DROBO Storage device

[Jack]

Yes, thank you, I have the Drobo Dashboard, newest version and it works fine. I was more curious about how you were "filling it". Do you use SuperDuper or something like that and how?

Peace, Curt

Okay, got it now

I use Carbon Copy Cloner and do scheduled copies from my working file drive to the DROBO. My current schedule is 1x daily, but I have considered changing this to a higher frequency. I also do a manual copy (via CCC) immediately after any large upload of images to my working drive. For example, after a shoot I will create a folder for the job on my working file drive, upload the images from the cards to that shoot folder (or folders), then launch CCC and run a manual "image synch" so the new shoot is immediately backed up to DROBO.

Cheers,

 

[Jonathon Delacour]

Has anyone looked into amazon's online storage solution? I forgot all about it, I may check into that again.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=16427261

I use a variation on the backup strategy that Jack has described:
* internal hard drives to store current photos
* External 2-bay (WiebeTech eSATA) RAID 1 enclosure for redundant backups (I cycle four drives through this device, keeping two drives in the device and the other two at separate offsite locations).

I also back up the contents of each CF card (immediately after download) to DVDs which are then stored at my two offsite locations.

However, I've also started to back up my "selects" (any image rated with one star or more in Photo Mechanic) to Amazon's S3 using Jungle Disk, which is available for Macintosh, Linux, and Windows. The software is $20 (there's a free 30-day trial) and can be installed on as many machines as you want with a single S3 account. Your data can be encrypted.

Amazon's charges are:
* $0.15 per GB-Month of storage used
* $0.10 per GB of data uploaded
* $0.17 per GB of data downloaded

I also opted for the Jungle Disk Plus service which costs $1 per month. This enables block-level file updates (allowing you to upload only the changed portions of large files) and upload resume (so you can resume uploads of large files where they left off).

The Jungle Disk software allows you to mount your Amazon S3 storage bucket as a network drive. You then drag files and folders to initiate the upload process or you can schedule automatic backups. My ADSL connection isn't super-fast but I've found that the Jungle Disk + Amazon S3 combination works pretty much as advertised, providing an extra level of redundancy for a couple of dollars a month.

 

[cjlacz]

One of my external drives died a couple days ago. Been a wake up call to get my storage situation fixed. Luckily I didn't lose any pictures. Are people still happy with the Drobo? This is the solution I'm looking at right now. Has anything better appeared on the market recently?

 

[Oxide Blu]

One of my external drives died a couple days ago. Been a wake up call to get my storage situation fixed. Luckily I didn't lose any pictures. Are people still happy with the Drobo? This is the solution I'm looking at right now. Has anything better appeared on the market recently?

Solid state drives. How much money do you have?

I'm sticking with my array of WD Passport drives. They're cheap. And unless I get stupid (I always keep that option open, just in case ) they are no more or less vulnerable that the 'C' drive in my computer. SSDs are projected to drop in price at around 26%/year over the next 3 years. I'll be looking a solid state alternatives for working mass storage at that time.

 

[cjlacz]

I'm definitely not rich enough for solid state. I've got 5 external drives, well 4 now with a lot of other stuff on them too. Living in the tiny apartment I am now the multitude of cables and power supplies is a PITA so I was looking to consolidate a bit more. Amazon Japan doesn't seem to sell the Drobo anymore so I'm going to have to start hunting. Maybe in 5 or 10 years I can look at solid state. No much interest in this topic anymore guess. Thanks for the reply!

 

[curtd]

cjlacz: I am very happy with my Drobo, it has 4 1TB drives in it and I use LaCie's "Silverkeeper" software to keep it up to date. I bought Carbon Copy Cloner but don't like it.

