# To anyone considering Drobo



## genexxa (Jun 10, 2006)

Hey guys...

there's a one day sale on Dell right now... there's the Drobo enclosure for 349.99

Dell : Data Robotics Drobo FireWire 800 / Hi-Speed USB External Storage Robot : Shared Storage (NAS) : Small & Medium Business

and on top of that you can add the mail-in rebate from Data Robotics 50$

http://www.drobo.com/mir/rebate_0709_cdn.pdf

So you end-up with a Drobo for 299.99 which is a very decent price in my opinion for that kind of product...

By the way it's free shipping...

Have Fun!!


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## corey111 (Jul 9, 2007)

I love my drobos


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## hayesk (Mar 5, 2000)

I don't understand why anyone would buy those. It's cheaper, faster, and more reliable to just mirror external drives.


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## corey111 (Jul 9, 2007)

Because you can just throw in your extra old drives into it, and not need to know anything about how it works.
Its raid for dummies, and when it comes to raid, i am a dummy!


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## IllusionX (Mar 10, 2009)

so, if you have 4HDs, you would need 4 other HD to mirror. I hope you get my idea.

on a drobo-raid, or raid5, you are only losing 1 disk. the drobo is good for people who need alot of storage. I myself have a drobo and a 5 disk linux raid5.


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## The G3 Man (Oct 7, 2008)

Drobo-cop!


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## SoyMac (Apr 16, 2005)

That _is_ a great price. :clap:
I paid $610 for my 4-bay Drobo a couple of months ago.

But beware with Drobo;
Like many who've posted online, I too had problems with the drives I was using when I first installed them in my Drobo.

I wasn't very happy about Drobo not working with whatever drives I put in it, but at the same time, their customer service was quite good.
We were trying some solutions, and they even stated that if the (ultimately successful) next tactic didn't work, they would ship me a brand new Drobo.

I think that if one is considering a Drobo, be sure to use the hard drive brands that the company recommends.

corey111, I agree, "Its raid for dummies...", and so, exactly what I need! :lmao:


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## Silv (Mar 28, 2008)

I've got a ReadyNAS Pro... don't need no stiinkin' drobo.


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## IllusionX (Mar 10, 2009)

if you don't need NAS, the drobo does the job just fine.


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## jmlachance (Nov 6, 2005)

That's in US $ though,but still looks to be a good deal. 
I have a Time Capsule as a back up. Is a RAID that much of an advantage over a TC or conventional back up hd?


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

and if the Drobo itself fails you are SOL

Junk - non standard technology is a recipe for grief....


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## genexxa (Jun 10, 2006)

jmlachance said:


> That's in US $ though,but still looks to be a good deal.
> I have a Time Capsule as a back up. Is a RAID that much of an advantage over a TC or conventional back up hd?


It's CAN $ by the way... not US...


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

jmlachance said:


> That's in US $ though


no it's the cdn dell site. not sure about the rebate, but i saw this on the dell business deal of the day.


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## IllusionX (Mar 10, 2009)

MacDoc said:


> and if the Drobo itself fails you are SOL
> 
> Junk - non standard technology is a recipe for grief....


?? if the drobo fails, get a 2nd drobo ?? just as if the raid card fails, then you'd simply get a new raid card....

i don't understand how you solve such problems.


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## jmlachance (Nov 6, 2005)

genexxa said:


> It's CAN $ by the way... not US...


Oh yeah? Wow, big savings indeed. 


"and if the Drobo itself fails you are SOL

Junk - non standard technology is a recipe for grief...."

What do you recommend MacDoc?


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## Paradime (Jan 24, 2006)

MacDoc said:


> Junk - non standard technology is a recipe for grief....


And you call yourself a Mac user? You be should use to this. beejacon



jmlachance said:


> What do you recommend MacDoc?


Probably something he can sell you.


