Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: CBarrett on December 18, 2009, 08:42:41 pm
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Drobo Pro arrived today. Setting the thing up. Threw a couple 2TB WD drives in. During setup Drobo Dashboard presents a capacity slider allowing me to format the volume up to 16TB. Any idea what I should set it at?
Thanks,
CB
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Drobo Pro arrived today. Setting the thing up. Threw a couple 2TB WD drives in. During setup Drobo Dashboard presents a capacity slider allowing me to format the volume up to 16TB. Any idea what I should set it at?
Thanks,
CB
I can't really answer your question, but I would be really interested if you could give your feedback after using it. I'm considering buying on and would love to hear some more about it.
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Drobo Pro arrived today. Setting the thing up. Threw a couple 2TB WD drives in. During setup Drobo Dashboard presents a capacity slider allowing me to format the volume up to 16TB. Any idea what I should set it at?
Does "a couple" mean two? If so, I recommend putting more drives in, even if they are cheaper and smaller, perhaps 1TB or 1,5TB drives. The DroboPro offers two-drive redundancy, meaning two drives can simultaneously fail, and your data will still be safe. This clearly cannot work if there are only two drives in the box. You need at least three, but then your total capacity is estimated as the total minus the largest two drives. In your case, you will simply get something like RAID 1, i.e. one drive contains a redundant copy of the other. I would put in at least 4 or 5 to start with. Buy in batches of two, max, since drives from the same production batch tend to fail similarly. Ideal would be to buy all drives separately, but I don't know if you want the hassle and shipping costs of that approach.
The volume size doesn't matter until you hit it. As long as your real storage space is smaller, it will just warn you when it is running out of actual space, and you can plop in another drive. Once you hit the volume size, you will need to reformat to keep it one volume, if that is what you want to do. Once you have put in a few more drives, you should be able to choose a larger volume size than 16TB, and unless you prefer managing many small volumes, I would choose 16TB, or even better, 32TB, since that is likely where you will land one day.
This is all IIRC. I have an original Drobo. Great device, if a bit pricy for the features. Truly set and forget. I use mine for both primary (non-active) image storage and Time Machine volume.
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Drobo Pro arrived today. Setting the thing up. Threw a couple 2TB WD drives in. During setup Drobo Dashboard presents a capacity slider allowing me to format the volume up to 16TB. Any idea what I should set it at?
Thanks,
CB
Choose the largest capacity, ie 16tb.
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I'm using a DroboPro as my main archival store, currently loaded up with 6 x 1 TB drives and 2 x 2 TB.
I agree with other posters that the first thing to do is to bung in another two or three drives, even cheap 1 TB ones, for data redundancy.
For configuring the drive space, choose 16 TB. UNLESS you intend to use the volume as a Time Machine backup, in which case you should choose a volume size the same as your physical storage or slightly less. (That's because of the way Time Machine clears space if its disk starts to fill up. It'll keep writing new stuff to disk if it thinks there is lots of space and never get rid of older backups, which will eventually overload the top of the Drobo's actual physical storage, at which point the Time Machine backups stop being done properly).
I've got my DroboPro configured as a single 16 TB volume, and a Drobo with 4 x 2 TB in for my Time Machine backups. I've just ordered a second DroboPro to use as my offsite backup device- I believe I can swap disk sets from offsite, rather than having to swap the whole thing, and I can schedule automatic incremental mirroring of the primary DroboPro with rsync (there are benefits to Mac OSX being built on Unix!)
I've found the DroboPro to be a very good product. It is maybe not quite as fast as a RAID array on eSATA, but it is fast enough for my purposes and the flexibility of mixed disk types and sizes in the array is a big plus. Oh, if you do swap a drive for a bigger one at some point, be aware that the rebuild takes a couple of days! The volume remains usable, but without the data redundancy until the rebuild is complete.
Cheers, Hywel.
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For configuring the drive space, choose 16 TB. UNLESS you intend to use the volume as a Time Machine backup, in which case you should choose a volume size the same as your physical storage or slightly less. (That's because of the way Time Machine clears space if its disk starts to fill up. It'll keep writing new stuff to disk if it thinks there is lots of space and never get rid of older backups, which will eventually overload the top of the Drobo's actual physical storage, at which point the Time Machine backups stop being done properly).
That is a good point and it depends a bit on what you want. If you let Time Machine fill it up, you will end up with a full 8*2TB = 16TB drive much sooner than if you keep a lid on TM. You could have one partition at perhaps 4TB for TM and a 16TB for the rest.
