Is Drobo still one of the best storage solutions? Other questions too.

[Erwin S]

The Drobo lets you do that, but I have read a test that is quite negative about this feature.

 

Link:

http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-Drobo.html

 

The Onnto Manual states this:

"Using identical HDDs with the same capacity and RPM, and from the same

manufacturer are highly recommended for best capacity utilization."

 

So in theory: both can do it, but in practice it's always best to use identical disks. Onnto is more honest about it.

 

 

 

[twelvebears]

I am a long-term Drobo fan and one who got there having been through the PINA that *normal* RAID setups present to the non-technical.

 

I've just migrated to a new Drobo FS (with x5 2Tb drives) from a Mk2 USB/FW version because arrangements at home meant I needed fast NAS storage rather than DAS or as a shared volume via another machine.

 

Over the last 3 years I've had 2 HDs fail and even with 3-ish TB of media (music and films), I've not lost a thing and have had to do nothing more that stick in the replacement drives and leave it to do it's thing.

 

I've also increased my storage capacity by swapping in larger drives and again, had to do nothing more than leave to alone.

 

I know they aren't cheap, but as a minimal effort solution which protects from the most likely data disaster (i.e. a HD failure which WILL happen vs fire, theft, flood which only MIGHT happen), I can't really find anything negative to say about my experience.

 

This time I've got the new Drobo FS set up for dual-disk redundancy (rebuilding several TB of data takes a while, works the drives hard and the data is at risk until it's finished) and still have 5.5Tb of available storage. It's performance over a gigabit connection is pretty good too. I recently copied 600Gb of music a video onto the FS in just over 7hrs and still able to play music and films without any problems.

 

[Erwin S]

The Onnto 4-Bay does the same as the Drobo, but the styling/colour is the same as the Mac mini. It is to noisy IMO to be used as working HDD next to the mini (5 x taller, though). I just bought the Iomega MiniMax 2TB for that working HDD and this is almost silent.

 

I will use the Onnto as backup. Configuration is RAID5 with 1.5TB disks for 4TB secured.

 

[Audio_ELF]

Saying "The Onnto 4-Bay does the same as the Drobo" misses the big point of the Drobo, flexibility and expandability.

 

Put 4x 1TB drives in a Onnto you get 3TB usable space (assuming RAID5). If you fill that space the only thing you can do it buy a second Onnto, put 4x 2TB drives in it and transfer the data.

 

The Drobo on the other hand, you can start by putting 3x 2TB drives in it and get similar 3TB space (2.72TB according to Drobo's calculator). But if you then need additional space you can add a further 2TB drive to increase to 4.08 available space, and another (in 5bay Drobo FS) 2TB to give you 5.9TB. Then later replacing the 1.5TB drives expands the Drobo to 6.35TB / 6.8TB / 7.26TB as each drive is replaced.

 

Of course cost comes into play too as an Onnto 4-bay device will cost you £260 vs £570 for the Drobo S (5-bay).

 

Eloise

 

[Erwin S]

In theory. Using all the same disks is also advised with the Drobo if what I read about it is correct. So why should I pay more for an uglier device?

BTW, I bought 5 identical disks with it, and since it will only do backup, I hope this thing lasts for a long time.

 

[Audio_ELF]

Erwin... for you the Onnto does seam to fit the purpose well, I was just making it clear for the OP and others who see the question that there are differences between the two devices - not everyone who posts is clever at computers.

 

Oh and ugliness is in the eye of the beholder - I find the Onnto much uglier than the Drobo.

 

As an additional comment, I would alway recommend a good backup before doing any disk swapping with a device such as the Drobo even though it should be fine.

 

I have no vested interest in either device, just pointing out that there are differences.

 

Eloise

 

[sauerball]

I have an original Drobo sitting in my closet, so realize the context. I understand that one of the newer networked Drobos would provide faster performance (particularly write speeds) than the Drobo I had, but I could not justify the price differential between a larger, network accessible Drobo and a similar NAS from Synology or QNAP. I ended up up buying a TS-659 Pro from QNAP and haven't looked back (Chris, I read your review of the TS-559, and, in spite of your reservations, the review made me realize it was just what I needed!). Anyway, there is, as always here, no "one size fits all answer". The Drobo ease of use makes it the right answer for many. For me, spending a little time to get up to speed on the QNAP, I felt like it gave me more for similar money. YMMV. The Drobo is serving as my magnetic backup for now. As many have said here, RAID is not a backup!