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## Bjornbro (Feb 19, 2000)

*Good for those not near a Carbon Computing location*

I just bought one today from Carbon Computing at $479.00 less the "Seagate Promo" of $139.80 (that's a subtotal of $339.20, if you're keeping track at home). I bought it, plus four 1TB Seagate drives giving 2.7TB available storage. All for $1,196.67 taxes in, I'm very happy! :clap: :love2:


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

We can sell Drobo if we wish and don't. We wouldn't inflict them on clients.

For the same money spent on a Drobo "deal" you can get a 4 Bay Pro Mercury with Level 5 FW 400 800 eSATA and USB 2.0 with 4 1.5 TB drives using standard RAID 5 technology giving 4.5 TB of redundant space for $1299



> Drobo's use of a proprietary data layout within the unit has cause quite a bit of controversy. *Basically this means a drive can only be read by a Drobo, so if your unit fails you can't attach it to a normal SATA line and read from it.* You'll need a faulty Drobo unit repaired or replaced before you can get your data back.


Automated Home - Drobo - DroboShare In-Depth Review



> The niggle is that if Drobo went out of business and the Drobo unit itself failed, you could be stuck w/ a bunch of HDs that are not readable. ...





> DROBO FAILED! If you know me, you know that I make videos. I use a computer to edit these ..... MY DROBO unit has been replaced 3 times from tech support. ...


Bill Streeter DO NOT BUY A DROBO!!

Get it????.....


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## milhaus (Jun 1, 2004)

Oh my god, someone's device failed, and had a bad experience with the device! Never use the device again. Would you like me to show you the multiple positive reviews of Drobos? And by the way, if I wasn't buying the HDs and Drobo at exorbitant prices, such as those charged by Mac resellers, I could get the Drobo and 4x 1.5 TB for significantly less than $1299 ($950), and hot swap and have automatically rebuilding drives. 

Your attitudes on this forum sometimes puzzle me, MacDoc. I'm surprised you run a business this way.


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## BlackViper (Mar 2, 2008)

*Drobo uses any size drive*

Raid can be good for some things, but I love my drobo for home use. The “killer app” for me was using drives of different sizes. How much usable space do you get by RAIDing 1,2,3 and 4 TB drives together? Drobo can also have drives swapped with no downttime, or rebuilding the array.


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## pcronin (Feb 20, 2005)

And so the moral of the story is, if Apple goes out of business tomorrow, all of us will have hardware with no warrenty coverage and software with no foreseeable upgrade/patches. So that means we should all buy Dells, because if Dell goes out of business tomorrow, at least we can then go get off the shelf hardware if something goes wrong. 


I've been having a disturbing problem with my brand new macbook pro, and were I to share the same attitude as the reviewers, I would start spouting about how I had to replace it 2 or 3 times just because I had bad times, that no one should buy the new macbook pro.


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## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

MacDoc said:


> We can sell Drobo if we wish and don't. We wouldn't inflict them on clients.
> 
> For the same money spent on a Drobo "deal" you can get a 4 Bay Pro Mercury with Level 5 FW 400 800 eSATA and USB 2.0 with 4 1.5 TB drives using standard RAID 5 technology giving 4.5 TB of redundant space for $1299
> 
> ...


You are too funny sometimes Macdoc. Arguing that its proprietary technology... Uh, that sounds like an argument from a PC user about Macs. 

From the *very article you* quoted:

And so Drobo joins the elite handful of devices that have been rated as "Top Tech" by Automated Home in our 11 years on the web. Congratulations to Data Robotics. 

Also:



> What Else Should I Consider? - Building your own RAID system can be rewarding for the more technical user with time on their hands, *however it's worth pointing out that we didn't use RAID in our own home built data storage solution because we'd heard so many horror stories of data loss with cheap raid cards or software*


You clearly don't get the Drobo and its appeal and for some reason chose to ignore the *overwhelming positive reviews* it has gotten. Your points are the same as PC arguments. Sure I could buy this component and that box and configure it and have a cheaper PC with more impressive specs on paper. But I chose to own a Mac for its simplicity, ease of use, and its design. 

The Drobo is a magnificent device and clients love them and their reliability has been awesome. It isn't for every situation, but it is raid for the "rest of us".


