WHS vs Drobo

T

thor17usa

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I've been doing some research lately on the Drobo ever since a friend mentioned that he was saving up to purchase one. Initially, I said he was crazy for purchasing such an expensive unit when WHS can do the same and more. I've look at the various models and decided that if I were to purchase one, it would be the DroboPro FS with 8-drives. I like the idea of it's simplicity and how it "takes care of itself." It has some very interesting features, but I really like the features of WHS.

WHS is not perfect, but has a lots of potential and it features keep expanding as more people create new add-ins and update the current ones. I will say that I have had a few frustrating incidents with WHS that required a server reinstall. I was very nervous at first, but it worked fine and all my data was intact. With WHS Vail coming out soon, I am inclined to move to it, but I wanted to see if anyone in the community has had any experience with any Drobo product. Does it truly self-heal as the site claims? So far the Customer stories on the site sound appealing, but I wanted to see if anyone here had used this product.

DroboPro FS (http://www.drobo.com/products/drobopro-fs.php)
Drobo Apps (http://www.drobo.com/droboapps/apps-for-drobofs.php)
 
I had a DroboPro and it was a POS. I returned it immediately.

I dont know of anyone who has had a drobo and liked it.
 
Stay away from the drobo. These are slow, unreliable and lock you into a second drobo when they go bad since drobos use a proprietary raid instead of linux software raid that most other NAS devices use.
 
and WHS
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I second that but windows only users tend to like WHS since it requires very little thought / understanding to set it up and integrate into a windows only network.
 
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drescherjm said:
but windows only users tend to like WHS since it requires very little thought / understanding to set it up and integrate into a windows only network.
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I would say that is mostly true; however i would say that if someone is considering a Drobo they are not interested in getting into a true linux/BSD setup either.
 
What would be a good alternative (price wise/performance) to the drobo for someone that stores tons of 30mb raw files....
 
As someone that beta tested the first unit, and got forced to use a DroboPro unit at work :rolleyes: .... stay away.

Their transfer speed is horrible and as mentioned above they use a proprietary file system.

As for WHS, everyone has their opinion, but I've been pretty happy with my installation. For what I use it for (NAS, hosting a small forum, SageTV backend, and desktop/laptop backups) it has been pretty solid. Depending on the amount of storage you plan on having, it can get pretty wasteful due to the duplication (similar to RAID1). I'm currently in the process of converting it to VM and trying to decide if I still want to use it for my NAS purposes, or create an UnRaid VM for that purpose and just leave WHS for system backups...
 
nitrobass24 said:
I had a DroboPro and it was a POS. I returned it immediately.

I dont know of anyone who has had a drobo and liked it.
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A former colleague purchased one for her photography business. She did not return it, but fell into a cadence of only using it once a quarter or so.

Actually, WHS with an Intel NIC gets you hard drive transfer speeds to 100MB/s (whichever is lower) without any real work when you have Intel clients. The duplication can be somewhat expensive, but at 2TB for $90 or less these days it is pretty easy to just keep dumping drives in.

OP: The main issue is that when you get to eight drives you go past what most people consider normal consumer appliances. As a result, the cost gets inflated oftentimes at a greater rate than performance.

Also, the self healing thing... pretty much every modern redundant way to store data heals itself after drive failure. For correcting bit errors things like ZFS (think FreeNAS or Nexenta Community Edition for a simple installation) or Vail (WHS V2) when it comes does this for you. At $1700- $2000 for the Drobo Pro FS without disks you are basically in the realm of being able to build a WHS capable of holding 20-24 drives and populating it with 10x 2TB drives and with things like ECC memory.

To be clear, you do not get Drobo apps, but Windows is a platform some developers still write applications for (and some even WHS specific plug-ins.)
 
Yes. See the details. The model you are looking at looks good at first glance.
 
I ended up getting the DS410, even though they just released a more expensive ds411...
 
I have a DroboFS that i tested as a possible in house NAS solution for my office, it sucks. stay away. I've deployed the HP line of WHS for users at my office, it is a reasonable solution for users who don't mind sacrificing a little tweakability/upgradability in lieu of a full fledged home server.

Personally I run a home built Windows 2008 R2 server box that houses my virtual machines and files on an Areca RAID-6 array. I keep looking for something better for my needs, but I will probably just end up upgrading that server to something faster with more storage.
 
