Drobo - Need data storage solution help

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Syndacate

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 5, 2009
Messages
93
Hey,

I've been looking for a data storage solution that can protect against drive failures. My first inclination is a big array with RAID5 or 6, but the one thing about RAID is its limitations - all disks have to be of similar specs, all the same size, you can't just put new storage in, you have to create a new array with all of the new members, and as far as I can tell that means re-creating the RAID, and offloading all data to another location. It almost seems to be more of a pain than it's worth.

I was just looking into a box with an 8 port 3ware 9650 RAID controller but turned it down because of the reasons above. That and I'm not sure if I def. want to do a RAID5/6 array for a solution.

I was looking at the drobo, as that seems to be the answer to my requirements:
- drive spec inter-operation (multiple specs on drives, still works)
- dynamic expanding array
- RAID5 or 6
- platform independent (I want to see it as one volume (I have all 64 bit OS's), and have it not matter which OS I'm in).

I realize those are pretty strict requirements, but I was willing to sacrifice one or two depending on cost and which ones were sacrificed. It seems drobo is the answer to my prayers. You can mix and match drives (although I don't really intend to, just maybe 1/1.5/2TB when expanding the dynamic expanding array (which it also has)). It has protection against a drive failure (or two), and it appears to be platform independent - no drivers required. I don't care if I have to manage it from a particular OS, as long as I can read/write to it from all (so I plan on going NTFS).

Is anything wrong here, with my take on what drobo is? Also, why is the drobo S, with simply 1 extra drive and eSata, twice the price as the regular drobo? I can't find any other differences. What gives? Anybody have any experience? Good idea? Bad idea? Thoughts?

Thanks :). I can't find much with searches except reviews from people who don't use it daily, just tested it a few times :(.

EDIT:
PS: The only actual RAID experience I've had for myself is setting up RAID1 mirrors when I built me and my dad's computers for data storage. (separate from OS). Never had problems, EVGA's utility works great. Only reason I didn't persue it further was simply b/c the EVGA RAID only supports volumes up to 3TB or some crap like that.
 
Data Robotics, Inc. implements a storage technology that they call BeyondRAID in their Drobo storage device. While not a true RAID extension, it does provide for using up to 8 SATA hard drives in the device and consolidating them into one big pool of storage. It has the advantage of being able to use multiple disk sizes at once, much like a JBOD unit, while providing redundancy for all disks and allowing a hot-swap upgrade at any time. Internally it uses a mix of techniques similar to RAID 1 and RAID 5. Depending on the amount of data stored on the unit in relation to the installed capacity, it may be able to survive up to three drive failures, if the "array" can be restored onto the remaining good disks before another drive fails. The amount of usable storage in a Drobo unit can be approximated by adding up the capacities of all the disks and subtracting the capacity of the largest disk. For example, if a 500, 400, 200, and 100 GB drive were installed, the approximate usable capacity would be 500+400+200+100-(500)=700 GB of usable space. Internally the data would be distributed in two RAID 5-like arrays and one RAID 1-like set. With the introduction of the DroboPro, a RAID6 like feature was also introduced.
 
Apache0c said:
Data Robotics, Inc. implements a storage technology that they call BeyondRAID in their Drobo storage device. While not a true RAID extension, it does provide for using up to 8 SATA hard drives in the device and consolidating them into one big pool of storage. It has the advantage of being able to use multiple disk sizes at once, much like a JBOD unit, while providing redundancy for all disks and allowing a hot-swap upgrade at any time. Internally it uses a mix of techniques similar to RAID 1 and RAID 5. Depending on the amount of data stored on the unit in relation to the installed capacity, it may be able to survive up to three drive failures, if the "array" can be restored onto the remaining good disks before another drive fails. The amount of usable storage in a Drobo unit can be approximated by adding up the capacities of all the disks and subtracting the capacity of the largest disk. For example, if a 500, 400, 200, and 100 GB drive were installed, the approximate usable capacity would be 500+400+200+100-(500)=700 GB of usable space. Internally the data would be distributed in two RAID 5-like arrays and one RAID 1-like set. With the introduction of the DroboPro, a RAID6 like feature was also introduced.
Click to expand...