 

[Bob]

The Drobo is a fine but slow, easy to administer device, which I recommend for backups or archival only due to their speed especially their write-rate.
The FW800 version tests my patience.
Several utilities work just fine with it invlufing CCC, Silverkeeper, Superduper! and time machine. I do NOT recommend time machine in for use with the Drobo, only because the device is so slow and TM activates so often. I schedule my Drobo/CCC backups nightly (at my scheduled down times) but sweep important archives to external HD. I suggest using at least a pair of striped drives for TM. A six internal drive configuration is really sweet for flexibility and performance.
-bob

 

[cjlacz]

Hmm, that slow huh? Well it sounds like it would work well to keep my Aperture vault and downloads, but not my library. I'll use my freed up drives for time machine and to store my Aperture library. I currently have a Macbook pro and live in a 200 sq foot apartment, so a big desktop isn't an option as much as I'd like a Mac Pro. (nor can I afford it at this current job with the other stuff I want) Thanks for the feedback!

(after a short time searching the web)

Ouch, I wasn't wrong. The price has gone up. Over $1000US for the drobo and wireless thingy. That's a little too much for that box.

I found something cool, Netgear's ReadyNAS system got upgraded to X-Raid2, so it grows with mixed sized disks like the Drobo (X-Raid 1 won't). They've got a 6-bay system for only a couple hundred more (I hope!) then the Drobo would cost, and it would be hell of a lot faster. More then I want to spend, so I'd have to put the camera purchase off a bit longer, but this would last me longer and be a lot more flexible. I'll have to start searching Akihabara in January.

 

[Jack]

Folks, when Bob says "slow" it is relative to the rest of his system where he runs a bank of SAS drives in a RAID-0 stripe...

My FW800 DROBO does large file reads and writes at 50MB/s sustained -- that's MB with a *big* "B" . No, that is not anywhere near as fast my striped array for working image files reads and writes, but it is plenty fast for back-up and archive. The big benefit is it is bone simple easy to maintain and manage -- in fact it does that all by itself. It is also virtually silent, which I like. :thumbs:

 

[fotografz]

Just ordered my second Drobo ... this one is FW 800 with four 1.5 TB 7200 RPM drives for a whopping 6 TB of storage. A Bit over $1K total.

I'll transfer some data from my older USB-2 Drobo and use it for Time Machine back-up.

 

[Jan Brittenson]

My Drobo is pretty slow on writes, about 15/MBs. It's much faster on reads. For me this is not much of a problem; TM runs every hour but never backs up much and is done in a few seconds. It doesn't touch my Photos or Video, those I 'save' by manually copying them to the Drobo. So it's really only the system and generic user files, including iTunes, but this stuff doesn't have large changes very frequently. Mostly when I rip a new CD or install some application, which isn't every day. I also clone my boot disk, which is probably overkill given TM, but I like the idea of being able to reboot immediately without any restoration process.

 

[Jack]

Jan, you set yours up via the LAN adapter didn't you? Wonder if that's why it's slower?

 

[Jan Brittenson]

Right now it's on attached directly to the Mac Pro. The DroboShare doesn't really affect it much, other than it caps at about 30MB/s on reads unless jumbograms are enabled - which they aren't by default. There's a little DroboApp to turn on jumbograms for gbe.

 

[Terry]

Hi all,
I'm in the middle of setting up a Drobo. What was the final consensus on sizing the volume? I've currently got three 1tb drives in it?

Thanks,
Terry

 

[Bob]

Terry,
I sized mine to 16TB.
I am not sure that it is optimal, but it will allow growth to there.
-bob

 

[cjlacz]

From something I read they said the size affected the boot time of the Drobo, but after they tried timing it at 4TB and 16TB that difference was small, 15 seconds or something? I'd just set it at the max from what they found.

 

[Terry]

I never ended up seeing the final boot time for the 16tb so I set it to 8tb. By the time I'm up to using 4 2tb drives and fill it up I figure I will have reconfigured my tech. I'm just a lowly 12 megapixel shooter so I'm not making 16 bit medium format files.

 

[Jack]

There is a new firmware available for DROBO, ver 1.3.

Apparently, it is *NOT* available through the "Check for Updates" button on the Drobo Dashboard -- I know, inexcusably poor service from the Drobo folks...

I was having an issue with variable readability of one of my Spinpoints and they suggested this update -- which is the only way I found out about it!


First, a big *NOTE* from Drobo: Do not upgrade to v1.3.0 without already being at firmware v1.1.2 or higher!!!

