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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Drobo back-up ?
Steve Violette, Photographer
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Gulf Breeze | FL | USA | Posted: 2:49 PM on 02.06.08 |
| ->> Anyone currently using the Drobo system to back up their files / images. THe info/video on their website looks pretty impressive/easy to use. I would like to hear if anyone is indeed using this system for backing up |
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Denny Medley, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Kansas City | MO | USA | Posted: 7:57 PM on 02.06.08 |
->> Steve,
Yep - I purchased one, and absolutely love it. It works exactly as advertised, and although my initial hesitation over it not having firewire connectivity kept me away for a while, now that I'm using it it's awesome.
I've got two 1TB Western Digital SATAII drives, plus two 500 GB WD SATA drives in the bays, and have had zero problems. You just pop a drive in the bay, and it does all the rest.
Plus, it looks cool on your desk, and you can flash the indicator lights at someone when they walk into the office... 8-) |
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Ed Wolfstein, Photographer, Assistant
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Burlington | VT | USA | Posted: 4:16 PM on 02.07.08 |
->> I've been using one pretty much since the thing came out. It's strictly a backup for me, so the USB issue is not a biggie in my case. It's definitely slower than Firewire 800 or Gigabit Ethernet, but again, that's not why I bought it. My original configuration was with 4, 750GB Seagates, and as I was getting close to capacity, I decided to swap one of the 750s for a 1TB. The swap was smooth, and it distributed the files to the new drive transparently. The only downside was that the whole "redistribution" took over 60 hours to complete! I guess it would be faster with smaller drives and/or less stuff filling them up. Today I was pulling some old files off of it, using my laptop and WiFi (801n) and it wasn't all that bad. Still nowhere near a native eSATA drive, but not terrible either. For larger batches of work, I'll copy files/folders to a local drive, and work off of it instead. In general, I don't like working "live" off a backup source - so I'll just pull the files I need. It does the job, and has redundancy - no fuss no muss. Short of setting up a RAID (or pair of RAIDs in my case - one on site, one off) it's not a bad way to go, as long as you understand its file safety features vs. its limitations. There's a new module you can now get to make your Drobo a network drive, and then link more than one Drobo to your ethernet. I haven't gone that route - seems it'd be just as easy to add another Drobo to my networked desktop.
My 2 cents.
Cheers.
- Ed. |
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Jim Sykes, Photographer
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Montgomery Village | Md | | Posted: 1:20 AM on 02.08.08 |
->> I just bought one and hooked it up today. I've been copying all my files to it all day. So far its been great. Super easy to set up and I find it more than fast enough to work off of if you want to work that way. I'm using it for backup that is also readily accessible if needed.
I replaced an NAS system that I had on the gigabit network. While transferring files over the gigabit was a bit faster than with the Drobo, accessing files over the network from the NAS RAID was MUCH MUCH slower on my Mac network. Just waiting for the Finder to get a list of files off the RAID took forever for some of my bigger folders. The Drobo reacts almost instantly, just as if it were an internal drive. Its also quick to access over the network from my other computers.
So far it really seems like a winner and I'm very happy with it. I got mine from Jody at Roberts and it was the best price I could find and here within two days. Thanks again for the wonderful service Jody. |
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Bastian Ehl, Photographer
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Magdeburg | _ | Germany | Posted: 4:30 AM on 02.08.08 |
| ->> There's one issue with the Drobo. If the unit itself goes south, there's no way getting your files back, but using another Drobo. It uses it's own file system. When you set-up a normal RAID system, you could plug the HDDs into another computer and access your files anytime. And no one really knows for how long the Drobo company will remain in business. RAID is an industry standard - Drobo isn't. |
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Fj Hughes, Photographer, Assistant
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Baltimore | MD | USA | Posted: 8:50 AM on 02.08.08 |
->> "RAID is an industry standard - Drobo isn't."
Although Robo seems like a great idea, this is a big problem with the unit and gives me pause. I think I would wait and see. Glad to hear it is working out for some of you. Please keep us informed! |
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Max Simbron, Photographer, Assistant
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Phoenix | AZ | USA | Posted: 5:06 PM on 02.08.08 |
->> I'll agree with it being a really easy setup and just as easy to use. Took me 2 min to get it working (and that's with installing drives).
I haven't had to think about it once in the months I've had it.
The proprietary part doesn't bother me, but I'm lucky in that my friend has one too, so if I was ever in a pinch, I could pull his drives (a pack), pop mine in, copy over to another drive, and call it a day.
Honestly though, my Drobo has gone through several power outages, random unplugging, and no problems whatsoever.
Max |
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John Harrington, Photographer
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Washington | DC | USA | Posted: 6:20 PM on 02.08.08 |
->> Bastian's hit the nail on the head - the Drobo is a no-go for me because of their proprietary file system, and the inability for me to pull a drive and use any other standard drive system to access the data.
Thus:
1) When your drive fails, you must have another Drobo.