 

One thing to think about: storage isn't just a place to put things (for most of us, particularly music). So think about how you will use it. With my QNAP running Twonky, I can simultaneously serve high resolution (I've tried 24 bit/ 192 hz) files to two Linn DS while also running iTunes on my iMac. Make sure your storage doesn't have an outbound bottle neck (Herbie the Fat Kid).

 

[joelha]

I'm curious from those of you who use the Drobo, QNAP, or Onnto devices, how many feet you would estimate needing to place these devices from a listening position before the device is for all practical purposes silent.

 

Locating the device in another room may not be an option so the noise issue is particularly important to me.

 

Thanks a lot.

 

Joel

 

[twelvebears]

With the Mk1 and Mk2 Drobo units, I'd not want either of them in the listening room unless they were behind soft furnishings to absorb the fan noise. Both these models use a smallish, variable speed fan which can go into 'turbo mode' and be quite noisy when the drives are busy shifting large amounts of data. When I used them I had them attached to a different machine as a shared volume.

 

The Drobo FS is rather different however. This time they have used a larger but slower running fan which runs at a constant speed. It's not silent but it is quite quiet and far less obtrusive. That said of course the Drobo FS is networked so it's easy to place elsewhere.

 

Having just built a dedicated listening room at the bottom of the garden which is basically completely silent (just the occasional drive click from my iMac), it's really nice to have such a quiet environment to listen in, so my Drobo FS is in the house.

 

[sauerball]

I never hear the unit itself or its fans, but I can hear the drives mechanical noises. I'm using WD Caviar Green. It is also only about 3m from my desk where I'm typing. Just keep in mind the drives that you choose to slot in as well.

 

[rancew]

One specific instance in which I would advise against using a Drobo is if you are planning on using on an ethernet/network connection and also using Amarra software for playback.

 

I've experienced first hand problems while using a Drobo/Droboshare NAS (ethernet connection) with Amarra. These include: delays on initial playback, beginning/end of song cutout, occasional hang-ups in iTunes playback mode and frequent hang-ups in Playlist playback mode.

 

I've spoken with/e-mailed Jon Reichbach at Sonic Studio about this several times. Here's what he had to say in a recent e-mail:

 

"What I believe is going is that the Drobo acts differently than most (all) other NAS drives we have seen.

The Drobo uses a different approach to "mounting" the NAS drive and this is exposing a bug in Amarra.

 

For details: All Mac drives usually get mounted into /Volumes, the Drobo does not do this.

The Amarra code assumes that all drives are accessible through /Volumes.

With the Drobo Amarra can not locate the files correctly.

Until I can get access to a NAS based Drobo we can only support the USB and iSCSI connections."

 

The Amarra website even addresses this with the following comment in the troubleshooting section:

 

'Some network drives may not work well with Amarra.

The DroboShare is one example. This will be addressed in a future release of Amarra."

 

Based on Jon's comments, I believe the problems would also exist with the Drobo FS, which has replaced the Drobo/Droboshare. (Even though transfer speeds are greatly improved with the new Drobo FS, speed doesn't seem to be the issue here).

 

 

 

[danielaparker]

I also have the Drobo FS, but with four Seagate Constellation ES 2 TB drives, and I don't find it quiet, not at all, I won't want it anywhere near my listening area.

 

I keep a copy of my downloaded music on a 2T Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex driver, which really is dead quiet, and which I have on my rack.

 

-- Daniel

 

[Dave Clark]

As to NAS storage solutions...

1. Anything can fail in some form or another whether it be drives or the actual NAS itself - the Drobo FS included.

2. No 'one product' is perfect nor universally 'right' for everyone.

3. The Drobo FS is very quiet, though I have mine in a a closet away from the system. Yeah, I can hear it ever so slightly late at night when 'everything is asleep', but sheesh it is WAY quieter than my Thermaltake NAS. Since it is a network storage solution I use it that way, but then that is me. No need to have it 'right' next to the system since I wanted it accessible by all the computers in the house so it is where that is easiest.

4. I am using iTunes 10 and the latest versions of both Amarra and Pure Music, and none have had any issues or experienced any 'bugs' with the files on the Drobo FS. No lag, no drops, no snags, nothing that I am ware of...

