OWC Thunderbay + SoftRAID vs Drobo?

[Ledgem]

Hi all,

I've been using a Drobo 5C for a few years now. Love it - setting it up was easy, replacing drives (due to failures and to expand volume size) is easy and effortless. The main downside that it was proprietary and would need another Drobo to access the data if the Drobo unit itself failed seemed a non-issue for me at the time, but now it seems that Drobos are becoming hard to come by (for reasons people aren't entirely sure of). That's worrisome. Combined with my displeasure that recently the Drobo has begun to eject from my computer at random, I'm beginning to look into alternatives.

The OWC Thunderbay products, paired with SoftRAID, seem like a potentially worthwhile contender. The downside compared with Drobo is that it's not quite as automated (I've read a bit about some of the processes to expand RAID volume sizes, as well as largely being locked into the number of disks you start the RAID with - issues Drobo does not have), with the upshot being that any computer could read the data from the disks even outside of the enclosure, as long as they were all connected. I had some bad experiences with software-based RAID stability years ago when I tried to make RAID volumes using Mac OS X's Disk Utility (volumes become corrupted twice before I threw in the towel), which gives me some pause here.

In short, I'm fishing for comments from OWC Thunderbay users, and would really love for anyone who has used both to offer their thoughts.

Lastly, I'll take care of two well-meaning comments that are sure to come up: I back up my Drobo and computer with Backblaze, so I am not worried about outright data loss if my Drobo were to fail on me tomorrow. It also means that I am only interested in direct-attached storage (DAS) solutions, and not NAS, as that would require a different backup solution (which could still involve Backblaze, but a different plan).

Thanks for your opinions!

 

[dchou]

Following this thread. I'm in a similar upgrade/research system myself. Currently using a couple WD externals with Backblaze and looking for a better DAS solution for the future.

 

[ThatsMrsGeek2U]

Did you ever move further thru this? I am in the exact same spot. For me I'm moving up to a TB3 capable computer, so wanting to take advantage of that and honestly having more and more stability issues with Drobo. But the more I read the more I wonder if Drobo has spoiled me for other RAID systems?

 

[Ledgem]

I ended up finding a way to stabilize my Drobo (seemed to be in conflict with another USB device) so for now I'm fine where I am. I'll share a bit of what I had considered and discovered, in general, but the gist is that Drobo may not be the king for performance, they are king for convenience.

1) SoftRAID (with or without the Thunderbay) seems like the most promising, but compared with Drobo, it's less flexible. Basically, the drives you select going in should all be the same size, and the process to upgrade the capacity of your RAID is a bit more involved. I had asked if they had plans to support mixed drive sizes and even to expand or decrease the size of the RAID, particularly as they have a major new version release on the horizon, but they said no. I'm guessing it may come at some point, but not in the next few years.

2) QNAP has both NAS and DAS systems, but from what I've read, the DAS is more like a NAS with a local connection. It also has similar restrictions as SoftRAID in that while you can mix and match drives, the RAID size will be limited by the size of the smallest drive in the array (all drives are treated like they're the size of the smallest drive).

3) Synology NAS systems are NAS only, but in their behavior they may be the most similar to Drobo (you can mix and match drives, and the RAID expands even if the drives are different sizes. As Synology also has add-on bays to expand the size of the RAID, I assume that also means you can increase or decrease the number of disks and be fine). I use a Synology router and while the software isn't flawless, I do like it. If only Synology made a DAS...

Basically, here's where I'm at. If my Drobo died tomorrow:
If Drobo showed signs of life and their products came back in stock, I'd get another Drobo.
If Drobo were still showing signs of being a ghost of a company these days, I'd get the Thunderbay with SoftRAID, and buy some hard drives to ensure they were all the same size.
If Synology started to make DAS units, I'd strongly consider getting one even if Drobo became much more active as a company and even if my own Drobo were perfectly healthy.

