Topic: Drobo Data Storage (Read 24287 times)

kaelaria · « **Reply #20 on:** September 18, 2007, 12:52:35 pm »

You just agreed with me, I don't know what you are saying isn't true...

eSATA or high speed ethernet is a magnitude above USB and firewire, it's not even comparible.

Given this is a photo board, it's safe to assume people are talking about large photo files. My particular application happens to also include large video files - both working and archive.

Here on my video processing station I happen to use 500GB eSATA drives. They are not expensive whatsoever. $9 for an enclosure, and $65 for an adaptor card. My home machine didn't even need the card, it's built on to the motherboard.

If you don't think USB is useless for working files just do this - put one of your CF cards in and make that your CS swap file drive, then utilize it. Enjoy the nap DO the same on a high speed transfer drive and it's night and day.

Nill Toulme · « **Reply #21 on:** September 18, 2007, 01:19:52 pm »

I still fail to grasp in what respect the drobo is any better than a bunch of big redundant external firewire (or eSATA) drives for backup. (I take it all are agreed that it's essentially a backup solution, not a live data solution.)

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

kaelaria · « **Reply #22 on:** September 18, 2007, 02:08:07 pm »

Because you can mix and match any size, brand and speed HDs in it - it makes them all hot swappable and redundant with 100% availability. It's not unique in this, but it's cheaper than the competition.

Nill Toulme · « **Reply #23 on:** September 18, 2007, 02:57:29 pm »

The same is true of separate individual firewire drives — they're just not all in the same enclosure. And there's nothing proprietary about the way they store your data. Drobo sounds like "RAID, sort of, for dummies" to me, but I'm sure I'm missing something.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

kaelaria · « **Reply #24 on:** September 18, 2007, 03:02:02 pm »

What you're missing is the spanning of the info over one partition, which I don't believe individual drives can do.

Sure I can plug in all 8 of my external drives, but that's not the same as a big RAID array with 8 drives.

Nill Toulme · « **Reply #25 on:** September 18, 2007, 05:31:01 pm »

And why is that an advantage for backup?

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

djgarcia · « **Reply #26 on:** September 18, 2007, 05:43:30 pm »

Quote

And why is that an advantage for backup?

Because your backup is safer by being in a redundant array (assuming other than RAID 0). You can lose a drive (or more possibly) and still recover.

Nill Toulme · « **Reply #27 on:** September 18, 2007, 09:06:36 pm »

Well it's no safer than two completely redundant external drives.

I'm not arguing against RAID, understand. My live data is on a 1.1TB RAID5. But I back up to simple, redundant, external firewire drives, some of which live offsite.

So far all I can glean about Drobo is that it's kind of like RAID, but not really. It's main advantage is that you can mix and match drive sizes. (You can do that with RAID too, of course, but you're limited by the size of the smallest drive.)

Is that it? Is it really so much easier to live with than a real RAID that it makes up for its proprietary format and slow interface? Or is it really just that it's marketed to photographers and seems easier to them? Do they understand that it is NOT inherently a backup unless and to the extent it's used properly as such?

I'm not arguing, I'm trying to understand the product. So far I think I do not.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

djgarcia · « **Reply #28 on:** September 18, 2007, 09:42:48 pm »

Got you. From what I can understand, you pretty much explained it. Of course if you're planning a RAID system from scratch, you'd get all same drives anyway. And if Drobo is utilizing all asymetrical drive space, then there's going to be a trade-off, and it's probably performance.

kaelaria · « **Reply #29 on:** September 18, 2007, 09:59:59 pm »

Nil, I don't know if you are just conviently ignoring 1/2 of the features everytime you post, or just baiting the discussion under the guise of claimed ignorance.

If you truely believe a RAID device is the same as 2 or more external independant drives, then you need to read up a lot more on RAID.

