Drobo S vs. older version

[shoeshine]

I’ve been looking around for reports/benchmarks/reviews/tests which can compare the newest iteration Drobo S (five bays with esata) to the previous second generation Drobo. I can find reviews of the new Drobo S, but nothing that speaks specifically to a comparison of performance differences between the two.

I won’t be using the esata port, so that’s not a huge bonus. I do like the idea of five disk bays with a dual disk failure redundancy. And I feel like datarobotics is touting the newer Drobo S model as being faster than the previous one, but not sure if that only applies with esata connections or if this is a general system improvement that makes the performance overall increase.

Obviously, the nearly double price of the S model makes it a hard choice to justify, so I am hoping someone out there has some has experience or can point me to some articles that can compare the performance between the two models.

 

[recordprod]

I’ve been looking around for reports/benchmarks/reviews/tests which can compare the newest iteration Drobo S (five bays with esata) to the previous second generation Drobo. I can find reviews of the new Drobo S, but nothing that speaks specifically to a comparison of performance differences between the two.

I won’t be using the esata port, so that’s not a huge bonus. I do like the idea of five disk bays with a dual disk failure redundancy. And I feel like datarobotics is touting the newer Drobo S model as being faster than the previous one, but not sure if that only applies with esata connections or if this is a general system improvement that makes the performance overall increase.

Obviously, the nearly double price of the S model makes it a hard choice to justify, so I am hoping someone out there has some has experience or can point me to some articles that can compare the performance between the two models.

I have the mkI (USB2 only) and the mkII (USB2 and FW800). The mkII is miles faster on FW800 than the mkI and is also significantly quieter. I think that it's likely that the Drobo S is faster still with improved communications and as you say, the second drive redundancy is attractive but then in storage terms you're currently stuck with a max of 5 x 2TB drives. I'm saving for the Drobo Pro as that's got loads more storage. Whatever you do, the Drobo is a great machine

 

[shoeshine]

yeah, i have heard from many people about the huge performance increase from the USB only version to the FW version, but can't find much on the newest iteration. I'd spring for the pro if i had the money, but its way outta my league right now. As is though, 5 x 2TB is plenty of space for a few years to come.

 

[shoeshine]

no one?

 

[xraydoc]

I can't comment on the Drobo S, but I just bought a Drobo FS.

Very nice unit. Pretty quiet for something with 5 hard drives in it. Very reasonable network transfer speeds. Easy to assign global shares and individual user shares (is it really a share if only one person can use it? LOL). Management is simple and it grabbed an IP via DHCP right away.

It's actually smaller physically than I expected, which was a pleasant surprise.

I opted for the network-based FS rather than the local-attached Drobo S as I plan to tuck the Drobo into the network closet in the basement once I finish some wiring changes. I don't need it sitting next to me on my desk. And I really didn't need the speed so much as the expandability and fault-tolerance the Drobo offers.

I would expect the Drobo S to be an improvement over the original Drobo (even the improved version), but whether the price differential is worth it is up to you. Depends on what you plan on using it for. Mine is mainly for backups and media streaming, neither of which require a fast unit.

 

[Unrealtechno]

Unless you are truly compelled to use dual disk redundancy, need the speed bump, or are out of drive bays I'd stick with what you've got. I found myself in the same position a few months ago and mad the jump but since mine used for storing media I don't really get any benefits. This doesn't sound very technical, but the biggest difference I've noticed is that it doesn't have to work very hard as far as data protection. The original one would sit and read/write quite hard at times and this one doesn't. It's also *slightly* louder and the LED's are so bright that I put it in an enclosure. It's nice, and if you didn't have one already I'd buy an S but I would've been perfectly content with my original one if I hadn't given it to my parents for keeping their photos safe.

Oh, and it's made of metal. sweet

 

[shoeshine]

Unless you are truly compelled to use dual disk redundancy, need the speed bump, or are out of drive bays I'd stick with what you've got. I found myself in the same position a few months ago and mad the jump but since mine used for storing media I don't really get any benefits. This doesn't sound very technical, but the biggest difference I've noticed is that it doesn't have to work very hard as far as data protection. The original one would sit and read/write quite hard at times and this one doesn't. It's also *slightly* louder and the LED's are so bright that I put it in an enclosure. It's nice, and if you didn't have one already I'd buy an S but I would've been perfectly content with my original one if I hadn't given it to my parents for keeping their photos safe.

Oh, and it's made of metal. sweet

thanks for this! it sounds like the S might be worth the extra $. As I am concerned about dual disk redundancy and it's going to be an active storage unit attached to a mac mini server, i think any performance increase is going to be worth it.