 

[chabig]

I replaced my Drobo 5D with an OWC Elite Pro Dock. I originally bought the 5 drive Drobo because I liked its software and ability to swap out drives easily, and with 5 bays I could load it to the capacity I need. But though Drobo the company is not yet dead, they seem to be going in that direction. I couldn't have connected my 5D to my new M1 Mini over Thunderbolt because Drobo still uses kernel extensions that have been deprecated in Big Sur.

So I went shopping and decided the hardware RAID, two-bay, elite pro dock was right for me. It connects with Thunderbolt 3, and because modern hard drive capacity has gone up so much I am able to get the storage I need with just two drives. So consider that you might need a 5 bay product to replace your Drobo 5C.

OWC Gemini

The only drive you need to organize your digital life. Features dual drives and seven ports, taking you from notebook to workstation in seconds.

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[ThatsMrsGeek2U]

Thanks folks, still working at wrapping my head around all of it, right in the beginning of starting up fresh M1 systems for two of the household members, the other two computers will upgrade to Big Sure, bit will be intel for the foreseeable future as they are less than a year old. I have no particular objections to a NAS system for central back up, though I will still need a DAS for our large media libraries (hubby is a photographer) and a volume for time machine. Soo many working parts.

 

[justashooter]

Have you looked into the Promise Technology Pegasus?

I have not used one, I went with a OWC Thunderbay 4 Mini (in thunderbolt 2 for my 2012 MacBook Pro). I use it in a RAID 0 for the speed for photoshop and video editing.

 

[Traverse]

I've been considering the OWC Thunderbay Mini. I already have a 4TB 2.5 SSD drive and I could buy a few more or a few 2TB drives (do all drives need to be the same size?). That or my next iMac will have the 8TB SSD option, but that's very wasteful for media storage (but so is an SSD raid I suppose).

 

[justashooter]

If they are set as a RAID, yes the disk should be the same size or they will size as the smallest drive in the RAID set. In your case you could use the 4tb in the Thunderbay Mini as a single disk, and then three others as a 3 disk RAID all in the same enclosure.

 

[TwoBytes]

I'm adding to this thread as this may help
Softraid say you can mix and match drives which means it wins out against Drobo

Different or identical hard drives for SoftRAID?

New user question... Always believed I had to use identical hard drives in my hardware RAID boxes. But for SoftRAID? I want to set up a RAID 1 o...

forums.softraid.com

 

[Ledgem]

I'm adding to this thread as this may help
Softraid say you can mix and match drives which means it wins out against Drobo

Different or identical hard drives for SoftRAID?

New user question... Always believed I had to use identical hard drives in my hardware RAID boxes. But for SoftRAID? I want to set up a RAID 1 o...

forums.softraid.com

It doesn't. They support different hard drive sizes, but not in the way that Drobo does. See this thread for clarification:

Planning for future replacement of Drobo 5D

I'm currently using a Drobo 5D for Time Machine backups. From what I've read, direct attached storage is more reliable for time machine (NAS includin...

forums.softraid.com

Basically, with Drobo you can use drives of different sizes and Drobo would use all of the space (with some exceptions - if there is a large disparity in sizes between one outlier drive then you lose some space, for example if you have four 3 TB drives and one 8 TB drive, it would only use 4 TB of the 8 TB drive; but if you have three 3 TB and two 8 TB drives, everything is used). Additionally, expansion is seamless - just pull out one drive, plug in your new drive, and Drobo will automatically integrate the new drive and expand your storage.

What SoftRAID is saying is that you can mix and match drive sizes, but they'll treat every drive as if it's the size of the smallest drive in the array. So if you have three 3 TB drives and two 8 TB drives, SoftRAID treats them like you have five 3 TB drives. That's a lot of wasted space. Worse yet, based on what they had replied to me, even if you replace your 3 TB drives with all 8 TB drives, you'd need to entirely rebuild the array to expand it. I am under the impression that means you'd need to move all of your data off elsewhere, then completely rebuild the array and move all of the data back. That's really inflexible compared with Drobo. The worst part is that SoftRAID indicated that they're unlikely to ever support a flexible option like that because it's "messy."