Oh, if you do swap a drive for a bigger one at some point, be aware that the rebuild takes a couple of days! The volume remains usable, but without the data redundancy until the rebuild is complete.
Ouch, so the Pro does have a disadvantage Keep in mind that the two-drive redundancy means that the data is still protected while it rebuilds a single drive swapped out. As long as there are enough disks, so get up above 4 or so.
By the way, RAID (or Data Robotics' similar tech) hits drives much more often than straight storage, so drives will tend to be worked harder. For this reason I have been buying the RAID edition Western Digital drives. They are designed for exactly this, without the cost of going to SCSI.
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Thanks for all the help, guys. I did go 16tb, as I assumed I would just end up with a virtual JBOD otherwise... a bunch of disk turned into a dingle volume that pretends that it's multiple volumes? Silly.
I have another 1.5 tb drive I'll throw in after I move it's data over and maybe go ahead and pickup another 2tb.
I won't be using this for time machine, strictly for hot storage, planning to keep my entire digital photo library on it, which will also be backed up to external drives which will remain off most of the time.
Raid Class drives? I went with the WD Enterprise Class, will have to look for those others.
But no time to play now, off to Acapulco.
Happy Holidays, Shooters!
-CB
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Ouch, so the Pro does have a disadvantage Keep in mind that the two-drive redundancy means that the data is still protected while it rebuilds a single drive swapped out. As long as there are enough disks, so get up above 4 or so.
By the way, RAID (or Data Robotics' similar tech) hits drives much more often than straight storage, so drives will tend to be worked harder. For this reason I have been buying the RAID edition Western Digital drives. They are designed for exactly this, without the cost of going to SCSI.
A good point. If you are using the array for hot storage as you work, it probably is worth investing in higher quality drives. On the other hand the ID in RAID stands for Inexpensive Disks - one of the reasons RAID has caught on so much is its ability to use an array of cheaper drives in place of enterprise or data centre grade solutions. So I must admit on my archival arrays I tend to bung in cheap high capacity drives and rely on single or double redundancy. I have expensive drives in the hot working RAID internal array in my MacPro, though, as they do get worked VERY hard.
My second DroboPro arrives on Tuesday, hooray! Nothing beats that warm "I have a vaguely coherent offsite backup strategy so if my house burns down I still have all my photos" feeling...
Cheers, Hywel.
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The RAID Edition drives have RE in the name. Here is a quick link with some info:
http://www.cwol.com/serial-ata/sata-ii-har...-digital-re.htm (http://www.cwol.com/serial-ata/sata-ii-hard-drives-western-digital-re.htm)
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My 2 cents is a bit late, but one thing to consider with a 16TB setup is that it (at lease my windows box) takes FOREVER to boot.
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My 2 cents is a bit late, but one thing to consider with a 16TB setup is that it (at lease my windows box) takes FOREVER to boot.
did you install Windows on it??
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I won't be using this for time machine, strictly for hot storage, planning to keep my entire digital photo library on it, which will also be backed up to external drives which will remain off most of the time.
-CB
If by hot storage you mean that you'll be working with the files stored on the drobo, you're in for an unpleasant surprise, drobos are just too slow for that and best used for static storage.
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But some useful info. Hitachi is the only drive maker present with 2TB drives which are 7200RPM. Seagate and WD 2TB drives have much less RPM. In fact the WD drives approach a laptop drive spindle speed of 5400 and the Seagate is somewhere in the 6K RPM range IIRC.
Just wanted to say something here, because I am looking at some drives right now. The statement is not really true. For example take the Western Digital WD RE4 2TB, probably besides the Samsung, one of the fastest drives out there. As well as the Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB, quit fast. Both run at full 7200RPM like the Hitachi.
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have anyone ever recovered from a Drobo failure ? how's the recovery process like ?
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I had one of the regular (nonPro) drobos and was distinctly unimpressed. sent it back within the week. its really a backup for completely non tech people. very slow, expensive and rather amateurish operation. The Pro hopefully is a lot better, BUT I would recommend someone to take a look at the many other serious professional and affordable solutions there are:
I ended up with QNap NAS storage: the TS-809Pro is the 8 drive equivalent of the ProDrobo, and a lot heavier duty.
it also works as a NAS, which means, that you can leave it on and access your data from anywhere else, be it another computer in the same building, or remotely, from the other side of the world - surprisingly useful. Many Raid levels, including 5 or 6, Mac or PC, huge user base and forums, serious heavy duty operation, free quality backup software etc. and yes it works with Time Machine.
they also do smaller ones with less bays if you don't need that big an array.
the 8bay one wins many 'best NAS storage/server awards' such as :
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?opti...mp;limitstart=5 (http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=417&Itemid=38&limit=1&limitstart=5)
other good brands to look at are Synology and Thecus.
