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

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi newb - I've never tried to pull a drive on one of these. I bet if you call Oyen Digital the guys there could tell you everything you'll ever want to know about the Datatale and pulling a drive, rebuilding etc...

 

I just switched my storage over from 1 TB Hitachi Deskstar to 2 TB Hitachi Deskstar drives. They work very well.

 

[Renerator]

Hello Chris. I noticed that you are switching your hard drives out for larger ones. I am in the total learner stage with my Onnto 4-Bay NAS, so please forgive the dumb question. Can you expound on your process of taking your music library from the smaller hard drive to the newer larger one? I currently have my library on a 1 TB hard drive sitting in a Thermaltake dock. I'm waiting for my 3 x 1.5 TB drives to arrive any day now. I'm thinking about taking my present drive and copying all the files from it right over to the first new 1.5 TB drive sitting in another dock. In other words, dock to dock transfer. I'm just trying to avoid a disaster here. Yours and anyone one's opinion is greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks.

 

Rene

 

[volante]

Hi Dave,

 

I read your post regarding Drobo FS from a while back. I see that you are using Amarra and a Drobo FS.

 

I am having problems as outlined in my posting of a couple of days ago - see http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Drobo-FS-and-Amarra-issue

 

How is your Drobo connected to your set-up - mine is by ethernet network (as Drobo FS doesn't have a USB connection), is yours working ok? Any suggestions on what my problem may be?

 

Thanks,

 

neil

 

[rancew]

As I posted earlier on 9/1/10, I've had compatibility issues all along with my Drobo/Droboshare and Amarra and have been in touch with Sonic Studio intermittantly for probably close to a year and a half. They have confimed the problem exists, and is not just specific to my setup.

 

In earlier versions of Amarra, including 2.0, playback was possible but not without at least occasional glitces. Then there were much more problems in playback mode when version 2.0 came along.

 

I had hoped for a fix to this "bug" with version 2.1, but alas -- no such luck. In fact, I cannot even get any playback at all using Amarra 2.1 with my Drobo/Droboshare -- Amarra simply crashes even when trying playback without cache or playback.

 

Along the way I've copied my files to another NAS (an Apple Time Capsule that I'd been using on my network to backup all our computers) and am currently using this for Amarra playback with absolutely no problems.

 

I had previously assumed that this issue would be a problem with the Drobo FS, and while it sounds like it may be for Neil ("volante") for some reason, it seems that Dave Clark is having no problems with his Drobo FS and Amarra. So maybe it's just an issue with the quirky little Droboshare device that acts as a bridge between the USB Drobo and an ethernet connection. I'd love to be able to keep my files in a separate NAS with duplicate hard drives like the Drobo, and would buy a Drobo FS it I knew for sure that it would solve my problems since I'm already familar with the Drobo setup, software, etc.

 

I'm curious if there are others using Drobo FS and Amarra and what there experience has been.

 

[f1eng]

Drobo dashboard, their utility programme, created problems on my Mac Pro, including delayed or complete hang on startup. Drobo were no help trying to resolve this problem, saying it was an Apple fault. It may well be, but their product is the only thing I own which reveals such a fault...

Luckily the discs seem to work fine with Drobo dashboard removed, so that is how I have used mine for the last year or two.

FWIW.

Personally I would not recommend Drobo to a non-Windows user.

 

[LD]

Hey guys,

 

I'm currently trying to choose between the Drobo S and the Promise DS4600. The DS4600 is way cheaper so that's an advantage

 

Anyway, the raid's purpose for me would be to serve as my main storage for photography, which means I need it to be very fast so I can access my photos with no hiccups.

 

I am a Mac user and I thought about connecting it using Firewire 800.

 

Do you think the Promise would be fast enough for this purpose? What about the Drobo S?

 

Thanks!

 

[RayW]

LD,

 

I've been using a Promise DS4600 for some time now. I bought it diskless and added 4 Hitachi enterprise-grade 1 TB drives that were formerly on the CASH list. It is set up as RAID 5.

 

The manual gives transfer rates as up to 480 Mbps (60 MByte/s) for USB 2.0 and up to 800 Mbps for Firewire 800. My Weiss DAC2 is connected to the Firewire port on my iMac. I prefer not to put anything else on the Firewire ports, so the DS4600 is connected via USB.

 

This is certainly fast enough for audio. A 10 min track of 44.1 kbps, 24 bit stereo is about 160 MByte. I'm using Pure Music in memory player mode, in which it loads the entire track into RAM at once. For a 10 minute track, the DS4600 activity lights illuminate for about 3 seconds, which is consistent with the claimed transfer rates.

 

There were some initial problems with the DS4600 that seem to have been cured by a firmware update. (I'll elaborate if anyone asks.) There is some barely audible fan noise and disk seek noise, but other than that it is doing its job.

 

Ray

 

[[email protected]]

Good Morning

 

I did encounter the same problems with amarra mini and the Drobo FS.

 

Contacted Sonic Sudio and they were of great help, mail Dietrick Hardwick,

and he can sent you à link that cures all problems.

 

I was sent the following link for the mini cure

www.sonicstudio.com/releases/Amarra MINI 211 Release 4265.zip

 

Good luck

 

Robert jc Kleuskens

 

 

 

[xsajohn]

+1 on that. Disks are cheap enough to have a few TB (2TB, 3TB?) disks around for backup. I've had my share of pains with various RAID setups over the years. It's either hardware (Controllers, firmware) or software (management, drivers) that needs constant TLC (updating, swapping...)

 

(E.g. http://www.suitetake.com/2009/08/21/the-dark-side-of-drobo/).

 

I've gone KISS - a few TB disks.

 

[rancew]

I've been meaning to post back on this for awhile to follow up on a couple of earlier posts I made in this thread...

 

With Amarra 2.1.1 Sonic Studio has finally fixed the Amarra/Droboshare interface problem (something to do with Amarra mounting the Droboshare drive when connected via ethernet).

 

I assume this fix applies to Drobo FS devices as well.