I trust the SoftRAID developers when they say that, but it's not like Drobo is the only company that does this. Synology - a company with a lot more trust than Drobo - has the same option, albeit with a different file system than Drobo used. I replaced my Drobo with a Synology and can speak from experience on this one that it works the exact same, you can remove a hard drive and place in a new one with a larger size and it integrates the drive into your array, rebuilding and expanding the storage.

I'll still keep a loose eye on SoftRAID, because it's possible that they're still trying to develop something like that in the background... but for those of us who like the idea of slowly expanding our array with larger drives, and being able to use that space quickly, SoftRAID loses out. And while I'd still need to clarify, the idea of having to copy off my data to expand the array isn't overly feasible. I recently ran low on space on my Synology, bought a single, much larger drive, and resolved it; with SoftRAID, I would have had to buy a whole new set of drives, copy them off, and then just let the old drives go to waste (or have two arrays).

 

[rrg]

What SoftRAID is saying is that you can mix and match drive sizes, but they'll treat every drive as if it's the size of the smallest drive in the array. So if you have three 3 TB drives and two 8 TB drives, SoftRAID treats them like you have five 3 TB drives. That's a lot of wasted space.

That's true, but the remaining 2 x 5TB left over on the 8TB drives can be used to make another volume (10TB stripe or 5TB mirror volume).

 

[soloact]

It doesn't. They support different hard drive sizes, but not in the way that Drobo does. See this thread for clarification:

Planning for future replacement of Drobo 5D

I'm currently using a Drobo 5D for Time Machine backups. From what I've read, direct attached storage is more reliable for time machine (NAS includin...

forums.softraid.com

Basically, with Drobo you can use drives of different sizes and Drobo would use all of the space (with some exceptions - if there is a large disparity in sizes between one outlier drive then you lose some space, for example if you have four 3 TB drives and one 8 TB drive, it would only use 4 TB of the 8 TB drive; but if you have three 3 TB and two 8 TB drives, everything is used). Additionally, expansion is seamless - just pull out one drive, plug in your new drive, and Drobo will automatically integrate the new drive and expand your storage.

What SoftRAID is saying is that you can mix and match drive sizes, but they'll treat every drive as if it's the size of the smallest drive in the array. So if you have three 3 TB drives and two 8 TB drives, SoftRAID treats them like you have five 3 TB drives. That's a lot of wasted space. Worse yet, based on what they had replied to me, even if you replace your 3 TB drives with all 8 TB drives, you'd need to entirely rebuild the array to expand it. I am under the impression that means you'd need to move all of your data off elsewhere, then completely rebuild the array and move all of the data back. That's really inflexible compared with Drobo. The worst part is that SoftRAID indicated that they're unlikely to ever support a flexible option like that because it's "messy."

I trust the SoftRAID developers when they say that, but it's not like Drobo is the only company that does this. Synology - a company with a lot more trust than Drobo - has the same option, albeit with a different file system than Drobo used. I replaced my Drobo with a Synology and can speak from experience on this one that it works the exact same, you can remove a hard drive and place in a new one with a larger size and it integrates the drive into your array, rebuilding and expanding the storage.

I'll still keep a loose eye on SoftRAID, because it's possible that they're still trying to develop something like that in the background... but for those of us who like the idea of slowly expanding our array with larger drives, and being able to use that space quickly, SoftRAID loses out. And while I'd still need to clarify, the idea of having to copy off my data to expand the array isn't overly feasible. I recently ran low on space on my Synology, bought a single, much larger drive, and resolved it; with SoftRAID, I would have had to buy a whole new set of drives, copy them off, and then just let the old drives go to waste (or have two arrays).

This and your original post are very helpful. I want the speed of DAS, but I keep reading NAS doesn't have that speed. How much slower is NAS vs DAS? I am also on a Drobo and need to move to platform with strong support moving forward. I bought I Thunderbay 4 with thunderbolt 3 and am curious how much faster that is than an NAS-based system. Thanks in advance to anyone pitching in with comparisons/experience.