Yeah, thanks. I got the gist of how it works, that's why I feel it's a solution to my issue. I plan on using same sized disks, so I'm sure I'll have a larger amount of usable space.

PS: I think they offer RAID6 type on the Drobo S (5 storage bays) - as much as RAID6 seems appealing, the whole 5 bay thing doesn't seem appealing for 2x the price...I'd worry about that when I max it with 8TB, then it'd be cheaper to buy a second one in the longrun, only IF I max out that...

odditory said:
Please don't waste money on any DROBO product. That is all.
Click to expand...

Is there any actual backing for this? Experience? Hear-say? Or just 'cause you feel it's a standard RAID5 container and you feel it costs too much?
 
Drobo is kinda like the Apple of disk storage.

It is simple, easy to work with, and pretty. But it is expensive, hard to know exactly what is going on inside, and makes you give up a lot of direct control. Good for some users, bad for others.
 
Stay away from DROBO. Proprietary raid = bad. Very expensive to replace drives. You cant just pull a drive and hope to recover it off another machine.
 
You should just build a Linux file server. Get a nice raid card that allows for a hot spare and a Supermicro case with 10 hot-swap bays. Get 5 WD1000FALS Caviar Black 1TB drives, disable the TLER, and build a nice RAID10 array in there and you'll be set. I'm sure you could do that for less than the price of a comparable Drobo and it will be much more versatile.
 
Grentz said:
Drobo is kinda like the Apple of disk storage.

It is simple, easy to work with, and pretty. But it is expensive, hard to know exactly what is going on inside, and makes you give up a lot of direct control. Good for some users, bad for others.
Click to expand...

If you look at my sig, even though my desktop (and all of my past desktops) is homebrew, I have no problem buying an Apple computer. Yeah, it costs a lot, but it's outlasted any other computer from any other manu. The only other laptop I'd buy short of a Macbook/Powerbook is a Thinkpad - and I'm not even too keen o them since Lenovo bought them. I don't mind expense at all if it's worth it, and I've seen way too many other laptops crap out for me to say it's not.

jay2472000 said:
Stay away from DROBO. Proprietary raid = bad. Very expensive to replace drives. You cant just pull a drive and hope to recover it off another machine.
Click to expand...

Can you elaborate on that? "Expensive to replace drives" - It costs the same for me to buy a drive on newegg for a RAID5 box as it would to buy that same drive on newegg for a Drobo, so I'm confused as to what you mean by "expensive to replace drives." I realize you can't just pull a drive and recover it on another computer..but from what I understand about RAID5/6 you can't do the same there...

Apache0c said:
You should just build a Linux file server. Get a nice raid card that allows for a hot spare and a Supermicro case with 10 hot-swap bays. Get 5 WD1000FALS Caviar Black 1TB drives, disable the TLER, and build a nice RAID10 array in there and you'll be set. I'm sure you could do that for less than the price of a comparable Drobo and it will be much more versatile.
Click to expand...

Not really, actually. An empty std 4 bay drobo is $399 - I've yet to find a good raid card for under 400, cheapest I found was the 3ware 9650 for $450, the solutions cost about the same, if not, more for the server as you need to pay for the case, PSU, mobo, & proc(s).

Okay, so say I put together this system for what, 600? 700? (without drives), then say I buy 5 x $80 = $400, and I'm looking at a grand/$1100 with 2TB of usable space and some drive fault tolerance.

Or I spend $400 on a Drobo, and spend $80 x 4 drives = $320 and keep one as a spare, I then have the same amount of usable space (2TB) with fault of one drive instead of the possibly one drive RAID10 gives you - it is possible that you only get one drive fault protection, no? If one in both of the parallel arrays craps out, looks like you're looking at a busted system.

So why would somebody spend $1000 (or probably higher once it's all said and done) on a in-flexible, regimented, RAID storage solution (with volume max sizes of like 4TB all over the place, and god help you if you want more than 4 drives on a card b/c the cost damn near doubles). When somebody could have the flexibility of adding to it whenever/whatever they see fit? If there's a sale on 2TB drives, I can put in two 2TB drives for the last two, yes, there will be overhead, but that's pretty extreme flexibility opposed to RAID, and that goes up to 16TB with the base model. I'm not really worried about that barrier yet.

nitrobass24 said:
Drobo sucks, Stay away
Click to expand...