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By the way, RAID (or Data Robotics' similar tech) hits drives much more often than straight storage, so drives will tend to be worked harder. For this reason I have been buying the RAID edition Western Digital drives. They are designed for exactly this, without the cost of going to SCSI.
That's defeating the whole point of RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks).
Also, to the other poster above, RAID is not backup - it is designed for uptime and/or speed depending on the mode.
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I had one of the regular (nonPro) drobos and was distinctly unimpressed. sent it back within the week. its really a backup for completely non tech people. very slow, expensive and rather amateurish operation. The Pro hopefully is a lot better, BUT I would recommend someone to take a look at the many other serious professional and affordable solutions there are:
I ended up with QNap NAS storage: the TS-809Pro is the 8 drive equivalent of the ProDrobo, and a lot heavier duty.
it also works as a NAS, which means, that you can leave it on and access your data from anywhere else, be it another computer in the same building, or remotely, from the other side of the world - surprisingly useful. Many Raid levels, including 5 or 6, Mac or PC, huge user base and forums, serious heavy duty operation, free quality backup software etc. and yes it works with Time Machine.
they also do smaller ones with less bays if you don't need that big an array.
the 8bay one wins many 'best NAS storage/server awards' such as :
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?opti...mp;limitstart=5 (http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=417&Itemid=38&limit=1&limitstart=5)
other good brands to look at are Synology and Thecus.
I think that is an very interesting point. I am really struggling between a QNap or the DroboPro. I think one huge point for the drobo, is that one does not have to get into NAS and their own file system stuff and can use it as "normal external drive" with the normal OS file system. That is for me a very tempting point.
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Some more drive options:
Hitachi DeskStar 7K2000 - 120EUR
Hitachi UltraStar A7K2000 - 250EUR
Seagate Barracuda XT 7200.12 - 250EUR
Western Digital Caviar Black - 230EUR
Western Digital RE4 - 250EUR
edit:
All run at full 7200rpm and are if course 2TB drives.
edit 2:
Samsung EcoGreen F3 2000GB - 120 (Just runs at 5400rpm)
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I think that is an very interesting point. I am really struggling between a QNap or the DroboPro. I think one huge point for the drobo, is that one does not have to get into NAS and their own file system stuff and can use it as "normal external drive" with the normal OS file system. That is for me a very tempting point.
Same here. I've been looking at different hardware and software NAS and RAID solutions, and there's nothing even close to Drobo in ease of use and flexibility.
If one doesn't mind spending hours setting up, tweaking, finding room for and the right drive bays and/or cables, formatting, partitioning, setting different RAID modes, fighting with drivers, sending back a new replacement drive since it's different size than the rest, facing the same major headache when running out of space and having to upgrade all drives at the same time (and where to put the data in the meanwhile?), etc. ad nauseam, there are plenty of options. But if you want a plug-and-play solution which just works, and in which you just insert drives of any size and make, Drobo is the only product which delivers that. Some of the above problems are solved in some solutions, but Drobo has solved them all - at least on paper since I don't have one yet.
The only reservation I have is that I've heard the the Drobos have a high failure rate. This is anecdotally, although some reports claim to be from retailers themselves. It's also very slow (especially compared to striping), but it doesn't really matter for my use.
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Before joining Capture Integration, I had no experience selling the Drobos, so while we do sell them, I'm relatively new to the product. But the benefits seem to be ease of use, cost efficiency, ability to utilize a RAID 6 (2 drives can fail without loss of data). It does have some limitations and potential weaknesses, in my opinion. Read/write speed has been one weakness. The other is that mixing and matching drives produces a system that has inconsistent quality control. While some users will do their due diligence regarding purchasing high quality drives from one manufacturer, I feel most will take advantage of the ability to reduce costs by purchasing drives of varying quality.
I agree there are quality alternatives out there, OWC, etc, although we cannot sell OWC products. In the past (going back about 3+ years) I have sold the LaCie RAID boxes like the 4Big Quadra in iterations of 2TB - 8TB, and Capture Integration now sells the LaCie product line. Despite having 4 drives in the enclosure, the 4Big Quadras can be easily configured as a single icon on a desktop, which can make backup processes very simple and easy. These are every bit as easy to set up (in fact maybe easier) as a Drobo, and they have proven themselves extremely reliable. The read/write speeds are extremely fast. So, for the user, they are simple, fast, affordable, and sold by a company that has been around a while and will likely continue. LaCie now has a formal VAR program, so a Value Add dealer like Capture Integration has a direct support channel and can circumvent the laborious tier one level support that's available for most e-commerce resellers.
