drobo

how many use drobo and is it worth it?
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Rgds
Arvind Balaraman

I've considered using drobo and am still looking for a better solution, especially after reading more than one user experience similar to Scott Kelby's
http://scottkelby.com/2012/im-done-with-drobo/

Maybe if you state what problem you want to solve, others can propose some solutions?

If you know that you need/want a raid solution, there are other choices besides drobo such as sansdigital and synology which get good reviews.

chasejarvis.com has some good info, albeit an expensive solution to workflow and backup that might not suit the more casual photographer, but is a great plan for a successful business with his kind of volume...
http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2010/06/workflow-and-backup-for-photo-video/

--
Shoot fast, take chances

“A camera is an instrument that teaches us to see without a camera.' - Dorothea Lange

I have been using Buffalo NAS drives for many years and about to migrate to something better. Besides being slow, one has been failing repeatedly of late, forcing me to move on to a new system.

After looking at high capacity NAS drives for some time, in the case of drobo I was concerned about the many similar complaints I keep reading about some of their units, even by photography professionals and photography writers.

I came upon Synology, however, and am still trying to find any negative feedback whatsoever on their units. They offer a system that seems to capture what you get with a drobo but take it to the next level, with improvements in many key things that are important to me like speed and expansion flexibility.

http://www.synology.com/us/index.php

I am just about to order a Synology DS1812+ with four 4 GIG drives from Newegg. I should be able to ultimately expand that to 70 some TB (if I ever need that much) and it has some nice features like the ability to be set up as an iTunes server for my local network (to get that huge database off my laptop).

Price appears comparable to drobo - but the customer response appears to be significantly more positive.

I've been using Drobo with a Dell PC for about 4-5 years now and it's worked exactly as advertised. Reliable, add capacity by hot-swapping new drives. Dead easy, which is important to me because I spend way too much of my personal time as an IT tech. Once in a while it fails to start up, which I resolve by unplugging the power cable and reattaching. That's it. Boring. I plan to buy a Thunderbold Drobo as primary storage for my upcoming new iMac and using the existing Drobo to back that up.

Heard good stuff about synology.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=bl_sr_electronics?_encoding=UTF8&field-brandtextbin=Synology&node=172282

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http://www.pbase.com/crs

Lost everything with a Drobo. Tech support no help. Now using it for a paperweight.

Stay away, find a more dependable solution.

Ever considered QNAP?

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Have no fear, Chip is here!

I'm using a Drobo and I can't recommend it.
1. It's noisy

2. It goes to sleep after a while and you have to wait while it starts all the drives one after another before you can access it. There is nothing you can do to change this. I believe it's mere presence slows access to my other drives too. Doesn't matter if I use USB or Firewire.

3. Every now and then it frightens me by appearing to be empty. This is only cured by powering it down.

4. Every now and then the computer (and the previous one) loses touch with it and everything needs a cold start.
5. Don't ask how I got on with a Droboshare...

One day I will replace it and the extensive research I have done,every time it upsets me, points toward Synology as a solution.
--
Brian
Fine Art Print sales of the Isle of Skye at:
http://www.eyeofskye.co.uk/

I'd recommend the Netgear ReadyNas NVX. Fast, reliable and expandable. You can start off with with a small raid capacity and expand with X-RAID. I have two that I use for my business and media, one configured with 5 TB storage and the other with 8 TB

http://www.readynas.com/?cat=55

Haven't used DROBO, but have G-Technology external RAID 1 2TB and a G-Tech mobile 500mb. Can't recommend them highly enough. They have RAID systems up to 12TB, and Thunderbolt, if you need it.
http://www.g-technology.com/products/products.cfm

Mike

I have two of them, a 4 bay and a 5 bay, I've had the four for a while now (although I have upgraded the drives). They are very easy to use and set up.

They are not perfect, they have some short comings, and their major weakness is that when you get a failed drive, and you put in a new one, while its writting to the new drives, your data is not protected, this process can take a few hours depending on the drive size. When your computers been asleep for a while, they also can and will also sleep and when you first wake them, there is some lag. Now having said that, in my work flow, I often work right off the files in the drobo and for me, its fast enough, not super speedy, but fast enough.

Now having said that, I have had a few failed drives and never had a problem or lost any data. I did have a lot of issues with my computers firewire ports that stated going bad on my, but I found, in my experience, that the tech support was helpful and got me pointed in the right direction.

I use a MAC OS, right now its 10.8, but I've been using them since 10.6 and no real issues.

For me, it was worth the money and I will continue to use them as part of a larger archive scheme. Do some research and check out the alternatives, I think it depends on how many files you need to back up, your skill level, etc.

The manner in which you set up your backup solution is a lot more than just hardware and can vary quite a bit based on your workflow.

Do you use external hard drives as primary storage?
Mac, Windows, Linux?

Do you use a laptop? Does that laptop have a "home" where it is hard-wired to your network/drives regularly?

Little things like these can have a large impact on your solution.

Ultimately the goal is to have a local backup and an offsite backup operating as quickly as possible with as little manual intervention as possible.
--
Recent work: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjA6aiyS

I'm with ↑, Synology is supposed to be great; great product and support. I myself have a 1st generation USB2 Drobo, the second one as the first one died on me. And when it goes you're screwed, the software is proprietary so without a Drobo you can't get to your data. I use mine as a backup-backup (my first backup is a Sharkoon, five bay eSata box).