I agree that WHS is a better solution for storage of personal data and files, but was just curious about the Drobo systems. Looking at the Drobo site, I would not expect to see a bad experience posted so I figured it was too good to be true as nothing is perfect.

I still don't know why my friend is so dead set on getting a Drobo since it just seems to be too expensive. I'm still trying to talk some since in to him to get him to see the error of his ways. I'm pretty excited about WHS Vail and hope it releases soon.
 
Drobos are for photographers who work on iMacs, i.e., people who are only interested in what computers can do, not how they do what they do. For them Dorpbos aren't slow because they otherwise use USB drives. They have about the same chance of setting up a WHS system as the do a nuclear generating plant.

I kid you not; I'm on a forum of professional wedding photographers.
 
I would suggest looking into FreeNAS...BSD based, free, secure and most of the same features as WHS running on less advanced hardware.
 
blivit4 said:
Drobos are for ... people who are only interested in what computers can do, not how they do what they do.
Click to expand...

I agree with this point. If the user has any interest in the inner workings of a computer system at all, they would be better off with something more robust than a Drobo.

-Cool-
 
So, it seems my friend is getting the Drobo FS and not the DroboPro FS, so the cost is about $700. Still, I think a WHS is a better option or even a FreeNAS box.
 
Freenas is awesome, but its not as flexable as WHS when it comes to "other" stuff you may want to use the system for. I Started with freenas & eventually moved up to WHS when I started using my server for more media related stuff (1st transcoding for tivo's & now as a SageTV Server)
 
lerdsu said:
Personally I run a home built Windows 2008 R2 server box that houses my virtual machines and files on an Areca RAID-6 array. I keep looking for something better for my needs, but I will probably just end up upgrading that server to something faster with more storage.
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Same here. I actually have a Hyper-V VM guest setup to run WHS. The 2008R2 server runs off a RAID10 of 2TB drives. I then give WHS direct access to a couple of drives in an 8-drive SATA expander chassis (currently just a pair of 750gb drives). Everything configured to duplicate. It works pretty well. My main goal in using WHS is the machine backups. It's saved me rebuilding two desktops already. I also sync a copy of important data to it, just to keep a spare copy on another set of spindles.

Folks may not know it but you can get a rather complete set of MS operating systems by singing up for a Technet subscription. They're not licensed for "production" use but are full versions. Made getting 10 copies each of win7pro, 2008R2, exchange, whs and sql server a whooooooooole lot cheaper. All for 'testing', of course.
 
I’m not going to dispute anything anyone is saying here. Everything I have read here seems understandable to me. For example, if someone thinks the Drobo is slow, I believe that it probably is for their purposes. If someone thinks the Drobo is a POS. Well, it may be in his experience for whatever reason.

However, for me, the Drobos has been great.

My limited background: I have never built a WHS. I use Windows 7, XP, Vista, OSX and a handful of Linux-like OSes at home and at work currently, but I am only user-savvy on the ins and outs of XP and OSX. Notice I said user-savvy, not admin-savvy.

My gear at home:
(2) Intel iMacs
(1) G5 iMac
(1) G4 Powerbook
(1) HP Elitebook 8530p
(1) MacPro Dual Quad Core 2.8
(1) Mac Mini 2.4
A Gig Wired Network
(1) Airport Wireless Network (Not N)
(2) Apple TVs (original units with internal drives)
(1) Drobo Gen 2 (4-bay)
(1) Drobo FS (5-bay)

I have about 23TB of storage just in the Drobos, the Mac Pro, and a couple external HDs behind the MacPro.

My initial interest in the Drobo came when I went beyond general storage of files, photos and music to storing HD films. I bought the first Drobo (the Gen 2) to store about 900 films in iTunes for streaming to my Apple TVs and other computers. It was plugged behind the Mac Pro on a Firewire 400 connection (Firewire network was mixed 400/800 and defaulted to 400 as the lowest common denominator). I shared the Drobo volume with everything on my wireless network. The films were fairly small (1.5GB to 3GB). My TVs were fairly small then too, so I didn’t need high end HD for my viewing.

I was able to stream films to both Apple TVs and another Mac simultaneously (3 devices), all wirelessly and had no problems on the Gen 2 Drobo. I didn’t try for more, but would imagine there could be issues at some point.