I'm very concerned about data storage for photographers these days. I see way, way too many photographers who don't have an effective backup strategy implemented. In fact I even see photographers, and I mean good, talented, successful photographers, that do not have data redundancy period. Just really scary. And surprising.
For me, the most important elements for a photographer in terms of data backup are clarity of strategy and sustained ease of implementation and maintenance of that strategy.
The biggest advantage that the quality RAID boxes offer is higher capacity and greater real-time reliability than individual drives. This reduces the complexity and number of interfaces that a photographer will have to deal with, which enables storage purchases to be less frequent and backup strategies to be more easily maintained. I see way too many studios with multiple small to medium size drives that quickly fill up, forcing the photographer to buy yet another small to medium capacity drive. This produces inefficiency and increases data risk. Ideally, a photographer can purchase storage that will last at least 2 to 3 years without adding to it, and be able to easily fulfill their strategy for effective redundancy of their data.
Steve Hendrix
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That's defeating the whole point of RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks).
No it's not, check the prices. RE drives are not much more expensive. RAID was named after the avoidance of SCSI drives, not slightly more expensive SATA drives.
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No it's not, check the prices. RE drives are not much more expensive. RAID was named after the avoidance of SCSI drives, not slightly more expensive SATA drives.
Even then putting premium drives on a redundant array is defeating the purpose.
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Even then putting premium drives on a redundant array is defeating the purpose.
Carsten is right, RAID systems were used with SCSI Drives many years before there was SATA. Even if there would be only 1% more reliablility I would use premium drives, it´s not that much price difference. Think of what you store on your drives, are you really sure to have a copy of everything? Even if, how long will it last to restore from the second place?
Have you ever thought about what happens if one drive failes in an RAID5 setup? All remaining drives have to work extremly hard building up the new RAID consistency. I wouldn´t like to have a second failure than... We are still using one SCSI-RAID and several SATA(Seagate 24/7 ServerHD) Raids.
Cheers, Ulf
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Carsten is right, RAID systems were used with SCSI Drives many years before there was SATA. Even if there would be only 1% more reliablility I would use premium drives, it´s not that much price difference. Think of what you store on your drives, are you really sure to have a copy of everything? Even if, how long will it last to restore from the second place?
Have you ever thought about what happens if one drive failes in an RAID5 setup? All remaining drives have to work extremly hard building up the new RAID consistency. I wouldn´t like to have a second failure than... We are still using one SCSI-RAID and several SATA(Seagate 24/7 ServerHD) Raids.
Cheers, Ulf
If you've done the research on MTBF rates, the math on the ROI, or just value the peace of mind (no matter how ill-adviced it might be, not saying it is), go for it.
And once again: RAID is not backup.
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I'd be curious to know what the read write speeds over ethernet are with the new drobo pro and elite models. Over the last 4 years I've tried both the Ready NAS NV (with their RAID X) and WesternDigital ShareSpace RAID setups and been disappointed with performance. It's okay for an over night backup kind of thing and you need backups but not something you could use as a working volume. I pretty much hate it though because you can't really work on your main volume when you're backing up all the time.
I get real performance from my Highpoint Tech RAID volume which connects to directly to a card in the computer. I ended up buying two of these so I could use the 2nd as a backup. Over about 4 years, I've had 3 drives go down in all of the above, and each time the highpoint has rebuilt the data. So far so good!
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If you've done the research on MTBF rates, the math on the ROI, or just value the peace of mind (no matter how ill-adviced it might be, not saying it is), go for it.
And once again: RAID is not backup.
If you rely on MTBF rates, no one of us should ever have experienced a HD problem, Seagate had an 5 years extended warranty for the server HDs so the math on the ROI was OK for us.
We´re just trying to take best care of our data, peace of mind is always good to have.
RAID is not backup, 100% agree, but we have our files stored to the RAID before we have a backup.
Cheers, Ulf
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If you rely on MTBF rates, no one of us should ever have experienced a HD problem
Then you don't know how to interpret MTBF figures.
On the same topic, there's a really good study by Google (http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/18/massive-google-hard-drive-survey-turns-up-very-interesting-thing/) on the topic, with a gargantuan data set instead of the anecdotal evidence we see on forums. A common myth (mostly) dispelled is that heavy usage is correlated with drive failure rate.