Again, any elaboration?

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There seems to be a lot of unfounded hatred for drobo - fine, ok. Though I'd at the very least like some figures, or experiences, or anything, further than "it sucks." I don't quite see how it's more expensive (it's most certainly not), I don't see how just because it's RAID5/6 stuck (you can't use it for 10 or something similar), that's "bad", I fail to see that because it's the "apple of disk storage" - it's "bad" - My macbook's outlasted mine, and all of my friends' other laptops short of the IBM Thinkpads (and I say IBM b/c I'm not sure how the Lenovos are), and going to a tech university I've seen quite a few laptops, quite a few dead laptops.

I mean there's a lot of stuff that's being accused here and I'd like to know reasons behind (all) of it, but I can't get an answer regarding any of it. At least not on a tech level..

Any tech related answers or answers based on experience, factual data (aka. not what they "feel" in accordance with price), is much appreciated.

@ jay2472000: It costs the same to replace drives, exactly, verbatim, 100% the same. You can't do what you speak of with a std. RAID5/6 vol, either, and proprietary RAID being bad is simply an opinion - some think proprietary OS's are bad, it's just an opinion, though.

@ Apache0c: What kind of build can do that for less? Budget: $400 for 4 drive support, or $800 for 8 drive support. Yeaaaaa, lol, most 8 port RAID cards cost more than $800, alone, without the rest of the system components...
 
High end 4 port RAID cards do not cost $400. High end 8 port RAID cards do not cost $800. Really, the Drobo units are pretty awful and slow on top of it. I would recommend against them. If you want drive pooling like it does, use WHS.
 
Syndacate you are comparing apples and oranges.

Dropo isn't doing raid, its doing drive pooling so you can get a non raid card, and install WHS. You can get a card for ~$150, add in a HP SAS Expander ~$225 up to 32 drives.

Now you have two choices really. You can either go software raid with Linux, or go WHS and get the same pooling as a dropo. Hell you can even do ZFS.

But really I don't even know why you made this thread, every one that gave you advice you told they were wrong, do you want advice or do you just want to tell everyone how awesome you think Dropo is?
 
Drobo's are slow and unreliable I had a drobo pro....for about a week, and I returned it.
You have to install software on your computer for it to work.
And god forbid if it ever fucks up, you have to buy another drobo to recover your data.
Proprietary RAID is just a bad idea, there is absolutely no pros to using a proprietary raid.

Bottom line is that it is overpriced, and underperforms.
Cost isnt everything but if I pay big $$ i expect the performance/features/usability to be in line.
 
I am not a fan of Drobo either, mostly because of the proprietary nature of the RAID.

I use an OS called unRAID that is based off of Slackware linux. It does not stripe data and create a FS on each individual drive. This has the benefit of allowing a drive to be removed and data recovered on any machine that can read the Reiser FS. You are protected from a single drive failure by the parity drive, and if more than 1 fails you would only lose the data on those 2 drives.

I have a 10 drive system set up right now and it has been running great for over a year now. If you want to know more you can ask questions in the unRAID forum or look for them in the unRAID wiki.
 
Blue Fox said:
High end 4 port RAID cards do not cost $400. High end 8 port RAID cards do not cost $800. Really, the Drobo units are pretty awful and slow on top of it. I would recommend against them. If you want drive pooling like it does, use WHS.
Click to expand...

Not sure I agree too much with you on the pricing. Just judging by prices on newegg, the 8 port RAID cards easily go up over 1k. I've never heard of WHS, though, and will look into it. Thanks.

QQ~ said:
Syndacate you are comparing apples and oranges.

Dropo isn't doing raid, its doing drive pooling so you can get a non raid card, and install WHS. You can get a card for ~$150, add in a HP SAS Expander ~$225 up to 32 drives.

Now you have two choices really. You can either go software raid with Linux, or go WHS and get the same pooling as a dropo. Hell you can even do ZFS.

But really I don't even know why you made this thread, every one that gave you advice you told they were wrong, do you want advice or do you just want to tell everyone how awesome you think Dropo is?
Click to expand...