Recently, inspired by my WHS friends at work, I decided to dive into higher 1080p HD films sized from 4GB to 30GB in size. Of course I went crazy and bought a Samsung 55 inch LED for this endeavor, and a Mac Mini as well to run XBMC as the media center behind the Samsung. Obviously this would require way more storage and would not be able to be a wireless endeavor any longer with my Airport. I went ahead and bought a Drobo FS and a bunch of 2TB drives (the slower Western Digital green drives).

I hooked the Drobo FS and the Mini up to the Gig ports on my Airport. So far, after adjusting a couple settings in XBMC, I am able to have perfect playback of 1080p films on my Samsung, via XBMC on my Mini.

Both Drobo units were so simple to install with 3 nearly identical steps. The FS picked up a DHCP address from the Airport and the Drobo Dashboard software automatically found it, prepped it and made it available to all of my computers (with my designated creds).

I’m sure that others have far higher transfer speed needs than I have, but all I care about is the ability to have perfect playback of 20-30GB 1080 films to any location in my house. I don’t have any performance needs beyond that.

The Drobo units have been great in the other advertised areas as well. Drive failures heal. Mixed drive sizes and hot swapping to larger sizes is delivered as advertised. Drobos are quiet and they are small. And, most importantly of all, I have never lost data.

What I haven’t had time to try yet:
- Stream multiple 1080p films on the Drobo FS to multiple XBMC devices. I expect to hit a wall here if the films are larger with high transfer rate needs.
- Do a basic, raw transfer speed test to and from the FS, just to see where it pegs out. I expect it will land where Data Robotics says it will, and where others have demonstrated in the many reviews that are out there.

Again, Drobos are not for everyone and I don’t dispute what anyone has to say about them. But they work great for me and my interests and there is no reason to believe they wouldn’t serve many others (who may not want to “build” something) with the same simplicity and elegance.

I got my FS for $100.00 off with the holiday special they are running right now.
 
So let me get this straight, you paid $600+ for a NAS that had zero storage drives included?

And when you decide to upgrade to larger drives and you buy XXXXX brand and it turns out that it wasnt really compatible with the controller that Drobo used and 2+ drives drop termporarily, your going to lose all your data. What will you do to recover your data since Drobo uses a proprietary implementation? Buy another Drobo FS and put in your incompatible drives again?

It may work good for streaming the occasional movie, but its way too much $$ for just that. For that kind of money i demand more from my product.
 
Relax. You sound like you have been having nightmares about past problems that I have not been having for the two or three years that I have been using Drobos.

I paid $600 for a headache-free solution that I didn't have to "build" in some homemade fashion. Pardon me for not having the time or the deep interest in a tinkering project going into the holidays. Very happy to pay it actually.

These drives seem to be the size I will need, but you seem concerned about my future storage needs. To be honest, I didn't plan on upgrading these drives. What would I do with these, throw them away? Of course not. I was already planning on another FS either for fun or for expansion.

I'm not seeing any compatibility problems with the drive types and sizes I have used in my Drobo. Besides, I have everything backed up hundreds of miles away anyway in two different locations, so I'm not quite as sweaty as you are about it.

And on your final comment, it works well for streaming all of my movies any time I want them and it is a great value considering all of the issues I have skipped out on that are common with other solutions (at least according to those buyers). Of course, those issues are to be expected since they are trying to do more with those solutions such as WHS and such. But that has no appeal to me as I am not looking for a server or any of the complexities that come with it. I wanted it to do one thing really well and it does just that. But that seems to make you very unhappy.

Again, it is clear that you don't like it. It works great for me.
 
borghost, the scenario you describe is a typical home usage and I'm glad the Drobo works out so well for you. There is value in buying a consumer appliance, plug it in and have it work with no issues. I think you know that you are locked into the Drobo ecosystem due to their proprietary file format, and that if you ever need to upgrade you will just get a bigger Drobo. Again there is nothing wrong with that.

You seem to have a lot of tech devices (more than the typical user) and I'm sure that at some point you will have 2 hdtv's as well (if not already). Would you not want to stream movies to them at the same time? After all that's the point of a file server. I have read reviews that said Drobo's have problems streaming so at least in your case 1 stream works fine.

IMO a HP MediaSmart is just as easy for a layman to buy, install, use and upgrade drives. It will not have the expansion capacity of an 8-bay Drobo but for that price you can easily add an external eSata cage using port multiplier or a 2nd server. So its a viable option which will offer better value for money. Building a WHS is a whole different matter, but its easier than many people think.

