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Does anyone have a Drobo? What are your experiences?
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I have a first generation Drobo (USB only). It's loud. Loud enough that I probably should have it in my bedroom. I've only had it a couple months, so I can't really comment about lifetime durability.
It's a very hands off device (as it should be), so I can only really draw conclusions about what I think it's doing. When it senses the host device has turned off (USB power turns off) it shuts down automatically... OR it goes into a sort of maintenance mode where it optimizes file storage and shuffles things around, which can be louder than normal operation. The other surprising thing is: it doesn't seem to realize when you're doing continuous reads, like streaming a movie off disk. Playback can stutter because the Drobo continues to do other things that should be lower priority.
These quirks aside, I can see no reason other than the highish price to not purchase a Drobo. It's a revolutionary storage device that keeps you from having to think about things like data redundancy. Why become an expert on data storage when you can buy a machine that knows how to do it much better?
I think Drobos are well worth it. The Share addon seems overpriced; that's something less mission critical that you can roll yourself.
It's a very hands off device (as it should be), so I can only really draw conclusions about what I think it's doing. When it senses the host device has turned off (USB power turns off) it shuts down automatically... OR it goes into a sort of maintenance mode where it optimizes file storage and shuffles things around, which can be louder than normal operation. The other surprising thing is: it doesn't seem to realize when you're doing continuous reads, like streaming a movie off disk. Playback can stutter because the Drobo continues to do other things that should be lower priority.
These quirks aside, I can see no reason other than the highish price to not purchase a Drobo. It's a revolutionary storage device that keeps you from having to think about things like data redundancy. Why become an expert on data storage when you can buy a machine that knows how to do it much better?
I think Drobos are well worth it. The Share addon seems overpriced; that's something less mission critical that you can roll yourself.
source(s):
Personal experience
Personal experience
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Thanks, you covered all of the questions I had about it.
I personally had the first generation drobo (USB) it works really well and Drobo support is great. One problem though is that the USB is a little to slow for my needs (hence I 'had' it) the New drobo second generation has a Firewire ports and most reviews are quiet positive.
It's a great product but out of the price range of most consumers
I'm in no way connected to TWiT, but they have a promo going on for 50$ off if your interested http://drobo.com/macbreak/
It's a great product but out of the price range of most consumers
I'm in no way connected to TWiT, but they have a promo going on for 50$ off if your interested http://drobo.com/macbreak/
I've got one. I love it. The FW800 cable it comes with is SO touchy though - I don't know if this is typical of these cables, but it is not secured, and touching it just a bit will break the connection. The power cable is not secured either.
Overall, very impressed. Looking forward to getting the droboshare, which can emulate an itunes or windows media server.
Overall, very impressed. Looking forward to getting the droboshare, which can emulate an itunes or windows media server.
source(s):
Me!
Me!
Drobo 2nd generation here, connected to a mcabook pro with firewire 800. Sadly enough it's not fast at all. Direct copy from the internal hd to the drobo tops 30Mb/s max.
source(s):
Direct experience
Direct experience
Nonetheless, if you don't need it for working realtime, for example as a scratch disk for Final Cut Pro, its combination of reliability, capacity and ease of use makes it really a good choice.
Yeah, we're just thinking of getting one to store backup copies or all our home video DVDs. We just want something that can guarantee us if a DVD gets scratched, we can definitely re-burn the original image.
@cfinke I don't think you can get anything better for that kind of use.
Just remember that you can't copy a DVD original image, you need some software to remove protection from DVDs to backup them. MacTheRipper on the mac is good. I don't know about windows software, but I'm sure there is plenty.
Just remember that you can't copy a DVD original image, you need some software to remove protection from DVDs to backup them. MacTheRipper on the mac is good. I don't know about windows software, but I'm sure there is plenty.
@fsolerio: Yep, no issues there. These are DVDs that we've created ourselves from home videos our families have taken over the last 20 years.
I have three Drobos... all first gen. Sure they are a little slow, but that's the price you pay for them being waaay easier to set up and administer than RAID. I used to have a few clone computers around just for RAID storage and they were a nightmare to keep running. I'm a photographer and I have massive storage needs. With 3 Drobos I have about 8T of storage space now.
I was looking to buy a drobo, so I did a bit of research. This should help you out. I decided against it and went with a Time machine, backed-up by an External drive.
Drobo in my opinion weighs in on the better off without it area.
Drobo is not nearly as reliable, cannot be used as an NAS. the USB2.0 means you must connect it to a computer and sheare it thru that systems network access... the 2nd generation is worse, the firewire offers no increase in speed... deff a dont purchase.
oh & drobo share does not make it much better.
cost vs value does not balance well.
~wolfcaller
Drobo is not nearly as reliable, cannot be used as an NAS. the USB2.0 means you must connect it to a computer and sheare it thru that systems network access... the 2nd generation is worse, the firewire offers no increase in speed... deff a dont purchase.
oh & drobo share does not make it much better.
cost vs value does not balance well.
~wolfcaller
source(s):
business useage.
business useage.
I'd have to disagree. The FW800 is blindingly fast, and droboshare makes it a NAS.
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