Instructions for install:
http://www.drobo.com/Docs/Software/Drobo1.3.0/ManualUpgradeInstructions_DroboFirmware.pdf

Official release notes:
http://www.drobo.com/Docs/Software/Drobo1.3.0/Release_Notes_DroboFirmware_1 3 0.pdf

Finally, the Firmware file:
http://www.drobo.com/Docs/Software/Drobo1.3.0/v1.3.0.tdz


It all installed just fine, and yes you do use the CTRL key on the Mac too, not the CMD key

Cheers,

 

[fotografz]

There is a new firmware available for DROBO, ver 1.3.

Apparently, it is *NOT* available through the "Check for Updates" button on the Drobo Dashboard -- I know, inexcusably poor service from the Drobo folks...

I was having an issue with variable readability of one of my Spinpoints and they suggested this update -- which is the only way I found out about it!


First, a big *NOTE* from Drobo: Do not upgrade to v1.3.0 without already being at firmware v1.1.2 or higher!!!

Instructions for install:
http://www.drobo.com/Docs/Software/Drobo1.3.0/ManualUpgradeInstructions_DroboFirmware.pdf

Official release notes:
http://www.drobo.com/Docs/Software/Drobo1.3.0/Release_Notes_DroboFirmware_1 3 0.pdf

Finally, the Firmware file:
http://www.drobo.com/Docs/Software/Drobo1.3.0/v1.3.0.tdz


It all installed just fine, and yes you do use the CTRL key on the Mac too, not the CMD key

Cheers,

Here's a heads up .... DO NOT BUY THE 1.5 TB DRIVES FROM DROBO.

REPEAT, DO NOT BUY THE 1.5 TB DRIVES !!!!!!

Biggest circle jerk I've every encountered. The Sales person at the Drobostore said that Drobo had finally certified 1.5 TB 7200 RPM Seagate drives, so I order 4 of them and
a new Drobo FW800. Didn't work, screwed around with it for a day. Thought it might be the firmware and downloaded that for both Drobos. Didn't work. The Drobo would just shut down after awhile because the drives just froze up.

Tried a number of times to reach tech support ... finally reached them and was told only certain Seagate part numbers and firmware would work ... none of which were the ones THEY SOLD ME! Was given the support number for Seagate as was told they would swap them out for the right part number/firmware ... Seagate Tech Support never heard of Drobo and they had to look them up on Google.

Called Drobo back again and was told that they have no idea what part number is being shipped because they're sealed in the package. Was promised a RMA to return the drives for a refund ... never heard from Drobo ... no phone call, no e-mail, nothing.

BUYER BEWARE !

 

[ddk]

Here's a heads up .... DO NOT BUY THE 1.5 TB DRIVES FROM DROBO.

REPEAT, DO NOT BUY THE 1.5 TB DRIVES !!!!!!

Biggest circle jerk I've every encountered. The Sales person at the Drobostore said that Drobo had finally certified 1.5 TB 7200 RPM Seagate drives, so I order 4 of them and
a new Drobo FW800. Didn't work, screwed around with it for a day. Thought it might be the firmware and downloaded that for both Drobos. Didn't work. The Drobo would just shut down after awhile because the drives just froze up.

Tried a number of times to reach tech support ... finally reached them and was told only certain Seagate part numbers and firmware would work ... none of which were the ones THEY SOLD ME! Was given the support number for Seagate as was told they would swap them out for the right part number/firmware ... Seagate Tech Support never heard of Drobo and they had to look them up on Google.

Called Drobo back again and was told that they have no idea what part number is being shipped because they're sealed in the package. Was promised a RMA to return the drives for a refund ... never heard from Drobo ... no phone call, no e-mail, nothing.

BUYER BEWARE !

I'm not a fan of this company either, I got rid of mine when I realized that they charge for firmware updates. I had a DroboShare bought months after the Drobo which I couldn't upgrade it firmware without paying of Drobo's license, its absurd and unheard of for this type of product! I returned to using LaCie Raids and Network Raid systems which I've used for many years, much, much faster, great tech support and no rip-off charges for firmware upgrades.