I do want advice, but I'd like actual advice, actual reason driven responses. Not random hatreds, half (probably more) of which are hear-say. Saying "it sucks" doesn't provide me with any information what-so-ever except that it may have not worked out for the person saying it (probably not the case, as the person saying that probably hasn't actually seen one IRL...). Without reason a comment advising is pointless.

As for comparing apples to oranges - I didn't realize this at all. I didn't realize that Drobo was entering another game, it seemed as though it was just an expansion of RAID.

Though there must be some trade-off to this? If this system is all drobo does, then this system is obviously all drobo is behind the scenes, why does implementing this system overcome ALL of RAID's fallbacks AND cost less than RAID, yet hasn't completely replaced RAID? It (and therefore probably drobo, if it implements this system) must have quite large drawbacks, no?

nitrobass24 said:
Drobo's are slow and unreliable I had a drobo pro....for about a week, and I returned it.
You have to install software on your computer for it to work.
And god forbid if it ever fucks up, you have to buy another drobo to recover your data.
Proprietary RAID is just a bad idea, there is absolutely no pros to using a proprietary raid.

Bottom line is that it is overpriced, and underperforms.
Cost isnt everything but if I pay big $$ i expect the performance/features/usability to be in line.
Click to expand...

That seems bad. Is this standard management software, or software to simply access/write data to it?

If it's management software (ie. to control 1 or 2 drive paridity, see health status, etc.), I don't particularly see a better way short of on-board switches & LCD screens.

When you say you need another drobo to fix its fuckups, do you mean if a drive craps out, or if something onboard goes out and it's rendered inoperable?

(to the above poster, see, this is good advice, it's from somebody that is A) Talking from first hand experience, and B) Is giving reasons behind it -- That's why I disregarded most of the original responses, I was looking for something along these lines, as this is quite useful)

prostuff1 said:
I am not a fan of Drobo either, mostly because of the proprietary nature of the RAID.

I use an OS called unRAID that is based off of Slackware linux. It does not stripe data and create a FS on each individual drive. This has the benefit of allowing a drive to be removed and data recovered on any machine that can read the Reiser FS. You are protected from a single drive failure by the parity drive, and if more than 1 fails you would only lose the data on those 2 drives.

I have a 10 drive system set up right now and it has been running great for over a year now. If you want to know more you can ask questions in the unRAID forum or look for them in the unRAID wiki.
Click to expand...

That sounds quite sexy. Any way to get it to use a better FS than ReiserFS? Like, something stable, such as ext3 or something?

----------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for the responses, all, I'll take a look at this WHS and unRAID, both seem interesting as solutions. I guess I'm more interested in the flexibility of this apparently common "drive pooling" that drobo uses opposed to regimented RAID, though I still say it has to have some drawbacks or it'd have covered the market currently used by RAID. Guess I'll post back in this thread after I do some research into the above.
 
Syndacate said:
Not sure I agree too much with you on the pricing. Just judging by prices on newegg, the 8 port RAID cards easily go up over 1k. I've never heard of WHS, though, and will look into it. Thanks.
Click to expand...
High performance hardware RAID cards aren't that expensive.
4 port SATA for $300: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816131003
8 port SAS for $450: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816151039
Another 8 port SAS card for $360: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115056

Also, newegg does not have a single 8 port card over $1k. Even $800 for that matter.
 
Blue Fox said:
Also, newegg does not have a single 8 port card over $1k. Even $800 for that matter.
Click to expand...

This, and just because something is expensive, does not mean that its any good.

Case in Point = Drobo

Honestly if you were considering spending money on a drobo a good 4 port RAID card and a SAS expander will give you much better performance and provide an easy upgrade path.
 
Kudos to Syndacate for being persistent. I think it is reasonable to want something more than "it sucks; don't buy it" when seeking advice.

What are you going to store on this system? How many users? Knowing those things would help us determine if the requirements you listed in the first post are even on the right track.
 
I've never heard of WHS, though, and will look into it.
Click to expand...

BTW WHS has a 32 "drive" limit currently. I say "drive" because if you use a raid card underneath you could have more than 32 drives to make up 32x 2TB MBR "disks".