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

ehMax said:


> ...but it is raid for the "rest of us".


Only if the "rest of us" are only using RAID for data "redundancy" and not for an increase in system performance.

Personally I run several stripe 0 arrays for performance and do not use RAID for redundancy. Why? Because it gives you a false sense of security, the only way for data to be truly backed up is to be on completely separate drives with no mirroring or hardware or software reliant systems involved. If your data is truly irreplaceable then you need off site backup as well.

Drobo performs some neat tricks, that make it easy for people to feel that they are secure and have an easily expandable data storage system, but in the result of truly catastrophic failure (in this case being the Drobo rather than an individual drive) your data is still gone. Personally I would never buy the Drobo as it is crazy expensive and ultimately provides only a false sense of security.


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## corey111 (Jul 9, 2007)

The thing DROBO has over it's competitors is that it's simple to use.
I've used Raid arrays before and they are difficult to setup, fail more often and require more attention.
Drobos are basically plug and play, the firewire 800 connection lets me video edit direct from the Drobo and they require no maintenance.
I've got two Drobos, nothing has ever gone wrong with them, and would recommend anyone get one. I plan on getting a Drobo Pro probably later this year.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

I could give a damn - there have been lots of "enthusiastic reviews" about other junk in the past......... *it's proprietary data recording* and that = grief - period......

It's fine until it stops....then you are SOL.....

read and use your own judgement

google search

*drobo failure rate*

Comparing Apple to a tiny company like Data Robotics is stupid....and shows just how conned people have been.

Data Robotics - Company Information on Data Robotics


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

corey111 said:


> I've used Raid arrays before and they are difficult to setup, fail more often...


"Fail more often"...??? Based on what facts do you say this?? 

Do you set up your own e-mail accounts?? The level of difficulty to set up a RAID is about the same.  Hey, if the Drobo floats your boat then good for you, but it *is* a false sense of security unless all the data on your Drobo is also backed up elsewhere.


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## hayesk (Mar 5, 2000)

milhaus said:


> Oh my god, someone's device failed, and had a bad experience with the device! Never use the device again. Would you like me to show you the multiple positive reviews of Drobos? And by the way, if I wasn't buying the HDs and Drobo at exorbitant prices, such as those charged by Mac resellers, I could get the Drobo and 4x 1.5 TB for significantly less than $1299 ($950), and hot swap and have automatically rebuilding drives.


My office just bought a 2TB drive for under $200.
[/quote]
Your attitudes on this forum sometimes puzzle me, MacDoc. I'm surprised you run a business this way.[/QUOTE]

There's nothing wrong with him not liking a product and stating his opinion on such.

Automated Home may like the device, but for the same money and skill level, larger, faster and equally reliable solutions are available. The Drobo is just slick packaging and comes at a premium.

You may claim it sounds like a PC argument against using a Mac, but the difference here is that the Mac brings more productivity - what does the Drobo bring? It's not more reliable, it's not faster, and it's not cheaper. You can argue it's easier to set up than RAID, but we're talking a one time difference of a few minutes - there's no productivity pay off in the long run like there is in the PC vs. Mac argument.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

> Originally Posted by milhaus
> Oh my god, someone's device failed, and had a bad experience with the device! Never use the device again. Would you like me to show you the multiple positive reviews of Drobos? And by the way, if I wasn't buying the HDs and Drobo at exorbitant prices, such as those charged by Mac resellers, I could get the Drobo and 4x 1.5 TB for significantly less than $1299 ($950), and hot swap and have automatically rebuilding drives.


Someone really doesn't get it 

The $1299 is hot swap

It's standard raid 0 or 1 or 5 or 10

It rebuilds

*It is NOT proprietary *!!!!!!

It is Quad Interface

OWC Mercury Pro Qx2 4-Bay RAID 0/1/5/10 eSATA, FireWire 400/800, USB2 Desktop Removable Bay Storage Solution - up to 8.0TB at OtherWorldComputing.com

Some people here just don't understand RAIDs or risk......