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If by hot storage you mean that you'll be working with the files stored on the drobo, you're in for an unpleasant surprise, drobos are just too slow for that and best used for static storage.
Sorry, but that's just plain wrong.
The original Drobos may have been too slow, but the Drobo Pro with iSCSI is fast enough to edit ProRes422 HQ full HD video direct off the Drobopro, and easily fast enough for CPU/GPU limited tasks like raw processing.
Cheers, Hywel
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If one doesn't mind spending hours setting up, tweaking, finding room for and the right drive bays and/or cables, formatting, partitioning, setting different RAID modes, fighting with drivers, sending back a new replacement drive since it's different size than the rest, facing the same major headache when running out of space and having to upgrade all drives at the same time (and where to put the data in the meanwhile?), etc. ad nauseam, there are plenty of options. But if you want a plug-and-play solution which just works, and in which you just insert drives of any size and make, Drobo is the only product which delivers that. Some of the above problems are solved in some solutions, but Drobo has solved them all - at least on paper since I don't have one yet.
thanks for making me smile - seems like you have been eating Drobo advertising for breakfast!
All the above alternatives can be set up in about 2 button presses. and are usually faster (more powerful processors).
and no there is no need for 'special cables' or 'having to upgrade all the drives at the same time' or.. whatever.
Drobo has a clever marketing strategy, but their actual unique qualities are very minimal, or very overstated
more powerful machines with faster in/outs and extra important features are available for the same or less money, but if you want a shiny 'Drobo' label on your box, (or an Apple logo, or a Leica red Dot) then, by all means, pass on the alternatives.
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I think that is an very interesting point. I am really struggling between a QNap or the DroboPro. I think one huge point for the drobo, is that one does not have to get into NAS and their own file system stuff and can use it as "normal external drive" with the normal OS file system. That is for me a very tempting point.
if you want to ignore the NAS things and just plug a QNAP raid system in as a giant drive (or via USB, Firewire, eSATA or via Ethernet) and NOT have it as a NAS you can.
I never thought I would need/access my work as a NAS from elsewhere, but it has saved my life on two occasions already.
you can also use it as an FTP and save all those costs.
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Even then putting premium drives on a redundant array is defeating the purpose.
Absolutely not. Have you ever had a drive fail? I have had two fail. According to the MTBF ratings neither should have failed, but both did. They say that drives either fail when new, or not for years. Well, the one drive I had was well run in, but failed soon after I put it on a RAID-0 array. Since then I have been paying a bit more to have drives slightly higher rated for RAID usage. Yes, I would never buy SCSI drives, they are just too expensive and small, but for me RAID is about the safety of my data, and the premium drives are about lowering the risk of having to rebuild the set in case a drive dies. It may make sense to Google to use the cheapest drives they can get, but I don't want to spend the time rebuilding drive sets whenever a drive dies. Apart from that, I use a Drobo, not a DroboPro, and if one drive dies, my data is at risk until the set is rebuilt. Another good reason not to buy junk drives.
You may not want to pay a little more for a slightly better drive, but your logic is not convincing to me.
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According to the MTBF ratings neither should have failed, but both did.
Whilst not having any argument with deciding to put slightly more expensive drives in your array, especially with only single drive redundancy, you don't seem to understand what a MTBF rating means.
It is a *mean* time between failures. It cannot tell you ANYTHING AT ALL about when any individual drive "should" fail! All it tells you is a statistical measure, given a LARGE number of drives, which will fail at all sorts of different times, what is the mean of those failure times.
A drive with a higher MTBF rating may be less likely to fail per unit time than a drive with a lower rating, but either drive can absolutely fail at any time, and because the MTBF doesn't tell you anything about the distribution of failures with time, you can't conclude anything at all about when one can expect a drive failure.
A 5 year MTBF failure rate absolutely does NOT mean that you expect the drive to go fine for five years. It means that if you run hundreds and hundreds of drives to failure, the mean time at which they failed was five years. But the first drive might have packed up inside five minutes... and it tells you very little about the pattern of failure, either. For example it is sometimes claimed that drives tend to fail right at the start, or run for years... this could still give you a five year MTBF if half the drives fail in the first few weeks, but the rest all run for 10-15 years before failing. And one wonders how a manufacturer bringing out a new drive model can possibly have accurate ratings even for that, since by definition none of their drives will have been run for 15 years.
It may well make sense to buy drives with a higher MTBF rating to put in your arrays, but one should absolutely plan that a drive could fail at any time. Two drives are significantly less likely to fail at the same time if drive failure is stochastic, although if the failure is trigger by some correlated cause like a power spike on startup or dropping the enclosure, that can make multiple simultaneous failures a lot more likely.