Look at the HP MediaSmart EX490/ EX495. Nice software plugins + WHS from HP.

Also, WHS has things like De-duplication which actually works well. I just started re-doing backups on my new WHS and was surprised as my backups of all client machines (all use SSD's exclusively) took about 40% less space than the used space on the individual drives. Pretty good!

On the HW raid card v. Drobo, there's a big performance difference. I tried a drobo out about a year ago, and the streaming performance to multiple clients wasn't acceptable. Expense aside, you want the thing to work, and in the event of disaster, still have an easy time (relatively) of recovering.
 
pjkenned said:
BTW WHS has a 32 "drive" limit currently. I say "drive" because if you use a raid card underneath you could have more than 32 drives to make up 32x 2TB MBR "disks".
Click to expand...

1. Where have you read that it has a 32 drive limit?
2. With WHS or UnRAID for that matter you would never need that many disks or want to, because it would be more cost effective to upgrade to larger drives when they become available.

The only argument against this is if you need 64TB immediately, but I am guessing that if you need that much space you are probably looking at a different solution altogether.
 
1. WHS 32 drive limit can be found via google. Here's two on the fist results page:
http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2009/09/30/using-server-recovery-on-a-diy-windows-home-server/
http://www.wegotserved.com/2009/05/27/first-looks-norco-rpc-4220-rackmount-case/

I don't think 32 drives is too common though

2. Unraid you would never, ever, ever want to run that many drives, or anywhere close. NetApp (pretty much biggest raid 4 storage vendor) uses 14 FC drives or SEVEN SATA drives for raid 4 (http://www.netapp.com/us/products/storage-systems/fas2000/fas2000-tech-specs.html).

My guess is that unRaid is not better than NetApp's raid 4 since NetApp has NVRAM + WAFL (even though the FAS2020 is using a mobile celeron CPU). If it was better, Lime Tech would have over $3.5b in annual revenue. The idea of large raid 4 arrays is quite scary.

I have more than 32 drives connected to my WHS right now, just have them dedicated to different things. The WHS virtual machine has about 14 disks dedicated to it at the moment. If I get a chance this weekend I guess I could test the 32 drive limit.
 
Yea ive read it in forums, but have seen it posted from anywhere/anyone i trust.

Not saying you were wrong just would like to figure it out.

If I could get my stupid server running i could test it in one of my WHS VMs.
 
Syndacate said:
Though there must be some trade-off to this? If this system is all drobo does, then this system is obviously all drobo is behind the scenes, why does implementing this system overcome ALL of RAID's fallbacks AND cost less than RAID, yet hasn't completely replaced RAID? It (and therefore probably drobo, if it implements this system) must have quite large drawbacks, no?
Click to expand...
Well besides all of the issues that nitrobass24 mentioned, the other reason why Drobo type storage implementation hasn't replaced RAID is because it's completely proprietary. At least with RAID, that technology is relatively open. Another reason is the high cost. As mentioned multiple times in this thread, a RAID controller doesn't cost that much compared to a Drobo. Also, a 4 bay WHS server can easily be had for $400. Considering that WHS has several key advantages over a Drobo (faster speeds, already a NAS type device, easy to integrate into a Windows centric network, ability to be a media server for PS3 and 360, etc), a WHS setup is a better buy than a Drobo.

A user review (I know I know) of WHS VS Drobo:
http://www.iminstant.com/iminstant/iminstant.nsf/d6plinks/CTYR-7NXQQQ

Syndacate said:
That seems bad. Is this standard management software, or software to simply access/write data to it?
Click to expand...

Both.
Syndacate said:
When you say you need another drobo to fix its fuckups, do you mean if a drive craps out, or if something onboard goes out and it's rendered inoperable?
Click to expand...

Because of its proprietary nature, if the Drobo dies, then you're gonna have to buy anoher Drobo in order to recover the data. At least with most RAID implementations, you can access the RAID array from a different controller of the same manufacturer. I.e you can use another Areca controller to access an Areca created RAID array. In addition, there are software out there that can recover data off a RAID array. However such software does not work on Drobo's proprietary implementation IIRC.
 
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