Drobo Update...
Friday, December 18, 2009 at 6:40PM Got a bit of a shock a few days ago when one of the disk lights on the standard Drobo I have turned red!
I use the Drobo as my master backup storage for all my ScreenCastsOnline project files (as well as an offsite backup). At least, most of my backups - I don't back up intermediate files that can be re-created to save space. A bit of a false economy which I'm thinking of changing.
Anyhow, back to the red light.
Luckily, it was an indicator that I was running low on space and just a warning that I should replace one of the drives with a drive of a higher capacity. This is one of the major benefits of the Drobo in that you can upgrade seamlessly, just by swapping out a drive and the system will magically expand!
However, when I got the Drobo, I populated it with 4 x 1TB drives giving me a useable storage pool of 2.7 Terabytes. Ok, so just swap out one of the 1TB with a 1.5TB or even 2TB drive then...
Hang on?
If I configure the Capacity Calculator on the Drobo site with 3x1TB and a 1.5TB drive, it still only shows 2.7TB available for data but now 436GB "Reserved for Expansion"
Eh?
OK, so add a second 1.5TB drive in and at that point, the available for data goes up to 3.2TB. So an increase of just 500GB would have cost me £160 with 2 x 1.5TB drives
Let's forget about 1.5TB drives and go with 2TB drives.....
Lets add in a single 2TB drive to the 3x1TB drives = No increase in available for data value
Add in a second 2TB drive = Increases to 3.6 TB available for data giving me an additional 900GB but at a cost of £250 using the cheapest 2TB drives I could find.
Now I'm not knocking Drobo here as the benefits of having such a clever device are manyfold, but I think that the expandability aspect only becomes cost effective if you start with relatively small drives to begin with, or if we get really cheap 4TB drives very soon!
So my solution....
DroboPro baby!
To be continued
Reader Comments (7)
Could you just buy a new Drobo rather than a Pro?
Hey Don!
Was faced with exactly the same decision two weeks ago. Luckily I found someone to sell my two 1 GB drives to. So I payed 270 Euros for two 2 GB drives and got 130 for the two 1 GB drives. Leaving me with upgrading costs of 140 Euros.
One thing I didn't expect was the long time it took to rearrange the data after changing the hard drive. For completing the update process the drobo took exactly 8 (!) days before it was completely safe again.
Looking forward to your drobo pro experience report.
Neil - Yes, of course I could have gone with a second Drobo or one of the new Drobo S but where's the fun in that :-)
I like the idea of the expandability of up to 8 drives for the Drobo Pro along with the option of the iSCSI connection, dual disk redundancy and Smart volumes. The Mac Pro has two ethernet ports so iSCSI seems to be the way to go.
Heinrich - reselling the removed drives is a smart way of reducing the costs. I have a specific role in mind for the current Drobo so adding a second Drobo into the mix was a logical progression for me.
Will keep you posted.
Hey Don,
are you sure that iSCSI is fun with the DroboPro? In theory iSCSI seems to be faster, but you have a more intense CPU usage and Data Robotics has to include a custom driver, because Mac OS X doesn’t have an integrated iSCSI initiator. I don’t have any experience with the DroboPro or the different configurations of this device, but I could imagine that FireWire 800 would be better and — what’s more important — easier to use.
It would be great to hear about some first-hand experience.
In truth, I'm not that concerned about the speed of the iSCSI as the DroboPro will be used as a backup device and not as primary storage. Will be interesting to go through the setup procedure though.
Dear Don,
have you ever heard of "unRaid"? http://www.lime-technology.com/
I think this is a much more affordable backup solution as a Drobo(pro).
Hi Don,
I'm really not a fan of Drobo products. I think they're overpriced and underperforming. I also don't like the fact that you have to use proprietary software for configuration. I much prefer standard RAID units from Wiebetech (a bit expensive) or OWC (very affordable). I just got a 4 drive enclosure from OWC for only $329. It has eSATA in addition to FireWire and USB, and it really screams for video production tasks.
Take a look at someone's analysis much more technical than myself - Lloyd Chambers who blogs on photography and high performance Mac configurations. He shreds the Drobo in his review:
http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-Drobo.html
Something to think about before you plunk down for the DroboPro.
Best regards,
Sterling