2) If Drobo as a company fails, you can't get a replacement box, and you're SOL.
There are two types of people in the world - those that have had a hard drive fail, and those that will.
If you're the former, you'll question seriously a proprietary file system. If you're the latter, you'll be taking risks for which you don't know the consequences, until you have had a failure, and then you'll get religion.
John |
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Jim Sykes, Photographer
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Montgomery Village | Md | | Posted: 6:44 PM on 02.08.08 |
->> For me though, as for everyone, we shouldnt be counting on a single RAID or Drobo system as our only form of backup. I have at least three copies of everything, only one being on the Drobo which I have for large capacity immediate access data and I'd rather have it in that than on a single huge external drive.
If, in the unfortunate case a Drobo goes south on me and its not the drives (cause if its a drive you simply pop in a new one and it rebuilds itself just as with RAID), I still have copies of my work in other places that I can access if need be immediately before I can get a replacement Drobo.
If/when the company goes south, there is going to be a time period that you'll be able to recover or transfer all the data to another source. I think the chances of having data on a dead Drobo and having no way to recover it is going to be extremely rare. Of course, that is why I have another copy of everything just for that rare occasion.
Bottom line though, is if you're relying solely on the Drobo, then you are asking for trouble. If you use it smartly, then the disadvantages are readily overcome. |
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Chris Preovolos, Photographer
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Stamford | CT | United States | Posted: 5:35 PM on 02.09.08 |
| ->> I haven't looked into this very deeply, but that is the difference between this and RAID 5? |
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Alex Boyce, Photographer
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central italy | n/a | italy | Posted: 7:44 AM on 02.11.08 |
| ->> drobo looks good but isnt available everywhere in europe and it is expensive just for the case. In the states it looks like the availability is greater in case of emergency. So it could be a good option. |
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Steve Violette, Photographer
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Gulf Breeze | FL | USA | Posted: 3:22 PM on 02.11.08 |
->> THanks all for the feedback
Maybe just more questions I need to answer myself on assessing the risks of a proprietary system New Mac Pro here tomorrow - then I'll decide
Thanks
Steve |
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Jim Sykes, Photographer
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Montgomery Village | Md | | Posted: 4:41 PM on 02.11.08 |
->> Chris, this works basically like a RAID 5 system does, however, its a proprietary way of doing it.
The benefit is it allows for the expansion and immediate availability of adding larger drives down the road. With a RAID 5 you have to switch out one drive for a larger one, but you dont get the benefit till all of the drives are swapped.
In the case of the Drobo, as soon as you add a larger drive it will start to incorporate that additional space into the system.
The Drobo is also connected via USB instead of being a network connection, so it acts more like a local drive than another computer on the network. This is what draws me to it because access is instant and fast rather than trying to connect to it over a network.
I had a Netgear/Infrant NAS before and it was slow to access over the network for quick and easy access. It wasnt the transfer of data that was slow, it was accessing it. The Mac network in my home always took forever to show what was available in large folders. PM would take 20 minutes to open a large folder of images off the drive and things like that. It sucked.
With the Drobo, its all instant since its essentially an external drive. Also, using Aperture, I can use the Drobo with the vault feature. Aperture does not support vault backup over a network.
Proprietary stuff is not new though. If you use a Netgear/Infrant NAS with their XRAID system, its the same thing. That is their proprietary RAID system that works just like the Drobo allowing for easier expansion than RAID 5.
Again, Drobo or a RAID should not be your essential backup. For me, its basically just a huge external hard drive I can keep connected for immediate access, while being a lot safer than just having a single huge hdd in case of some kind of drive failure.
The proprietary stuff doesnt scare me as I have other backups in case of catastrophic failure and if the company goes under, I'll have time to look into another system like this before I'm screwed.
BTW, if anyone wants a barely used NAS, let me know. |
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Kevin M. Cox, Photographer, Assistant
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Galveston / Houston | TX | US | Posted: 11:28 PM on 02.11.08 |
->> I've got an Infrant ReadyNAS 600 on a gigabit network and have been pretty happy with it. (Netgear previewed a new 6 disk version at CES that looks interesting.) What model do you have and what speed network were you using it on? I can open an average game (300-700 photos) over the network in Photo Mechanic and the thumbnails pop up pretty fast, maybe a minute wait on the larger folders if they haven't been opened recently. The key is having PM set to sort by filename and not capture time which is the slowest sorting method.
On the proprietary issue, ReadyNAS products feature a level called X-RAID which also allows for RAID set volume expansion similar to the Drobo, however it is very similar to RAID 5 and the official word from Infrant is, "Regardless of whether you have RAID 1, 5, or X-RAID, you'll be able to read the data on a typical Linux distribution with MD RAID and LVM. The volume should be mountable fairly easily." Obviously I'd have to read up on the procedure or find someone very familiar with Linux, but the option is there to recover the data without buying another ReadyNAS should it die. |
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