Drobo external drives are you using it

[kaelaria]

They released a very nice add-on a little while ago - it allows connection of two Drobo units, and has high speed ethernet connection.  So you get double capacity and the bext speeds, and it's a network device.

[DarkPenguin]

How much noise does the silly thing make?

[jjj]

Not exactly
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That's why I said in effect mirroring.
But if the data is duplicated on two drives, it's not really relevent if it's called mirroring or duplication. Both half the chance of drive failure losing one's work and that's the important bit..

[kaelaria]

You obviously didn't read.  It said ONE drive.

[DarkPenguin]

You obviously didn't read.  It said ONE drive.
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But it is on two drives.  The one internal to the home server and the external one it was backed up to.

[kaelaria]

The whole point of the unit is to use all four internal slots (and the external connections as suggested by HP), like the Drobo.  In essence you have to choose 1/4 or less of it to backup.  Pretty useless to me.

There are nine possible connections for drives.  Only one can be the duplicated folder holding drive.

That does not protect you much at all.

[budjames]

I purchased a ReadyNAS NV+ w/o drives and then purchased 4 1TB eSata Seagate drives from NewEgg.com. Doing it this way saved about $1,000 over purchasing the unit with from Netgear with the drives installed.

I have it running XRaid configuration on my gigabit network. I use it for backing up data files on my MacPro 8-core and MacBook Pro using ChronoSync software utility.

After a cranking set up program, it works great with my Macs and even to access files from Windows XP running in Parallels on my MacBook Pro.

I highly recommend it as a network back up solution.

Bud James
North Wales, PA

[Hellstan]

I purchased a ReadyNAS NV+ w/o drives and then purchased 4 1TB eSata Seagate drives from NewEgg.com. Doing it this way saved about $1,000 over purchasing the unit with from Netgear with the drives installed.

I have it running XRaid configuration on my gigabit network. I use it for backing up data files on my MacPro 8-core and MacBook Pro using ChronoSync software utility.

After a cranking set up program, it works great with my Macs and even to access files from Windows XP running in Parallels on my MacBook Pro.

I highly recommend it as a network back up solution.

Bud James
North Wales, PA
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But Netgear is Ethernet only, no Firewire…

[Hellstan]

One reason I went with the Sonnet was I wanted to have both JOBD and a Raid 1. So of the five bays, I have two drives set as a Raid, one a single backup drive. When I looked at other solutions, that wasn't always possible (they either all had to all be JOBD or Raid). Not sure why but I've been pretty happy so far with the Sonnet.
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I agree : my supplier told me the Sonnet was the best solution (intended for DV, so quite rugged).
Otherwise, there are OWC RAID systems :
500GB OWC Mercury Elite-AL PRO 800 MIRROR RAID 0+1 (500GB Stripe-Mirrored) 7200RPM FireWire 800/400

[budjames]

But Netgear is Ethernet only, no Firewire…
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Very true, but as I said, I purchased it for back up for my network, not local storage. I use OWC FW800 raids and single drives for that. I purchased the OWC 2 drive raid enclosure and installed matching Seagate 1TB drives for an effective capacity of 1.8TB. It works great.

Bud

[Hellstan]

Very true, but as I said, I purchased it for back up for my network, not local storage. I use OWC FW800 raids and single drives for that. I purchased the OWC 2 drive raid enclosure and installed matching Seagate 1TB drives for an effective capacity of 1.8TB. It works great.

Bud
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=199185\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I think I will go for the Sonnet 400. Sonnet France even replied to my mail this morning (sunday), a feat which is unique in the old country.
OWC is not distributed in Europe, so it's trouble in cas of bugs.

[feppe]

I just got my hands on the HP EX470 Windows Home Server Box, which has Gigabit ethernet [esssential for such a device, USB lke the DROBO has, is simply not up to the task], a single 500G HD and the option to add 3 more internally plus another four externally via USB and it also has an ESATA connection too. So I intend adding 1TB drives to rack it up to 8TB and that's without using the ESATA.
No point buying the EX475 version as it just has two 500G drives instead of one and I regard 500Gs as too small.
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I was ready to install WHS myself, but found out there's a massive bug in it.

I would strongly advice against using Windows Home Server for anything mission critical, or especially as a backup. There's a well-document bug in its implementation, which might or might not be fixed in the coming months.

MS has acknowledge this critical bug and is "working on a solution":

[a href=\"http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/946676/en-us?spid=12624]http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/...n-us?spid=12624[/url]

edit: DarkPenguin beat me to it - but the warning remains...

[jjj]

I was ready to install WHS myself, but found out there's a massive bug in it.
.....
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From MS
"Microsoft has established that this issue may occur when one of the following programs is used to edit, transfer, and save files to the home server:•   Windows Vista Photo Gallery
•   Windows Live Photo Gallery
•   Microsoft Office OneNote 2007
•   Microsoft Office OneNote 2003
•   Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
•   Microsoft Money 2007
•   SyncToy 2.0 Beta
•   Intuit QuickBooks
•   uTorrent"

Why would you not be using the WHS software to back up to server? That's what it's for. And then when you want to retrieve someting, then WHS software opens it into your File Browser.  In fact I cannot think why I'd use Outlook etc to access WHS. Though obviously some people do.    So maybe just an issue for those who use it oddly!

[feppe]

Why would you not be using the WHS software to back up to server? That's what it's for. And then when you want to retrieve someting, then WHS software opens it into your File Browser.  In fact I cannot think why I'd use Outlook etc to access WHS. Though obviously some people do.    So maybe just an issue for those who use it oddly!
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I think using WHS to store Outlook or torrent files is far from odd usage for a software which is designed to be used by pretty much everyone, and to close the gap between ad hoc backup- and redunancy solutions, and heavy-duty RAID.

I don't even know (or care) what "back up to server" means, and I bet majority of WHS target market doesn't, either. I just want something like Drobo which I don't have to fiddle with, and Just Works. WHS sounded like a nice compromise between Drobo 1.0 (never trust first version of a new tech) and "normal" RAIDs which are a pain.

[Hellstan]

WHS sounded like a nice compromise between Drobo 1.0 (never trust first version of a new tech) and "normal" RAIDs which are a pain.
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I hate Microsoft solutions, always bugged, period.
I'm on a Mac.
Why RAID solutions are a pain ?
I mean RAID 1 and never ever RAID 0.