The truth about Drobo....

D

Dark Prodigy

Jawbreaker
Joined
Mar 10, 2006
Messages
2,803
Ok, I need a NAS storage solution. I DO NOT want to build anything... no FreesNas, ZFS, etc... I need small footprint, networked, aesthetic, and QUIET. I also need 4/5 bays, RAIDED, and decent speed across the network.

I will be backing up multimedia, computers and occasionally streaming a movie or two from it over the network. For all intents and purposes the Drobo FS fills the bill, however all I read (mostly) are negative things about the Drobo here on [H], but most user reviews are very positive.

Why is the Drobo considered such dreck? Why is it in my best interest to not own one... Help me to NOT buy one. Budget is < $600 (drives not included).
 
Reposting something I've written before:
Danny Bui said:
Drobos have some caveats from what I remember:
1) Proprietary hardware and file format. So if the hardware dies, you basically need to get another Drobo to get your files

2) Relatively slow performance even for a prebuilt NAS

3) Supposedly unreliable
Click to expand...
 
I'd have a look at Synology DS412+, Qnap TS-459 Pro+, Thecus N4200PRO (599 @ Newegg), Thecus N5500 and NETGEAR ReadyNAS Ultra 4 Plus.
All these have Intel Atom CPUs or better compared to your Drodo that uses an ARM CPU.
//Danne
 
I'd look into Synology which seems to be well reviewed here and other tech websites/forums.

I really do need to ask though, is there a specific reason you do not want to build it yourself? For $600, you can pretty much build anything that will blow retail NAS's out of the water, and be able to do a ton of other stuff like transcoding, ripping, etc... if you are inclined to do so. Are you building it for someone, and don't want to be their tech support?
 
FrostBite said:
I'd look into Synology which seems to be well reviewed here and other tech websites/forums.

I really do need to ask though, is there a specific reason you do not want to build it yourself? For $600, you can pretty much build anything that will blow retail NAS's out of the water, and be able to do a ton of other stuff like transcoding, ripping, etc... if you are inclined to do so. Are you building it for someone, and don't want to be their tech support?
Click to expand...

Even getting HP microserver + FreeNAS will give you a much better result at a much cheaper price w/ nearly ZERO effort. Furhtermore, if something does go wrong you have a much better support structure IMO.

The only thing Drobo gets you is "I have a bunch of random HDD's that are small and want to use them" argument.
 
I appreciate all replies so far. I also appreciate all suggested alternatives.

I really do need to ask though, is there a specific reason you do not want to build it yourself?
Click to expand...

I don't want to get into a "build vs. buy" debate ( I already know building will yield a much better price/performance ratio), but at this point I just want to buy something and put drives into it. Something aesthetic.... something quiet... something small...

Not buying for anyone else, simply personal use.
 
I have a Drobo FS. It's not great by any stretch.
It gets ~25-30MB/sec max.
The software rarely "finds" the Drobo, making it unmanageable. I've gotten it to connect a few times when the stars aligned, but software updates (in my experience) break it without fail. I formatted my computer a few weeks ago and I haven't been able to get my Drobo to connect again since :(
They're very pricey for the performance.
It lacks USB or alternatives to control it, which is horrible considering my experience with the software. Maybe mine's a lemon though.

The reasons I still use it:
It was free (to me).
It looks cool, the lights are dim-able and programmable (when the software works) and it has good aesthetics.
It's very quite, so it's nice to have in my office.
Very low power.

One good target audience is for something like Time Machine.
 
If you want to buy and not build go with a QNAP/Synology which meets your number of drives and performance requirements. Check out the charts at smallnetbuilder.com to see the performance of the various units.
 
obrith said:
I have a Drobo FS. It's not great by any stretch.
It gets ~25-30MB/sec max.
The software rarely "finds" the Drobo, making it unmanageable. I've gotten it to connect a few times when the stars aligned, but software updates (in my experience) break it without fail. I formatted my computer a few weeks ago and I haven't been able to get my Drobo to connect again since :(
They're very pricey for the performance.
It lacks USB or alternatives to control it, which is horrible considering my experience with the software. Maybe mine's a lemon though.

The reasons I still use it:
It was free (to me).
It looks cool, the lights are dim-able and programmable (when the software works) and it has good aesthetics.
It's very quite, so it's nice to have in my office.
Very low power.

One good target audience is for something like Time Machine.
Click to expand...

While I haven't used the FS, I will chime in with my experience of Drobo.

I was lucky to be one of the beta testers for their first unit which was USB only. As has been said, it was great for being able to take any size of drive and pool the data. Performance however was never enough for my needs. I had originally planned on using it for PVR duties (record and playback TV recordings, as well as media storage). The USB connection was the biggest hinderance at the time, and multiple comments during the beta phase to add firewire or Ethernet was scoffed at by their engineers who kept claiming USB should be good enough :rolleyes: Ended up selling the unit after the beta was over because of the hinderances (slow speed, proprietary storage design).

A couple years later our IT management team was looking to add some storage for disk-to-disk backup but we were really tight on budget. At the time the Drobo Pro was their top-line model and I saw that they had finally added Firewire as well as gig-Ethernet iSCSI. For the price, we decided to get one. That was a mistake. Using the iSCSI connection, at best we ever got about 60-65 MB/sec, and that performance dropped dramatically (about 35-40 MB/s) once the unit hit about 50% capacity. Ended up replacing it with an "out of warranty" EMC CX4 array that was retired by one of our facilities.

At this point the unit has been ripped out and decommissioned. Since we were throwing it out I decided to take it home and use it only as a backup device. For home use, I'm okay with the slow speed, since it is a backup of the data on my server and my VMs. Once hard drive prices come back down I'll probably create a second ZFS VM as a backup instead though.. just because the server is on 24/7 anyways and running the DroboPro is just an added power consumption...
 
While I haven't used the FS, I will chime in with my experience of Drobo.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the great reply. I have heard about Drobo's slow networked performance, but are these speeds you experienced read, write, sequential? Do you think it would be enough for streaming 1080p .mkv's over LAN?

Why not go to SmallNetBuilder and look for good options?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll definitely check this site out.
 
Dark Prodigy said:
May I ask what operating system you are running? And how long have you owned the Drobo FS?
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Windows 7 is my primary desktop here. I've had it in operation for about 4 months and it sat in the box for a good 6-12 months prior. It was "brand new" when i deployed it and the software failed the first go around. I downloaded older versions numerous times until one found it and let me work with it, and then updating the firmware and desktop software was a royal PITA. Most versions of the actual firmware only seem to work with one version of the desktop software, and there is no way to know what will work except trial and error.

If it hadn't sat for a year in the box at work, I would have returned it for sure. There is no way I would use one of these unless it was free.
 
I'm using a Drobo, the 4 bay version to save backups from friends and family with Crashplan, just to have the opportunity to add more space without exchange all the drives.

The only thing I can say is that it is slow, I get around 10-25MB/s. But besides that, have to say it is a good product. I have not had any issues at all with it.
 
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