•••



> but it is a false sense of security unless all the data on your Drobo is also backed up elsewhere.


and some do get it.....


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## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

The benefits are many...

If you need more storage, you just simply plug in any size additional drive. Done. Or, just pull out the smallest drive and plunk in a larger size drive. Done. What are your drive and storage needs in the next year or two? Do you remember how much a 500GB drive cost 2 years ago? Remember only a year or so ago when 1TB was the largest drive you could get? 

You can pay a premium today for storage you might think you need in the next year or 2. Or you can buy what you need now, and chuck in more drives when you need it. 

There are many other advantages. With click of a mouse button, you can switch between single to dual disk array. The software control is great, the indicator lights are super simple. 

The proprietary thing, whatever. If my Mac breaks down, I need a logic board made by Apple. 

You can easily pull the drives out and put in another Drobo if you have to. 

Nobody is talking about a better sense of security with Drobo, the same rules apply for having off site backup etc..

As I said, it not the end-all be-all product, but to call it junk is stupid and narrow-minded.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Nice! The mayor calls his time honoured citizens stupid. Really nice!! 

We get it Mr. Mayor you like the Drobo, no need to make it personal. Too bad no one can give you a time out eh!


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

How long do you expect Drobo to be around.....?? Your analogy with Apple is ludicrous....

Drobo has been in existence since 2004 is a tiny company by storage standards and has one thing it does....and if it stops - ??
You know very well hundreds of small tech companies in storage fail all the time.....

It's purpose, we are told, is security....it is NOT secure over time IMNSHO because the data is stored in a non-standard manner that cannot be accessed without a Drobo.

You may like it ....I don't.

I'm not alone....


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## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

screature said:


> Nice! The mayor calls his time honoured citizens stupid. Really nice!!
> 
> We get it Mr. Mayor you like the Drobo, no need to make it personal. Too bad no one can give you a time out eh!


I did not say MacDoc was stupid. He obviously is not. I was attacking the phrase *"The Drobo is junk"* as stupid. I am attacking the phrase, the idea and the topic. I am not calling MacDoc stupid. 

Just like in the post above, MacDoc believes my analogy is ludicrous. He's not calling me ludicrous (Although he might think that!  ), he's calling my analogy ludicrous.

Regardless, I apologize if I offended MacDoc or anyone else and will be more careful.


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## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

MacDoc said:


> How long do you expect Drobo to be around.....?? Your analogy with Apple is ludicrous....
> 
> Drobo has been in existence since 2004 is a tiny company by storage standards and has one thing it does....and if it stops - ??
> You know very well hundreds of small tech companies in storage fail all the time.....
> ...


I will concede that to some extent, you are putting some faith in the company not going out of business tomorrow. But I will say that in many times, a lot of people put faith in a really good product by Apple and that they wouldn't go out of business. 

I have invested in a lot of technologies over the years from companies that have gone out of business like Syquest drives, Iomega Zip etc.. It's not like one day they were there, and the next day every single Syquest Drive or Zip drive vanished off the face of the earth and I couldn't get my data off. 

I certainly would rather pay as I go for my data needs now, then heavily invest in what I think I will need in the next couple of years. With the success and accolades Drobo is getting, I don't think they are going away any time soon. 

Besides, in years to come, we'll all be talking about when we used SATA drives instead of SSD or whatever we are using then.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

ehMax said:


> I did not say MacDoc was stupid. He obviously is not. I was attacking the phrase *"The Drobo is junk"* as stupid. I am attacking the phrase, the idea and the topic. I am not calling MacDoc stupid.
> 
> Just like in the post above, MacDoc believes my analogy is ludicrous. He's not calling me ludicrous (Although he might think that!  ), he's calling my analogy ludicrous.
> 
> Regardless, I apologize if I offended MacDoc or anyone else and will be more careful.


Yes ehMax I agree, after I made my post I realized you probably weren't calling MacDoc stupid, but just his statement. We all get caught up in the heat of battle and write things that could be misinterpreted as I did initially in this case.