When I recently upgraded the last disk in the Drobo (I had three 2TB disks and one 1.5TB, the latter has now been replaced with another 2TB) it took the machine something like three or four full days to get back into protected mode. Even though it's a secondary backup unit that's no fun at all.

I have been using Drobos for around four years now. I use one as my primary storage and a second as a backup. The only issue I had was when a mudda' f'ing board died and sent a death throe power surge out to all connected peripherals. I lost The entire back up drobo and one of three volumes on the primary storage unit. Quotes to recover ranged from $6,000 to $12,000. So much for our photos being "priceless".

The fault was not Drobo's, so I continue to use the product and it has served me without fault since.

--You Will Never Walk Alone

Drobo is getting quite a bit of bad press these days, predominantly due to Scott Kelby's high profile "slam" of the product. Imo, Drobo deserved it.

Until recently, I had been using 2 "standard" drobos (fw800 model). The performance was just terrible other than for back ups. FW800 at USB2 speeds...ugh. Drobo's "special sauce" comes at a price...performance. Drobo is infamous for horrible customer service and very mixed reviews regarding reliability. Drobo does have a more flexible system, being able to mix drive sizes, etc. With that said, I don't see a compelling case for why anyone should choose Drobo over Synology, QNAP or Buffalo Tech if they want (need) a NAS or RAID 5.

I chose to move away from RAID 5 and I'm not alone. It's falling out of favor for a variety of reasons. Google

Again, I don't need a NAS, so I went with a LaCie 4TB thunderbolt 2Big, connected to rMBP. Backed up to a OWC USB3 "mini-stack", plus CrashPlan+ for offsite BU.

Result: fantastic performance with DAS. Reliable and less prone to errors (corrupt files) on local, non-RAID 5 BU. Offsite safety with automated BU. $1000 and should last me for 4 years.

Drobo equivalent? Drobo 5D (thunderbolt) enclosure = $850. 4TB of storage = $500. Total $1350 and you only have "one tier" of storage ! RAID 5 is NOT a replacement for a BU...a very common misperception.

Storage and media management can be daunting, but it's a necessity.

Arvind Balaraman said:

how many use drobo and is it worth it?
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Rgds
Arvind Balaraman

Click to expand...

As a former Drobo S user I would like to warn you before buying one.

You might want to rethink buying a Drobo as it might become a brick without any warning. I've had this with two Drobo's.

One day you'll start your computer and your drobo will go into a power up and restart mode without any chance of getting this issue fixed. Your Drobo will then need to be replaced. Within warranty time this is no real issue except for the fact that the time you don't have your new drobo you won't be able to access your data.

Once out of warranty Drobo wants your money to get your brick saved...

My story is very likewise to that of Scott Kelby.
Read his story too and your hunger for a drobo will be over I'll guess.

Scotts story:
http://scottkelby.com/2012/im-done-with-drobo/

Drobo's Response:
http://scottkelby.com/2012/a-response-from-drobo-ceo-tom-buiocchi/

I am now using a Synology DS 1511+ (1512 is already available too) and am very happy with that device. Synology has great support too and is much more versatile too.
Forget Drobo and take a look at a descent NAS with normal raid support.

Jersey Bill said:

I am just about to order a Synology DS1812+ with four 4 GIG drives from Newegg. I should be able to ultimately expand that to 70 some TB (if I ever need that much)

Click to expand...

The one thing I don't like about Synology is that the expansion units are not backwards compatible with older models. This forces you to buy the expansion before it's updated, although it's probably wiser to buy a new main unit when the need arises.

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Philip

I have used a variety of NAS boxes, including Thecus, Synology, and QNAP. I'd choose any of them over Drobo

I had a Drobo 4 Bay for years and used it just for backup, was kind of slow, very slow, but good enough for backup purposes.

Then I made the mistake to buy a new 5 bay box. After a couple of days, the power supply failed and died and with it all five drives in the box.

I replaced the box @ my dealer, but this one was extremely slow (took more than a week to copy 300 GB data. But all was "green" in the dashboard, no warning, no sign of failure or problems.

I contacted the service and they let me send a log (you cannot read the log yourself, it's encrypted!). They said after analyzing the log, one of the (new) drives would show a problem and would be about to fail. But WHY is the box not giving any warning sign and instead is operating dead slow?? After replacing the drive, the box was slightly faster, but still slow.

The service was not really of any help (not to say a nightmare) and did also not replace the 5 dead drives of the first box. So I returned the second as well and bought a Synology instead. Needless to say, that the "defective" drive still works fine with its S.M.A.R.T. Status all green until today.

Bottom line: Don't trust Drobo's software, nor their service. It's the worst experience I ever had with a storage box - which is supposed to be reliable! - and a "service" organization not giving any useful help

The two Synos (DS1511+) I now have work fine for more than a year now and are really fast and almost as easy to handle as the Drobo. The old Drobo is still for sale, who's interested?

Frank

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http://www.esbol.eu

Synology gets high ratings and I'm pleased with my four bay unit. Of course you need to make good choices in system configuration to assure data recover, and you shouldn't ever rely on one local storage device for backups.

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BJ Nicholls
SLC, UT