The only robust solution is proper, full, regular backups, and offline backups of the backups offsite as well.
Cheers, Hywel.
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if you want to ignore the NAS things and just plug a QNAP raid system in as a giant drive (or via USB, Firewire, eSATA or via Ethernet) and NOT have it as a NAS you can.
I never thought I would need/access my work as a NAS from elsewhere, but it has saved my life on two occasions already.
you can also use it as an FTP and save all those costs.
I thought that this is not possible, because a NAS uses a different file system and can't just be used as "external" drive ?
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thanks for making me smile - seems like you have been eating Drobo advertising for breakfast!
All the above alternatives can be set up in about 2 button presses. and are usually faster (more powerful processors).
and no there is no need for 'special cables' or 'having to upgrade all the drives at the same time' or.. whatever.
Drobo has a clever marketing strategy, but their actual unique qualities are very minimal, or very overstated
more powerful machines with faster in/outs and extra important features are available for the same or less money, but if you want a shiny 'Drobo' label on your box, (or an Apple logo, or a Leica red Dot) then, by all means, pass on the alternatives.
Reading comprehension: I was very clear in stating that some products have solved some of the challenges I listed, but only Drobo has solved them all.
I'm not sure which product you're referring to, but some ReadyNAS boxes come very close. Last time I checked (a year or so ago) they are still limited by the smallest-sized HDD in the box (ie. if you have 3x2TB plus 1x1TB, it acts like 4x1TB box). This is a main sticking point for me as it limits the flexibility of the box drastically. Also, data is not available when rebuilding.
None of the competition sounds like coming even close to a plug-and-play solution which is the second main sticking point.
Couldn't care less about a logo, but we obviously have very different feature requirements. I couldn't care less about speed, but I care a lot about UI, ease of use, and flexibility and scalability. When I was a teen I loved tinkering with computers, now I just want to get to work.
I'd be glad to find out there are non-Drobo boxes with a similar feature set, as the main reason why I haven't bought the Drobo yet is the (anecdotally) high failure rate I've heard, and the Drobo S and Drobo Pro are not cheap. I need to purchase some form of NAS or DAS early next year, so I'm keeping my ears open.
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I use both a 4-bay and an 8-bay. One thing I want to add is that when moving large volumes of data its important to use a utility like Chronosync or SuperDuper to do the copy work. These utilities will do a more thorough copy of the data and verify that it is accurate when copied. Doing a 'finder' copy or drag-and-drop is not as reliable and you may find 'incomplete file' errors some time in the future when it may be too late to recover from your previous storage method. I use finder copy when copying daily files that I will be using right away so I'll know if they are ok or not. I use Chronosync to do daily back-up from the MacPro to the 4-bay Drobo, and then there is a weekly back-up of the 4-bay to the 8-bay. I use a weekly schedule on this one so I have a window to recover any possible user errors that happen between the MacPro and the 4-bay. Then once a quarter I swap the 8-bay drives with another set that is stored off-site and update them from the 4-bay.
Both Drobos have worked well but recently both have had trouble when I wake the computer from sleep. I sometimes get that 'eject error' as if I had not ejected the volume before unplugging it. When waking from sleep the volumes may or may not be mounted on the desktop. Drobo says this is caused by one drive that may spin up more slowly than the others. Mine are all WD Caviar 2TB. Still seems scary to me and seems to only have happened since the most recent firmware update.
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I use both a 4-bay and an 8-bay. One thing I want to add is that when moving large volumes of data its important to use a utility like Chronosync or SuperDuper to do the copy work. These utilities will do a more thorough copy of the data and verify that it is accurate when copied. Doing a 'finder' copy or drag-and-drop is not as reliable and you may find 'incomplete file' errors some time in the future when it may be too late to recover from your previous storage method. I use finder copy when copying daily files that I will be using right away so I'll know if they are ok or not. I use Chronosync to do daily back-up from the MacPro to the 4-bay Drobo, and then there is a weekly back-up of the 4-bay to the 8-bay. I use a weekly schedule on this one so I have a window to recover any possible user errors that happen between the MacPro and the 4-bay. Then once a quarter I swap the 8-bay drives with another set that is stored off-site and update them from the 4-bay.
Both Drobos have worked well but recently both have had trouble when I wake the computer from sleep. I sometimes get that 'eject error' as if I had not ejected the volume before unplugging it. When waking from sleep the volumes may or may not be mounted on the desktop. Drobo says this is caused by one drive that may spin up more slowly than the others. Mine are all WD Caviar 2TB. Still seems scary to me and seems to only have happened since the most recent firmware update.