Your apology is most gracious and appreciated. I did take exception, but given second thought I realized you meant no personal harm. 

It is just given your position, discretion is the better part of valour.


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## CanadaRAM (Jul 24, 2005)

I tend to agree with MacDoc here. 

When there are less expensive and more flexible standard RAID solutions available, I don't get a good feeling from using a proprietary formatting scheme. 

Or have we learned nothing from the demise of SyQuest 44, 88, 105, 270 and EZ135, SparQ, Zip 100, 250, Jaz, Shark, Orb, 3.5" optical, 2.88 Mb floppy and 120 Mb SuperFloppy formats - all were media that could not be read in any device except their own proprietary design.


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## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

CanadaRAM said:


> I tend to agree with MacDoc here.
> 
> When there are less expensive and more flexible standard RAID solutions available, I don't get a good feeling from using a proprietary formatting scheme.
> 
> Or have we learned nothing from the demise of SyQuest 44, 88, 105, 270 and EZ135, SparQ, Zip 100, 250, Jaz, Shark, Orb, 3.5" optical, 2.88 Mb floppy and 120 Mb SuperFloppy formats - all were media that could not be read in any device except their own proprietary design.


But I don't buy the less expensive argument and certainly not that they are more flexible for the reasons I've stated already. 

And the example of Syquest etc.. can just as easily be an argument about quick change in technology rather than about proprietary format. 

It's pretty difficult already to get a hold of regular ATA drives, just like in some years we'll drop SATA as SSD and other technologies emerge. 

How many different types of RAM technologies do you now have to carry?

With success Drobo is having, pretty sure Data Robotics is going to be around for a looooong time.


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## garf1108 (May 30, 2006)

Take a timeout, people


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

> With success Drobo is having, pretty sure Data Robotics is going to be around for a looooong time


Sure tell that to Maxtor 

The problem with Drobo is it adds nothing that is not already available in non proprietary....except a ton of marketing money.

The majors spend millions on R&D to increase the MTBF of modern drives and sizes go up continuously. Sorry but I'll rely on THEIR abilities in standard configs than some startup with a spotty track record.

You put a pair of 1.5TB in any mirror case and your cost is around $399- 499 now and dropping - and you can put those mirrored drives in a machine or case or even one of them and your data is safe and retrievable regardless of whether DROBO is still in business.

and for flexible - a Quad interface drop in dock costs $129 and going down and you can stick in any SATA drive you want 2.5 or 3.5 - straight forward - inexpensive - fast- mainstream tech and you could care less if the dock fails - *you can stick the drive anywhere and get your data.*

and that is the heart of the problem right there.....


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## preformalover (May 23, 2009)

I have always loved the drobo concept but the price is not good enough for what you get but but I have heard they are reliable machines


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## jfpoole (Sep 26, 2002)

MacDoc said:


> You put a pair of 1.5TB in any mirror case and your cost is around $399- 499 now and dropping


I'm surprised that no one's mentioned the fact that you don't have to use matched drives in a Drobo; you can throw drives of any size in a Drobo and it'll just work. I could throw a bunch of "spare" SATA drives I've got lying around into a Drobo and have a fair amount of storage right away for just the cost of the Drobo itself. Plus, if I want to add storage later I can go out and get another random drive and shove it in the Drobo and I'm done. No worry about matching sizes or anything like that.

Besides, if you're relying on your RAID (or your Drobo) as your only backup solution you're asking for trouble.


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## SoyMac (Apr 16, 2005)

*My Drobo Is Going back*

Well, Friends
The Drobo may be a very good device for many, but I am among the ranks of those let down by this technology.

After months of trying to resolve an issue with the Drobo and data security on the device, I am calling it quits and returning my very expensive, but ultimately non-functioning Drobo.

The Drobo tech support has been quite responsive, but they're off-site and I'm the one who has been doing the work following their instructions to try to resolve the issue(s). And with no success so far, I am done being Drobo's beta tester and lab rat.