There are other alternatives as well. e.g. unRAID is a fantastic product.

8 bay Drobo FS - $1995 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822240058)

15 bay unRAID server - $1199 (http://lime-technology.com/products/md-1510-server)

The unRAID box above is IMO a LOT more capable and just as easy to use, recover lost data and replace drives.

This is not an attack on you or on Drobo, just pointing out some alternatives.
 
My WHS was really nice until the motherboard died, but that was purely fault of hardware. After it failed, I set up an Ubuntu server for general file storage, then set up UnRaid to backup my Ubuntu server. I have hardware for a new WHS coming in today and tomorrow, so I'll get that set back up again, but I'm looking at either having UnRaid serve as backup for the WHS. Alternatively, I may set up several Intel Atom boxes with Gluster or MooseFS to be a more fault-tolerant backup.
 
I'm going give a thumbs down to the Drobo as well. I had a Drobo as well with 4x2TB (6TB usable) drives and it just wasn't fast enough for me to be perfectly honest, albeit at the time I was using Firewire 800 to a Windows 7 machine (not great drivers, only 35MB/s).

I agree to the point about value in simplicity. Drobo is extremely easy, that point isn't really disputable, but it establishes lock-in and isn't dynamic in any sense. It works as a file storage system, but that's about it.

I have a WHS machine now with an AMD X2 and it duplicates all my data nicely. It shares between several windows and linux machines, provides remote access, hosts a website, and, more importantly, transfers at 70MB/s.

The main selling point to the Drobo, IMHO, is that my girlfriend thought it was cute, which made her happy. She was sad when I sold it to a friend. Now she doesn't care though because there's more room on the WHS for all the random shows she watches.
 
MrCrispy said:
Building a WHS is a whole different matter, but its easier than many people think.

There are other alternatives as well. e.g. unRAID is a fantastic product.

8 bay Drobo FS - $1995 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822240058)

15 bay unRAID server - $1199 (http://lime-technology.com/products/md-1510-server)

The unRAID box above is IMO a LOT more capable and just as easy to use, recover lost data and replace drives.
Click to expand...

I have to agree, I have built a "custom" WHS solution myself using a mid-size tower case, and 3x 5-in-3 back planes. I won't lie, all together I probably spent close to $800 after you put a case, three backplanes, motherboard/cpu/memory, psu and additional controller card. However, building a custom box (for me) was half the fun -- plus it can support up to 30TB using 15 2TB drives.

But... it's nice to know that there are other "pre-built" solutions available for the average consumer. The unRAID box at $1200 is actually a fairly good deal for a consumer looking for a plug-and-play solution.
 
Excellent points and great comments MrCrispy. I agree with everything you have said.

I'll just explain where I'm at on some of your points and probably expose how lazy I am (or foolish).

Drobo Ecosystem Lock-in:
I agree that the Drobo ecosystem has a proprietary format. However, I don't see how that locks me into the Drobo world. When I wanted more storage beyond my Drobo Gen 2, I chose the FS, but I could have gotten any sort of storage system. Maybe what you are referring to is taking the old drives from the first Drobo and trying to insert them into the new Drobo device for reuse without erasing them. I hadn't even thought of doing that. Surely that would have to go into a Drobo, so I think we are in agreement.

Multi-streaming from Drobo:
Multi streaming has worked for me without any problems but, of course, that was on the smaller film files that were used on the Apple TVs. Multi streaming those is a breeze for the Drobo and I think when you say that others are having problems, it might be more that those are the only people piping up on the forums - a typical thing that griping makes the forums and success is often not even looking toward the forums.

File size and, really, stream rate requirements of the film are the key from what I can gather.

For me, I do have more than one HDTV today, but only one large one with a media center that can handle a 1080 distribution. The rest are Apple TVs (720 max) which pull from my original library of smaller movie files. I'm just recently switching over to the XBMC thing and wasn't going to do more XBMC deployments until the concept worked out on my Mini and 55 inch.

I agree that one point of a file server is to multi-stream. There might be other points though, including the simple fact that you can centrally store things once for distribution to multiple points (single streaming) - seemingly another great point of a server.

