I need to buy some kind of external RAID/Storage setup for my Mac Pro. I went straight to a Drobo, eventhough the price has dropped it is still only 4 bays. I did some searching on Newegg and came across this. I was wondering if anyone sees a reason not to get it. It has 8 bays and has ESATA so it would be a faster transfer rate? Correct? With a Drobo am I only paying for the Drobo software? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
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Why shouldnt I buy this RAID setup and not a Drobo?
- Thread starter jdl8422
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Eh, I don't know about this thing but I would be interested in hearing what others have to say.
The Drobo software isn't anything spectacular but it is pretty handy.
The Drobo software isn't anything spectacular but it is pretty handy.
Are you willing to put 8 drives in at the initial setup? And remember, all 8 drives have to be alike.....
I'm not a RAID expert but that's good price. I think you can use it with less than 8 drives if you want to, but I'm not sure are you able to add drives later on if you first use it with less than 8 drives (I think you can). If someone with more knowledge can confirm this.
All 8 do not need to be alike. It is just that the RAID is limited by the size of the smallest drive. You can also mix brands. The advantage being if there is a design flaw you do not have to worry so much about the drives failing simultaneously. The disadvantage being you will take a small performance hit.
You don't necessarily have to install all disks at one time but that depends if the card allows for dynamic RAID resizing. Assuming that is possible from Mac OS X, Windows disk management allows this. It would be better to do all at once.
Personally I would go with this and it is quite a good price. You should also get better transfer rates from this than the Drobo with matched drives using RAID 5.