a deal.

Still, I'd like to see the difference in performance between iSCSI and NFS on OS X. On vSphere the difference isn't that much at all, and NFS is easier to work with.

 

[Sarlacc]

Really? Then why can't he access his photos? In the article, he says:


One of his Drobos is a brick, he's got three, yet he cannot access his photos. Where's the replication? Where's the backup?

I actually asked for clarification from him in a response, and haven't seen anything yet.



Why does he have to pay $300 to get his photos back, if they're on another Drobo?

Yeah, that would because I don't live on here, I actually have things to do in the real world.

My assumption, since I actually read the blog is that he hadn't had a chance to move the information to another drobo/drive yet as each of the 3 drobos is in a different location, office/home/etc.

I'm SURE you're such a studios person that you immediately back everything up to all drives the very moment you transfer data...

You want love drobo thats your perogative, plenty of us have tried them and were burned and we choose to use different options (better, safer, and cheaper). And we do so without attempting to be condescending pricks.

 

[polaris20]

Yeah, that would because I don't live on here, I actually have things to do in the real world.

I'm barely ever on here, I am generally dealing with real storage issues, not "my $500 device that I put everything on died, and now I'm so angry" issues.

My assumption, since I actually read the blog is that he hadn't had a chance to move the information to another drobo/drive yet as each of the 3 drobos is in a different location, office/home/etc.

For some odd reason you're trying to make it sound like I didn't read the blog post, yet you're the one making assumptions. He doesn't make it all that clear what his data structure is, nor his backup process. However it's quite clear he's doing something wrong if he has to pay $300 to get his photos back.

I'm SURE you're such a studios person that you immediately back everything up to all drives the very moment you transfer data...

I don't know what a "studios" person is, but I don't need to immediately back up everything the very moment I transfer data. The machines do it for me. The minute you involve human intervention into the backup process, you introduce human error. Forgetting to do it, changing the media, etc. All I have to do is periodically check up on the process.

You want love drobo thats your perogative, plenty of us have tried them and were burned and we choose to use different options (better, safer, and cheaper). And we do so without attempting to be condescending pricks.

Condescending pricks. Hmm, pot, meet kettle. I don't love the Drobo. I've moved away from them in favor of QNAPs for minor storage at work for 2nd tier storage, and the only reason I have a Pro and 2nd Gen+share at home is because I got them dirt cheap.

I'd buy a Synology or QNAP over one any day. But Drobos also don't deserve the ridicule that they get, either.

Have a nice evening, and enjoy your NAS likely running MDRAID that can also fail.

 

[mozumder]

The point is that when Drobo's fail, due to the proprietary storage and poor support, you are often left with little to no recoverable data and little to no help from support.

I've had this happen twice after a brief flicker of the power in my house. All my other external FW hard drives were fine. The Drobo? Lost. Couldn't read the library/directory structure. Called support and was told to spend another $100 to buy Disk Warrior.

All the data stored on my two $30 FW enclosures from ebay were fine. data on my Mac was fine. Only the Drobo lost data.

Sold the Drobo as soon as I could...

Got news for you.. ALL RAID arrays are proprietary. You can't take disks written with one RAID controller and move them to another RAID controller or a DROBO.

 

[Macist]

I use my Drobo as a backup to my chain of LaCie FW drives. That's the way to be truly secure.

Yes, a Drobo drive can fail and you can simply replace it keeping your data intact, but it would be asking for trouble to see it as both a storage and backup solution in one!

 

[radiogoober]

How is OWC's rep? They have some attractive and well priced rackmount storage solutions.

 

[polaris20]

How is OWC's rep? They have some attractive and well priced rackmount storage solutions.

I love them. We buy all 13" and 15" MacBook Pros stock, then stick OWC 8GB RAM kits and 6G SSD drives. They all run perfectly, and the performance is awesome. We also have a ton of their little Mercury on the Go kits.

I'm looking at one of their rackmounts that use hardware RAID to do real-time syncing from one of the QNAP's.

 

[ed724]

Sure - but I'm fine with 0 at this point.

With 0, I have two identical disks. One fails, I still have another disk. That's all I need right now.

WOW !!!! You're in for a rude awakening dude.

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Way better off with RAID10

for speed maybe but it doesn't do anything for redundancy. Raid 5 is better for redundancy, slower than 1 but safer.

 

[polaris20]

WOW !!!! You're in for a rude awakening dude.

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for speed maybe but it doesn't do anything for redundancy. Raid 5 is better for redundancy, slower than 1 but safer.

He's already clarified (if you read the thread) that he meant RAID 1.