Ultimately you are right that I would probably want to have the option to multi stream the 1080 versions of these files someday. But this might be just to say I could do so, rather than out of frequent necessity with current viewing patterns in my house. I would be stuck in this regard on the Drobo if I had to do lots of multi streams at 1080 with large files.

One thing that might save my bacon in many multi streaming instances is the fact that some of my movies will be lesser in size for three reasons. 1) Sometimes I cannot acquire anything more than a 720 version. 2) Sometimes the only 1080 versions that I can find are not the larger 20-30GB files and are much smaller but still 1080 and still pretty nice. 3) Sometimes I will purposely get the "chick flicks" for the wife in a smaller size and even at 720 since she can't really tell the difference (I know, amazing. But you may know people like this).

So, at my house, I may be able to get away with a lot of multi streaming as long as I don't have someone trying to watch Saving Private Ryan while I'm trying to watch Avatar (both twenty-something GB files with high transfer rate requirements).

On the many, cool alternatives to Drobo:
Here you are clearly listing a number intelligent, affordable options. They are all great solutions it seems to me and there is no disputing any of them.

Here are a couple of my thoughts and I admit some of these are just silly/lazy: For me the Drobo was really simple and really effective. No doubt I paid plenty for it.

In my view, the DroboPro FS was the lesser choice compared to the Drobo FS since I could buy almost three of the latter for less than buying one of the former. And having two volumes instead of one was not a problem for me since XBMC takes my film directories from multiple volumes and showcases them as one combined list for the viewer to select from. The five bay size was my sweet spot for my $599.00.

When I bought my original Drobo 2nd Gen, in additiona to all of the normal things like simple setup, ease of use, quietness, set-and-forget and so on, the form factor was so small and appealing when compared with a number of the other solutions. Coming from the Mac world, thinness and smallness and external refinement are some of the little things that I get jazzed about (I have even worse examples that I'm embarrassed to say matter to me).

When I was looking at options before buying the FS, I was even more tipped to the Drobo line because I had already had one and hadn't had to worry about it for nearly three years. Creature of habit right when satisfied right? Form factor was still a plus, in addition to all of those other well marketed aspects to the Drobo.

Clearly you (MrCrispy) are a very sharp, technical person. I have been in technical roles at different times, but I have never really had significant server admin experience. For some reason the Drobo seemed (and turned out to be) nearly plug and play. I suppose their marketing got me, but that turned out OK since it delivered what they promised. Other solutions that you have mentioned might also be plug and play, but I probably just didn't get that impression when I was doing my research.

I believe that someone with my level of knowledge could truly find, assemble and configure a solution that is just as easy as the Drobo for less money, and have the same great reliability that I have had. I just didn't seem to find that when I was looking and probably got tired of searching. Some of what you have mentioned may be just as simple, but at first glance, it seems more involved for a guy like me.

I just wanted to say that I will be looking at your proposed solutions anyway even though I have already nabbed an FS. I like checking into recommended solutions for fun and there will always be a next purchase, right? Besides, I was planning on trying something else on the tinkering side anyway, at the urging of my WHS friends at work. I'll have some more time for those explorations after the holidays.

Also, I just wanted to say that I appreciate your cordial and helpful input here. It makes a great example of a useful contribution that will benefit many. It also speaks to your character and the absence of chips on your shoulder.

UPDATE: I did a quick write and read from the FS and I'm seeing 29MB and 33MB/s respectively. I'll do some more checking, but this exceeds the streaming requirements of the highest single film streams I have seen in my XBMC play so far, when playing directly from internal drives to the screen. Based on that, I may be fine in that regard today on the FS.


Cheers
 
borghost said:
I paid $600 for a headache-free solution that I didn't have to "build" in some homemade fashion. Pardon me for not having the time or the deep interest in a tinkering project going into the holidays.
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borghost said:
I like checking into recommended solutions for fun and there will always be a next purchase, right? Besides, I was planning on trying something else on the tinkering side anyway, at the urging of my WHS friends at work. I'll have some more time for those explorations after the holidays.
Cheers
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Glad to see you freed up some time in between post 24 and 29 :p


I would stay away from Drobo, for all the reasons listed here and more. WHS vs Drobo is NO competition (if youre tech savvy enough to install an OS and build the machine) WHS wins all week long and twice on Sunday.

WHS has bare metal backups. That alone is worth its weight in gold.
 