 

[exile_ken]

This may (or may not) be of interest to all the DROBO folks on this site.

 

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/data-robotics-ceo-tom-buiocchi-drobo-threads-prosumer-smb-needle/39663?tag=nl.e539

 

e_k

 

[SteveChicago]

Eloise, I've heard the same from an I.T. client. His experience is that 2 separate externals are a safer solution to a RAID system, good as it may be, for the exact reasons you have expressed. 2TB is a heck of a lot of space. E.g., I currently have ripped 500 albums in AIFF and have used only 230GB thus far. To be specific he says he's experienced problems with RAID systems failing (one drive dying along with another, the RAID OS having problems, etc.) and not being able to recover data, at least as successfully as with stand-alone externals. Just sayin'...

 

Steve

 

[bikemig]

Why isn't time machine suitable for backing up music? I use a mac mini as my music server and the music is backed up via time machine to a 500 GB time capsule. If this is a bad idea, I may need to change my back up strategy! Miguel

 

[SteveChicago]

Miguel,

 

I use Time Machine at work to back up. It automatically backs up your HD every hour and when the external is filled it deletes the oldest backed up material, etc.

 

The reason I would not use it for music is that I notice at work that each time the auto backup kicks in my computer briefly freezes / is interrupted. I have not tried TM for music. However, if such interruptions were to occur during playback it would be intolerable.

 

Steve

 

[SteveChicago]

Eloise,

 

As I see it the primary objective of backup is to safeguard the music. An external, NAS, RAID system or whatever is not going to have a sonic impact. Therefore, I'm opting for the most cost-effective method of sufficient storage so that I may devote resources to components that may enhance the sound. Just sayin'...

 

Steve

 

[bikemig]

Steve: that's helpful; thank you. My network slows down when TM kicks in (apparently this is a real problem with TM) but this doesn't seem to have any impact on playback. This thread has me thinking that I need a more robust back up plan rather than rely simply on TM. There are a number of viable strategies outlined in this thread and I'll have to check them out. Miguel

 

[SteveChicago]

Miguel,

 

Another thing I just recalled, TM uses PCU resources on a regular basis, hence the "hiccup" whenever it kicks in ... As I recall Amarra, etc. urge users to disable TM, along with other features, to maximize sound quality. My guess is that it is not the best way to back up music. Also, it seems to me that there's no real need for a constant, periodic backup with a music only set up .... I rip and have the Mini direct the loaded CD into the external straight away so there's no need for incremental backups.

 

Steve

 

[Renerator]

Hi Chris. I recently ordered the Oyen Digital Data Tale 4 Bay unit. I thought about others like the Drobo units and the Synology units that have been spoken about on CA. I pulled the trigger on the Oyen, mainly because it is on the C.A.S.H list. I was cruising around CA this evening and I came across a statement about the Onnto issue described on the Cool Drives site. This was brought up back in May some time. Has this issue been corrected by Onnto? Have I picked the wrong NAS? Please tell me I've made a GREAT decision by picking up the Onnto.

 

Thanks,

 

Rene

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Rene - The issue you mentioned was more political than meets the eye. I received the inside scoop when it was first brought to my attention. Needless to say the Onnto drives remain on the CASH list and I stand by my recommendation.

 

[Renerator]

That's all I needed to here Chris. I'm very confident with my decision and above all, your recommendation. On a tech side, which Raid mode do you recommend for this piece? I have a Mac Mini 2010 with PM>M2Tech Hi-Face>DacMagic>direct connect into Parasound HCA 2205A Amp.

 

Thanks Chris.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

I use RAID5 and highly recommend it.

 

[Audio_newb]

Hey Chris, also looking at the Datatale 4-bay unit (price is right and don't really need all the features of a full blown nas). I'm looking to run it with 4 2TB drives in Raid5 and just had a few questions for you. Obviously this thing is pretty simple so like most backup solutions I'm sure it is great just sitting there, but have you tried pulling a drive and rebuilding? Also, what drives did you end up using and have you tried fw800 as well as usb? Just want to try and cover my bases before I pull the trigger.

 

I'm glad Drobo users in the group seem pretty happy. I've always been a bit scared by some of the horror story reviews on amazon and newegg, otherwise they seem like great little units (if a bit pricey).