I am assuming that you can get Chronosync at the Apple store?
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It is a *mean* time between failures. It cannot tell you ANYTHING AT ALL about when any individual drive "should" fail! All it tells you is a statistical measure, given a LARGE number of drives, which will fail at all sorts of different times, what is the mean of those failure times.
I do realize that Still, 1,000,000 hours (MTBF for most drives AFAIK: http://techreport.com/articles.x/10516/1) (http://techreport.com/articles.x/10516/1)) is about, what, 114 years, you wouldn't think that even the outliers should fail in 1-2 years, given any kind of sane bellcurve. The MTBF rating are apparently totally useless to us as consumers in guessing how long drives should last, so what are we left with?
Maybe I just shouldn't have mentioned the MTBF (which was more for comic relief, to be honest), since my point was that drives die. My point in buying premium drives is to save time, not to avoid the inevitable.
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Then you don't know how to interpret MTBF figures.
On the same topic, there's a really good study by Google (http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/18/massive-google-hard-drive-survey-turns-up-very-interesting-thing/) on the topic, with a gargantuan data set instead of the anecdotal evidence we see on forums. A common myth (mostly) dispelled is that heavy usage is correlated with drive failure rate.
I didn´t use MTBF in a scientific correct way, my apologize, but may I quote from your link: "other notable patterns showed that failure rates are indeed definitely correlated to drive manufacturer, model, and age; " This states somehow want I tried to say.
Anyway it´s a bit off-topic.
Cheers, Ulf
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One more question: When you setup the Drobo for a Max Volume of 16 TB, then it shows in the Finder as having that amount of space available, even though I only have 5.5TB installed. Do you have to depend on the Drobo Dashboard to check your actual free space?
Are we supposed to just not think about that a let the Drobo worry about it?
Thanks,
CB
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Are we supposed to just not think about that a let the Drobo worry about it?
Yes, exactly. When you start to approach your physical limit, the Drobo will prompt you to insert another drive/swap out the smallest drive.
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Can a drive that is installed and running in a Drobo be removed, if need be, and be readable if installed in another brand of housing.
I am under the impression that I had heard that Drobo formats the drives in a unique way that renders them unreadable in other systems.
Is this correct or am I recalling inaccurate information?
Mark
www.marktomalty.com
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One more question: When you setup the Drobo for a Max Volume of 16 TB, then it shows in the Finder as having that amount of space available, even though I only have 5.5TB installed. Do you have to depend on the Drobo Dashboard to check your actual free space?
Are we supposed to just not think about that a let the Drobo worry about it?
Either the drobo dashboard or the LED lights on the unit itself (the green lights going from left to right on the unit indicate the amount of capacity taken vs. available).
Doug Peterson ()
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Can a drive that is installed and running in a Drobo be removed, if need be, and be readable if installed in another brand of housing.
I am under the impression that I had heard that Drobo formats the drives in a unique way that renders them unreadable in other systems.
Is this correct or am I recalling inaccurate information?
Mark
www.marktomalty.com
Like most RAIDs (other than Raid 1) a single drive from a RAID set cannot be (meaningfully/reliably/fully/easily) read in any other computer outside of the rest of the RAID.
The system employed by Drobo is similar to RAID5, but is in fact proprietary. This is in theory a very minor disadvantage since, amongst the many things that can "fail" it is possible for the RAID controller itself to fail. However, I'd say this is a relatively minor disadvantage compared to the other advantages of the Drobo system.
Doug Peterson ()
__________________
Head of Technical Services, Capture Integration
Phase One, Leaf, Cambo, Canon, Apple, Profoto, Eizo & More
National: 877.217.9870 | Cell: 740.707.2183
Newsletter: Read Latest or Sign Up (http://www.captureintegration.com/our-company/newsletters/)
RSS Feed: Subscribe (http://www.captureintegration.com/2008/08/11/rss-feeds/)
Buy Capture One at 10% off (http://www.captureintegration.com/phase-one/buy-capture-one/)
Personal Work (http://www.doug-peterson.com/)
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Thanks for the clarification,Doug
Mark
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Like most RAIDs (other than Raid 1) a single drive from a RAID set cannot be (meaningfully/reliably/fully/easily) read in any other computer outside of the rest of the RAID.
So if the controller of a Drobo fails, the information on the disks inside the Drobo will be lost - is that correct?
Would it not be possible to take the disks out and insert them into an identical Drobo (before powering it up)?