In this thread, MacDoc has opened my eyes about the proprietary Drobo software.
I'm glad all the data I have on my Drobo so far is expendable. 




jfpoole said:


> ... you can throw drives of any size in a Drobo and it'll just work. ..


Unfortunately, that's not true. Another irritation I had with my Drobo, is that the drives I bought for it turned out to be incompatible with the Drobo.
Luckily for me, the fine folks at Carbon Computing were gracious enough to accept the used drives for a refund.

So the lesson I have for anyone considering the Drobo, is that there be many positive reviews, but there also many complaints. The positive reviews are great if they apply to you, but it's no fun being one of the customers for whom the Drobo doesn't work.

Bye bye, Drobo.


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## (( p g )) (Aug 17, 2002)

"...utilizes a revolutionary storage technology that makes it simple for anyone to use, yet is powerful enough for business."

This is precisely the kind of marketing happytalk that makes me go crosseyed. 

Drobo arigato Mr. Roboto, but I'll stick with my trusty FW800 drive that plugs-in and just works.


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## IllusionX (Mar 10, 2009)

Mine works good. I've been throwing any size disks in it and data rebuilt without any problems.

started with 4x500gb and end up with 3x 1tb and a 160gb. Anyhow, there always be unhappy customers for anything on earth.


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## SoyMac (Apr 16, 2005)

IllusionX said:


> ... Anyhow, there always be unhappy customers for anything on earth.


Uhmmm, perhaps a less patronising way of putting that, might be, 
"There will always be manufacturing defects, design flaws, in a subset of every product ever manufactured on Earth, and this will necessarily leave some customers unhappy."


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## SoyMac (Apr 16, 2005)

MacDoc said:


> OWC Mercury Pro Qx2 4-Bay RAID 0/1/5/10 eSATA, FireWire 400/800, USB2 Desktop Removable Bay Storage Solution - up to 8.0TB at OtherWorldComputing.com
> ...


 MacDoc (or anyone), would you know of any _Canadian_ distributor for this storage device?


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

we stock them


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## Guest (Sep 6, 2009)

I purchased a drobopro a little while back (I know, I know) and I'm getting pretty close to tossing it out the window myself. I'm actually waiting on arrival of a replacement unit from them so we'll see how that goes. If the replacement unit has the same issues as the original one I have here it will be long gone.

A few other things I feel the need to comment on: I got the drobo because it supports RAID6 (of a sort -- they call it beyond raid or something similar -- but either way it's dual drive rredundancy) and that it uses iSCSI which is pretty quick (which I can't use on my PPC server as it kernel panics with the drobo dashboard software when trying to initiate iSCSI). There are a couple of other RAID manufacturers now that support using drives of different sizes in your setup but none as as convenient as drobo's setup which does all the hard work for you.

My next choice will likely be to build my own, something along the lines of this one (albeit a LOT paired down):

Petabytes on a budget: How to build cheap cloud storage | Backblaze Blog


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## SoyMac (Apr 16, 2005)

mguertin said:


> ...My next choice will likely be to build my own, something along the lines of this one (albeit a LOT paired down):...


mguertin, May I ask what you think your storage size and final price will come out to?


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## Principal (Nov 28, 2004)

SoyMac said:


> Uhmmm, perhaps a less patronising way of putting that, might be,
> "There will always be manufacturing defects, design flaws, in a subset of every product ever manufactured on Earth, and this will necessarily leave some customers unhappy."


Very nice response SoyMac... thanks for keeping cool
Cheers.


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## Guest (Sep 7, 2009)

SoyMac said:


> mguertin, May I ask what you think your storage size and final price will come out to?


For the drobopro based setup I probably spent around $3,000 and that was with 8x1.5TB drives in the drobopro (which effectively gave me just under 9TB of storage with dual disk redundancy).

For my next up storage idea I have no idea what the price will be, but it will be less than the cost of the drobopro on the hardware end of things, but will require a lot of linux knowledge as there's no real "out of the box" solution ... I will be building, installing, configuring and administering the linux server by hand for it so it's likely not a route that everyone would want to take  It will probably involve a couple of SATA backplane multipliers and a PCIx SATA controller in a rack mount case I already own.

