Drobo + Time Machine

[darwen]

Hey Guys,

I just got a Drobo and am really excited! However, I am not sure I really want to use the redundancy it gives just yet. I was wondering if anyone had experience with it and could answer a few questions before I get started.

What I want:
1TB for iTunes (I have a huge library)
1TB as a carbon copy of my iTunes drive (in case the first one fails)
1TB for a time machine backup on the 2 macs I own (shared over the network)
1TB general storage of files, no backup

Basically, the only redundancy I want is on the first two drives. Can I make my Drobo use them for redundancy and then the other two drives as individual drives with no redundancy? I dont see much need for redundancy if using time machine. What is the likelihood I am going to have my backup drive fail the same day I accidentally delete something?

 

[daibach]

I've had a Drobo for about a year now and and am very pleased with it.

I'm not sure you've got what the Drobo is all about. It's basically RAID for the the rest of us. It automatically keeps a 'backup' of any file that you copy to it - whether that's an iTunes music file, document, whatever.

The idea is that if one of the drives fails in the Drobo unit, Drobo will have stored a 'copy' of the contents of that drive across the remaining drives.

Drobo manages the separate drives you use with it, presenting to you what appears to be a single drive - you don't have access to the individual drives.

For example, I have 4 x 1 TB drives. Drobo manages these as a single drive, but because it uses some of the space as automated "backups", I actually have only 2.72 TB available to use as storage - NOT 4 TB.

Having only 2.72 TB available (out of 4 TB) sounds small, but if any of my drives should fail, I can simply eject it from the Drobo, replace with a new one and Drobo will automatically restore all the data that was on the failed drive. Nothing will be lost because of the drive failure.

The amount of space you will have available will depend on the size and number of drives you use with the Drobo. There's a calculator on their website that will tell you: http://www.drobo.com/resources/drobolator.php

I don't use my Drobo for Time Machine (I have a separate drive for that), but the Drobo site says it will work: http://www.drobospace.com/blog/entry/11427/Q-amp-A-About-Time-Machine--Time-Capsule--and-Drobo/

Hope that helps. Sorry if I haven't answered your exact questions, but hopefully the info will be useful to others!

 

[darwen]

Thank you for the reply.

Yeah, I understand the purpose of it, and how the BeyondRAID technology works. It is really impressive and I would love to use it, I just was hoping to use the drobo without it for some time before I begin to take advantage of it.

I think I will just continue to use a few externals for things like time machine and use drobo how I am supposed to.

I have been very fortunate to have never experienced a drive failure. Its just hard to spend the money on extra storage if you have never had a problem, ya know?