Drobo or not to Drobo ?

[Foggy_UK]

On my home network I currently have 3 Buffalo Link Stations which are getting rather full and so soon I will be looking to replace them. I have todate been manually backing up data on one Link Station to the next using Microsoft SyncToy. I have never been 100 % happy with this process and have now started looking for a better, fast way forward. Drobo and Drobo Share has drawn my eye and I have been waiting for SNB to do a review. I mainly use the NAS's for Media including an itunes music folder, what do you guys use or intend to use if given the choice ? What do you think about the Drobo product ?

 

[thiggins]

I asked Drobo for a review unit of Drobo Share awhile ago and they said I was in queue. Need to ping them again.

The Linkstations support automatic scheduled backup to each other. Why are you doing it manually?

How much space do you need?

 

[Foggy_UK]

I'm using SyncToy because I don't seem to have a automated way of doing it with my models of the Link Station. I have a older 300GB Linkstation NAS which I'm not to worried about, as it is only used for Music and temporary files. The two other Link Stations are the newer 400GB model running firmware version 1.42

On playing around a little deeper, I see the backup option is "grayed out". Now I thought this was because I didn't have a external USB drive connected to each of the NAS's, I now think it is because I have the sleep mode active over night.

Looks like I will have to stop using the sleep mode and use the time to run a backup.

 

[thiggins]

Yep. I think the grey-out is due to using sleep mode. Let me know how it works out.

 

[Foggy_UK]

It not working the way I would like it to. The LinkStation only seams able to backup all the folders on one drive to a folder on the other drive called "backup". I would rather be able to backup NAS1/Folder1 to NAS2/Folder1, NAS1/Folder2 to NAS2/Folder2, NAS1/Folder3 to NAS2/Folder3 etc... as I currently do with SyncToy. I don't like the LinkStation way because users on my network may make changes to any of the NAS drives and SyncToy allows me to look for the changes and mirror the changed / new file/s to the other NAS drive. Looks like I would still be better off with a single box RAID, NAS with a itunes server.

Ah well not to worry... it was worth a try. I look forward to SNB's review of Drobo and DroboShare.

 

[corndog]

Well, I've had a drobo for the better part of a year, and more recently got a droboshare to attach it to. For comparison I also have a ReadyNAS 1100 that I've had for longer.

First up, the drobo is CUTE, and very innovative when it comes to data storage technology. But it ends right at that point. What do I mean?

The array technology is really great. You put drives in, any size, any order, and it just uses them as it needs to. It only sets up parity for actual data, not for the whole disk. If your drobo is relatively empty, you can actually pull out a drive, and then after a little while it will once again become redundant on the remaining disks. No RAID array can do this (and, no, having a hot spare doesn't count. I use all the disk bays in my ReadyNAS and my Drobo - no room for a hot spare)

BUT (Need a bigger font for that BUT), once you get beyond the actual storage, the drobo is VERY limited. First of all, it's USB2. That limits the speed right away. But even worse, it's not even up to the speed limits of USB2. It can't even compete in the same performance arena as another similarly priced RAID array, like the SansDigital MR5CT2.

THEN, there's the droboshare. Yes, the Droboshare turns your drobo into a network-attached disk, but it's PAINFULLY limited. There's only one login and password, and that single login has full read-write access to the drobo - i.e. NO SECURITY. In addition, for some strange reason the droboshare has a gigabit port on it. I'd be overjoyed to see mine even come close to saturating 100megabit, let alone gigabit. There's only smb/cifs access - no ftp, no http, no rsync, no afp, no uPnP (all those other nice things that people on these forums are used to seeing on their ReadyNAS/Qnap/Synology/Thecus/Linksys devices already for years)

So, while the drobo makes a nice, redundant secondary storage, for backups or something like that, it's very light on features when it comes to real day-to-day use. At best, I'd say it would make a good backup for your "real" NAS.

 

[thiggins]

Thanks again, corndog. Another nice mini-review!

 

[Foggy_UK]

Thanks corndog, This is just the sort of information I need to make up my mind on which NAS to upgrade to.

I have put off the move to a RAID/NAS for a while, by tempory adding USB drives to the exsisting LinkStations, switching off over night standby and doing a automatic backup to the USB drives over night. I already had the USB drives in stock and just going to waste, so I've put them to good use for now! I can now start to save up for a better long turm solution. I'm going off the Drobo, and the Synology Kit (thanks to the review here on SNB) has my eye at this time.

Once again, Thanks.

Phill.