Sorry man. Position is still the same. Still no time before the holidays. Like I said (twice), after the holidays is my only chance and it is still a maybe. Especially when you consider I'm satisfied already.

As for WHS vs Drobo, I think a number of people have already said, like 10 times, that these two do not compare. WHS does way more. However, again, I'm not really looking for the "more" that WHS provides. I don't want the issues of building a server or of building anything for that matter either.

dsumike said it well when he said he was glad there were some prebuilt solutions out there for the less technically inclined like myself. You on the other hand are trying to win something twice on Sunday (not sure what yet, maybe that gold you were mentioning). Perhaps you need a few more build-it-yourself projects.

Bare metal restores are great too by the way. I'm just not looking for that capability either.
 
This topic is getting off-topic to be honest. The points are established and going back and forth isn't going anywhere.

WHS: Dynamic, expandable, more powerful
Drobo: Simple, proprietary, expensive

If OP is looking between only these two then 9 times out of 10 they should go with the WHS. If they want to just have a simple, no-nonsense data backup and want to pay the money and take a bit of a gamble (in my opinion, as a former Drobo owner) then the Drobo is an option.

Bickering isn't what the OP requested and static personal positions don't really play a role in this discussion.
 
WHS vs Drobo

To keep this thread on track, I wanted to point out a few items of comparison between WHS and the Drobo. I know there are other options out there, but let’s stick to these two for now.

First, I would like to point out that this is a hard comparison as it stands. We are attempting to compare an Operating System to a Stand-Alone Device. I think it would be best if we were to compare an example of two products to get as close as we can get to an apples-to-apples comparison.

To do this, I am going to start by defining two “similar” products (at least in price) which can be easily purchased as by the average consumer:

  • WHS: HP MediaSmart EX495 (newegg, $649)
  • Drobo: Drobo FS 5-bay unit (newegg, $695)

On to the comparisons! Starting with one of the easily noticeable differences:


Number of support drives:

The Drobo FS supports 5 drives in a single enclosure, while the MediaSmart EX495 is a 4-bay unit. However, the EX495 can also be expanded with 3 additional USB HDDs, and up to 4 additional drives via an eSATA expander (roughly $129, newegg), for a total of 11 drives. This gives you the added benefit of starting small, but with the ability to grow with minor upgrade costs.

Winner? It’s up to you: In a single enclosure? The Drobo FS. In Total? The MediaSmart EX495.


Backup solutions:

WHS does support client backups, giving you the ability to create restore points. This feature is available for both Windows and OS X (using iTimeMachine) operating systems. The Drobo has no comparable feature.


Data Redundancy:

WHS uses a unique “duplication” technique which allows you to have a RAID1 style back-up on a per-folder basis. This gives you a fairly optimal backup for important data, without wasting any space on duplication for data you don’t care about. This solution is probably ideal for an individual who has some personal data combined with a large media collection, say of ripped dvds/bluray, which can be easily replaced by simply re-ripping the content.

The Drobo FS uses the Drobo “BeyondRAID”. While a bit of a stretch of over-simplification, it’s probably closest to a RAID5 solution, but allowing a larger flexibility of drive types and management at a cost of performance.

The winner? Not surprisingly, it’s up to you: Do you like to have as close to RAID1 as you can with the ability to micro-manage your redundancy on a per folder basis? WHS. Are you ok losing a little bit of performance and space, but having all data secured with a level of redundancy? Drobo.


Next up, Extras and Options (applications):

Both the Drobo FS & WHS have extra “add-ins” or “apps” that can expand the functionality of the device. Both have several community created apps that available for download. The WHS appears to have a much larger base set of applications, while the Drobo does have a few core apps that are also available to WHS.

The winner? WHS.


Finally, Speed:

This is probably the most important topic for enthusiasts, which is probably anyone actually reading this thread. The Drobo is a bit gimped when it comes to throughput. On average, assuming similar disk speeds, reviews tend to notice trends of at least 30% greater speeds for read and writes for the WHS. The Drobo appears to suffer some sort of limitation that prevents high throughput.

Unrelated to this specific comparison, but with custom built WHS setups you can achieve much higher performance (if you’re willing to put the money in to it).

The winner? WHS.


Summary:

Clearly for both speed and extras, WHS is the winner. For all other things mentioned, the result will be based more on your specific preferences for your home use.