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So if the controller of a Drobo fails, the information on the disks inside the Drobo will be lost - is that correct?
Would it not be possible to take the disks out and insert them into an identical Drobo (before powering it up)?
That's correct. You can insert the drives into an identical Drobo and it might be possible to recover your data - but that might not be the case due to different firmware versions and (silent) hardware updates.
I keep repeating this: RAID is not backup.
By the way, above is not unique to Drobo, but a risk with all RAID-based systems.
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Not so, a basic mirrored RAID 1 is simple to setup, to use and to get data if the raid box itself fails to operate. Pull a slice, mount it in a drive dock and you get access to all the information. Not sure why it's desirable to do things so difficult. There is nothing that seems simple about a Drobo, and it's still not as fast as a SATA connected RAID box. Doug's comment above makes a Drobo appear to be the scariest product for data storage.
Right, but RAID-1 is just mirroring, the least interesting of all RAID types. No additional performance, and the worst possible space usage. When people look for a RAID solution, it is generally RAID-0 for performance or RAID-5 or some variant thereof, like the Drobo, for a combination of performance and redundancy.
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Right, but RAID-1 is just mirroring, the least interesting of all RAID types. No additional performance, and the worst possible space usage. When people look for a RAID solution, it is generally RAID-0 for performance or RAID-5 or some variant thereof, like the Drobo, for a combination of performance and redundancy.
Fair enough, but optimum performance and disk usage concerns would plummet to the bottom of my list of concerns should a drive set or RAID die on me.
What would you suggest, then, would be the most secure solution should archive stability,and expandability, be the PRIMARY concern.
I need to access files,periodically, but not daily and am willing to tolerate slower performance if stability is enhanced.
Personally, I am so deep into using manually mirrored external drives that I can't imagine the time/labor involved in migrating terabytes of info to a newer, more logical,more cost effective system of digital archiving.
I have lost numerous drives over the years (principally LaCie) but have yet to lose any files.
Mark
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Fair enough, but optimum performance and disk usage concerns would plummet to the bottom of my list of concerns should a drive set or RAID die on me.
What would you suggest, then, would be the most secure solution should archive stability,and expandability, be the PRIMARY concern.
I need to access files,periodically, but not daily and am willing to tolerate slower performance if stability is enhanced.
Personally, I am so deep into using manually mirrored external drives that I can't imagine the time/labor involved in migrating terabytes of info to a newer, more logical,more cost effective system of digital archiving.
I personally think that the lowest-maintenance and easiest *complete* strategy is a fast drive, possibly RAID-0, for work-in-progress, a Drobo on FW800 for completed work and Time Machine backups (or the Windows equivalent), and rotating backups of the Drobo (one on-site, one or two off-site). This is what I intend to move to, as soon as a get my a$$ in gear on the off-site backups I am no pro, however, so my motivation is less than someone whose livelihood depends on it.
Note that in this strategy, the Drobo does not need to be reliable. Any reliability it has only increases convenience and reduces maintenance time, and that is exactly my intention by using it (and why I buy the RAID Edition WD drives)...
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Thinking about data storage - Drobo makes sense for actual - 'production'/high access uses - but is it indeed a valid option for long term - (aka archival) storage? Would the additional step of backing up images to something like an Iosafe make sense (given both the option of 5 year manufacturers warranty /data recovery by DriveSavers - not a shabby organization in its own right). Having lots of redundancy is one thing - having the ability to deal with fire/water/ with data recovery options is another.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOiBzCgAPfE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOiBzCgAPfE)
https://iosafe.com/ (https://iosafe.com/)
http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/ (http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/)
Still searching for an ideal /fool-proof archival storage means for digital art.
e/tb
contemplativeeye.com
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I'd like to give Drobo service a big thumbs-up.
Just before Xmas I took delivery of a second Drobo Pro. This failed almost immediately- on the reboot to update to the latest firmware.
I posted a support request on Drobo's website. Within hours, a tech support person from Drobo called me (transatlantic) at their own expense, and went through a troubleshooting and diagnostic routine with me.
Having failed to bring the unit back to life, they arranged delivery of a new unit which arrived very promptly. The new unit works fine. I sent the defective unit back to them... job done. It was an example of exemplary customer service- I was impressed.
I should add that the small amount of data I'd already written to the disk set was preserved - so plugging the drives into the new unit (in any old order, I hadn't kept track) resulted in restored access to the data. Although this might not be 100% reliable I guess, it does give some confidence that a failure of the controller will not prevent access to your data- you *can* plug the disk set into another Drobo.
Cheers, Hywel.