Question for all the Drobo owners out there

[jdl8422]

I am thinking about taking the plunge and buying a Drobo. I have one question for all the owners out there. If I buy a 4 bay drobo and fill it with 4-1tb hard drives. Is the drobo going to mount as one 4tb hard drive? or can I make 2 hard drives mount as one and two hard drives mount as another drive. I want to get it for Time Machine but do not want 4 bays dedicated to time machine. Thanks

 

[geoffreak]

It mounts as a single physical drive, but nothing stops you from partitioning it.

Time Machine can use an external hard drive while you still use it for other data. The only benefit to partitioning is to limit the amount of space Time Machine can use.

 

[akm3]

It mounts as a single physical drive, but nothing stops you from partitioning it.

Time Machine can use an external hard drive while you still use it for other data. The only benefit to partitioning is to limit the amount of space Time Machine can use.

(and there are other hacks to limit time machine without partitioning, if you are thinking about doing that)

 

[techound1]

Just an aside, if you pick one up from a retailer, don't forget the $50 rebate.

 

[geoffreak]

(and there are other hacks to limit time machine without partitioning, if you are thinking about doing that)

(but these hacks are very quirky and risk causing your data to become corrupted)

 

[techound1]

(but these hacks are very quirky and risk causing your data to become corrupted)

(why are we whispering?)

 

[akm3]

(but these hacks are very quirky and risk causing your data to become corrupted)

(Oh!)

 

[TwoBytes]

don't use drobo for a TM drive. lots of problems
TM likes one big drive specially formatted in it's own special sause TM way.

Since drobo uses it's own formatting system, you can run into issues and render your precious drobo bye bye...especially bad when putting your goodies onto your 'other' partition. my advice? get a cheap 1tb external for £50

(shuuushhhh, i didn't tell you this..)

 

[Bye Bye Baby]

I think one secret of good file management and back up is to break up your media.

I use the drobo as a single 16TB drive attached to a mac mini for all my media. I would not want to compromise it with TM. Excellent unit so far.

I use TM with a 500GB TC and it works fantastically well for incremental backups.

I clone my desktop HD with all my files every week. I keep that offsite and then bring it home over the weekend to do the cloning.

I use iDisk to sync and offsite backup al of my work files.

 

[GoCubsGo]

16 TB? So you use 4 x 4 TB drives?

 

[ButtUglyJeff]

Any computer that accesses the Drobo will see is as only 1 big drive, and not know how many actual drives exist. I believe 4 1TB drives will equate to about 2.7TB of usable space.

http://www.drobo.com/resources/drobocalculator.php

You can check with the "Drobolator" above.

Your Time Machine preferences is where you would dictate how much space, this backup procedure can occupy.