Drobo: Thoughts?

[D4rkside]

So I currently am in need of expanded storage, as my 1TB and 500GB external drives are full, and I hate storing too much stuff locally on my notebook drive for speed reasons, etc. I like to keep that drive fairly clean.

I am thinking of a Drobo because of the expandability, and also because I have now used up both USB ports on my MBP and can not add another external drive unless I find one with Firewire (fairly rare at the big box electronics store I frequent). Even then, that leaves me with the possibility of adding one more drive before I can't connect any more.

I was wondering what the general consensus of the Drobo is here? Has anyone used one? I know they're pricey and not as desirable as a RAID setup through eSATA, but I wasn't sure how that would work on my MacBook Pro (I currently don't have a Desktop, as I'm living in a dorm, so adding a bunch of internal drives or anything like that isn't an option currently)

A main concern is that I heard writing speeds are horrible on the Drobo...is this true?

Basically I just want to know if for a situation like mine I should get a Drobo (or a product very similar, like the HP Media dealy) or if say something like eSATA would still be better...also, any other recommendations that are notebook friendly would be appreciated.

Thanks for any input

 

[D4rkside]

Bump 'cuz I'm still curious about this.

 

[whatuusay1]

I havent heard a lot about them - but there are quiet a few reviews out on the net. You can go with either the traditional Drobo (without ethernet share) or with the drobo share if you're looking at sharing it across your home network. I'd personally go with the drobo+share so you dont have to have your computer on to access the info (if you wanted to share it across multiple computers).

http://reviews.cnet.com/hard-drives/drobo/4505-3186_7-32470303.html

http://www.crunchgear.com/2007/06/08/drobo-review-frickin-awesome/

You can pick up the 1TB (or higher) out on eBay for relatively cheap.

1TB (with drobo share) - http://cgi.ebay.com/Data-Robotics-DROBO-with-droboSHARE-1tb-2x500gb_W0QQitemZ150225408657QQihZ005QQcategoryZ106273QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[OliverBGD]

Its good if you don't have the time, patience or money to maintain a raid since it does pretty much everything by itself (hot swapping, error checking, recovery, etc...) However I didn't like it since it is only USB (30MB/sec MAX) or RJ45 (5MB/sec MAX) if you get the ethernet adapter for it, so in my case it is slow for my needs.

 

[holland]

I have been using one for about 6 months as a media repository hooked up to my mac mini. It holds my itunes library and all my dvd rips. I also dump shows to it that get recorded and transcoded by my linux box. It works well for me, I don't need screaming speed, just redundancy that I don't have to think about. It can handle serving 3 streams at once which is the most I've thrown at it. Expansion is easy, just pop a new drive in. Upgrading space is easy too, just pop an old drive out and put in a newer one. If you want to upgrade all of them, say from 4x500G drives to 4x1T drives, just do them 1 at a time. The rebuilds take a while, but you can access all your data the whole time.

 

[rvr2k3]

I have one hooked up to an old PowerMac which I use as my server. Transfer speeds are slower when I network into it through the LAN. I have 300GB x 4, which gives me about 800 GB of redundant storage. I use it for my mp3/video/file server and it runs fine. The only thing is it does fall asleep, so if you fire up some music or need to access the share, then you may have to wait a few seconds.

I highly recommend it. The main barrier is the price.

 

[D4rkside]

OK, thanks for the feedback. I think I'll give it a try. The price and speed were the only two barriers I didn't like, but I love how easy it is to use and upgrade.

Also, I would be getting the Drobo Share, which adds a lot onto the cost, but it would be used to feed data into multiple machines so I'd need it.

 

[hyt3k9]

I own a Drobo. Bought it when it first came out. I have had no problems with mine what-so-ever. I currently run 4x500GB drives in mine with a total of 1.4TB of total storage. I use mine now for music/movies/downloaded game storage. For those that say the speed sucks.. it isn't the fastest option out there, but it is the easiest by far.

I cant wait until the first powerpack for WHS is released. They are adding a feature that allows you to backup your WHS files to a removable device. This way, I can continue to use my WHS (which is far superior to Drobo currently minus the redundancy) use the gigabit speeds on my network, at the same time adding the redundancy of the Drobo to back up my WHS.

Bottom line, this is a pricey option to go with unless you want pure simplicity. For me, I wanted a low power solution, without having to run a complete box for a RAID array. This device fits the bill nicely, and I am pleased with my purchase.