It's REALLY simple:

The device (and others like it) does the following:
- Uses any mix of drives for storage material
- Provides for complete redundantcy
- Provides uninterupted data access
- Makes each drive hot swappable
- Provides a single addressable volume
- Is instantly upgradeable in size by swapping for larger drives, with no inturuption

There is nothing unusual in that it uses a proprietary format for the data storage. Every raid controller is the same way. You can't take an array off one controller and use it with another.

Individual external drives can not, and are not designed to, do these things.

The advantages of this device over others is the price point and slick interface. The use of multiple mismatched drives with redundant storage is also fairly unique.

Yes it takes a performance hit *when compared to dis-similar raid setups optimized for speed*. I am not aware of another setup with a redundant JBOD array using mismatched drives that has been reviewed for an apples to apples speed comparison.

The one huge drawback of this device over others similar is of course the external transfer interface, being USB2. They do not market this as a backup only device, so get over your little self-made argument. *We* as users (most) are simply stating that ANY drive relagated to a slower protocol rather than the faster modern alternatives, is better suited to backup duty than live data.

DarkPenguin · « **Reply #30 on:** September 18, 2007, 10:59:40 pm »

You can also start with small drives and slowly upgrade them. So if you have a couple of 200g drives you can start. As you add drives you can add larger ones. Eventually you swap out the small ones for bigger ones. The device does all the work. You don't have to keep copying data around every time you do that.

All of that is from memory. I haven't read up on the device in a while but I believe that was one of the key features.

CatOne · « **Reply #31 on:** September 19, 2007, 11:56:09 pm »

Yes, the key features are the flexibility and the ability to mix and match drives. You can start with 2 drives, and it gives you the same space as if you had them mirrored. Then you add a third drive, and it gives you the space you'd have with a 3-drive RAID 5. Add a 4th, and it gives you the space as if you had a 4-drive RAID 5.

And all this is done automatically. With ordinary RAID you'd often have to back up everything, move it off, delete the RAID sets, and reconstruct. So this kind of flexibility IS a really nice thing. Is this product the be-all end-all? No. It's pretty slow, it's USB 2 (i.e. no NAS), etc. Still, for a big chunk of backup storage I'd use this thing over some janky La Cie drives any day (I know lots of people who have had issues). I personally use an Infrant ReadyNAS because I like the NAS ability, but it's not as flexible as the Drobo.

But the Drobo is WAY nicer to manage than a box full of drives in firewire enclosures where you have to wonder what's on which drive... maybe you write the contents in felt tip pen on the outside. Or put a big sticky label on there. I've seen it

rdonson · « **Reply #32 on:** September 21, 2007, 09:58:38 am »

You might want to check out what's coming in 2008. USB 3.0

kaelaria · « **Reply #33 on:** September 21, 2007, 09:59:44 am »

Yep, and by 2009 we might have some devices for it

CatOne · « **Reply #34 on:** September 21, 2007, 11:51:50 am »

Quote

You might want to check out what's coming in 2008. USB 3.0
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=140963\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I'm sure that's the solution

There are a number of current interfaces, including Firewire 400, Firewire 800, and eSATA that would do a great job today -- with markedly larger computer support than USB 3.0.

EricWHiss · « **Reply #35 on:** September 29, 2007, 01:54:15 am »

Just to add another data point...I've got a Infrant ReadyNAS NV. Infrant has had some great support and the product works fine, but you'll never be able to use it for anything but a backup because its way to slow even with a direct connection to the computer with 1Gb nic . It takes nearly a whole weekend to sync my 0.7Tb aperture library with verify and most of a day to do the 0.3Tb Lightroom library.

Backups for digital suck compared to film negatives. You can't really expect to get by with just one backup, plus you need a UPS for your back up and working volume, and you always have to worry about technology leaving you in the dust. Buy a new computer and your RAID card might not work anymore.

That's why I have the ReadyNAS as a second backup because its ethernet instead of a hardware RAID. Nice to have two formats.

Author Topic: Drobo Data Storage (Read 24287 times)

DarkPenguin