Additional Notes:

Keep in mind that this is simply a short comparison of two semi-comparable devices. There is no true apples-to-apples comparison for products like this, so take it for what it is. Also, there are obviously going to be larger differences if you're looking for an 8-bay unit, especially in regards to cost.
 
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borghost said:
Sorry man. Position is still the same.
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Um, the position from post 24 or the position quoted from post 29?:confused:

Op, also, if youre looking more in the direction of a NAS device ( Drobo ) you may also want to check out Freenas. Its not very difficult to get running, and works wonderfully on older hardware. Its all done with a WebGUI, very simple. Also with that you get a lot of options for form factor, etc. IDK, just some stuff to maybe check on before you make a decision.

And like Dsu said, its kind of an apple to oranges comparison of WHS to Drobo.
 
I just wanted a fast easy backup solution for a small windows network, so I grabbed 2 Drobo FS and 10 WD Green 2TB drives. It took me about 20 minutes to have them both setup and forgotten, the backups are automated. They are slow as hell (about 22 hours to transfer a TB over gigabit), and I would NEVER use them for anything but a backup solution, but for that they work just fine. The FS doesn't bug me since I'll have 3 copies of my data floating around at least, so there's no worry about really losing anything, and from what I understand DR will help recover any lost data at no charge. One drobo will be offsite, and the other onsite. They were only $500 a piece, so if I ever want to change up to another system, I'll just nuke the drives and reformat to R5 or something.
 
Oldie said:
I just wanted a fast easy backup solution for a small windows network, so I grabbed 2 Drobo FS and 10 WD Green 2TB drives. It took me about 20 minutes to have them both setup and forgotten, the backups are automated.
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Yeah, Drobo definately is the clear winner for ease of use though.
 
Quickie update.

I have been testing multi streaming of 1080 films from the Drobo FS to just two machines. I'm streaming Avatar (1080, 22.55BGB) to one machine and Braveheart (1080, 22.12GB) to another machine for the last 30 minutes.

It has been flawless viewing so far. I know I've seen each film go through some 20+Mb/s rates during some fast moving scenes and it has been perfect. Not sure what will happen if both films ask for 20+Mb/s, but I'll have to try and coordinate that.

When I say Mb/s, that information is taken off of the XBMC overlaid information onscreen.

Obviously it is working great and that brings satisfaction. However, I have a novice question. When I did my one file transfer test earlier (posted earlier) and got 29MB/s write and 33MB/s read, the measure was MB/s. When I look at the overlay in XBMC and see that it is Mb/s, what is the difference? Is it really saying MB (byte) on the file transfer and Mb (bit) for the film rate in XBMC or is this just a mistake in the XBMC overlay and it is really MB. Maybe the meanings are otherwise and/or used more loosely than I thought.

Could someone clarify this for me?

Thanks
 
Well, I still welcome the reply on the MB vs Mb question. But I think I found confirmation that is really is showing the file transfer in MB (and actually bytes) and the film stream only coming in as Mb (bits).

I pulled up a port activity monitor and as Braveheart is streaming to the one machine, I can see that that the Gig ethernet interface is saying 2MB input/s about the time the XBMC overlay is saying 16Mb/s stream.

They don't refresh at the same increments, but clearly when the Eth input shows closer to 3MB/s, the XBMC stream rate shows low 20 something Mb/s. That would be a match for 8 bits in a byte, correct?

If this is true (and feel free to correct me) I don't see how I'm ever going to have any problems multi streaming 1080p films to multiple machines.

What am I missing here? Its working. And the maths seems to jive if I'm reading this correctly. I was expecting to choke the FS right now.

Thanks
 
B vs b, the age old question. You were correct in determining the 8bits/byte part.

Basically, there's 8 bits>byte, 1024 bytes>kilobyte, 1024 kilobytes>megabyte, and so on. It uses metric units of increment. Usually people just use 1000 instead of 1024 though for simplicity sake, I'll use it here for my example.

A 1080p movie, let's say in this case is 20 GB (gigabytes) and is 2 hours long (120 min>7200sec), would stream at an average rate of .00277 GB/sec > 2.77 MB/sec > 22.18 Mb/sec (megaBITs, not bytes)

It's the same idea as your cable company giving this awesome !!!!!!25 Mb!!!! number, which you have to divide by 8 to actually decipher real world values or transfer as I've always used bytes in my operating systems.

HTH
 
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