Now for the burning question .... anyone know where I can get decent SATA backplane multipliers in Canada? LOL


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## Guest (Sep 7, 2009)

> Unfortunately, that's not true. Another irritation I had with my Drobo, is that the drives I bought for it turned out to be incompatible with the Drobo.


Can I ask which drives they were? I'm trying to compile some useful info for my drobo site and would like to include this info if you still have it.


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

Not my cup of tea, but here you go:

Drobo FireWire 800 / Hi-Speed USB External Storage Robot : Storage, Drives & Media | Dell Canada

$200 off =

*$299.99*


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## Elemenopee (Apr 20, 2004)

RE: OWC Mercury Pro Qx2 4-Bay RAID 0/1/5/10 eSATA, FireWire 400/800, USB2 Desktop Removable Bay Storage Solution

So if people use the OWC in a RAID 5 setup, this is what the DROBO is like, no?

But with the OWC drive, do the drives need to be matched? And if so, if one drive fails in the future, and that drive is *no longer manufactured*, aren't you SOL too?


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## Guest (Sep 14, 2009)

Drobo is not a traditional RAID5 setup ... it allows you to use different drive sizes and it does some "smart" slicing and dicing into manageable partition sizes. This means it also allows you to (very slowly) add larger drives over time.

For a standard raid5 you do need drives of the same size. They don't have to be the same manufacturer, and worst cast scenario in the future you can always put in a larger drive if you can't find one of the same size and it will just use a portion of the space available (to match it up to the same size as the rest of the drives)

That said I'm still very unhappy with my drobopro ... I'm on the second unit (they replaced the first one) and I have all the same issues with dropouts of 3-10 seconds when all input and output to the unit stops dead. Support is unable to reproduce this even though I'm not the only one having this experience (there are a handful of us on their support forums that are seeing the exact same behaviour).

Anyone want a drobopro for a good price?


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## gmark2000 (Jun 4, 2003)

Sorry to hear about people's troubles. I've got one on order today.


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## Elemenopee (Apr 20, 2004)

mguertin said:


> For a standard raid5 you do need drives of the same size. They don't have to be the same manufacturer, and worst cast scenario in the future you can always put in a larger drive if you can't find one of the same size and it will just use a portion of the space available (to match it up to the same size as the rest of the drives)


Thanks for the clarification, mguertin. Sorry to hear about your troubles.


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## SoyMac (Apr 16, 2005)

mguertin said:


> Can I ask which drives they were? I'm trying to compile some useful info for my drobo site and would like to include this info if you still have it.


Sorry for the late response, mguertin. 
(I should have subscribed to this thread, so I could have immediately seen follow-ups)

The drives I bought were Seagate 1.5 Tbs.
_After_ my purchases, Drobo support told me they didn't support that specific drive.
(Thank you, Carbon Computing, for being so understanding with my returns! :clap: )

It was quite confusing because it seemed that Drobo _did_ support those drives if there was a specific firmware download, or if the quarter moon tipped, or if #@*kjh97dfbv, or Z:irbe326jc, or ...
(I'm trying to textually represent how confusing I found Drobo support's response).

Just looking back through my support records with Drobo support, I found an email where they recommend Western Digital and Samsung 1.5 Tb drives. This correspondence was from May of 2009, so I don't know if things have changed.

Another indicator of my problems with the Drobo, is that I started trying to get this problem fixed in _May_, and we _still_ haven't solved it!

I think I gave the Drobo enough rope. 

Today I am setting up the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2
that I received this week.


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## SoyMac (Apr 16, 2005)

Elemenopee said:


> RE: OWC Mercury Pro Qx2 4-Bay RAID 0/1/5/10 eSATA, FireWire 400/800, USB2 Desktop Removable Bay Storage Solution
> 
> So if people use the OWC in a RAID 5 setup, this is what the DROBO is like, no?
> 
> But with the OWC drive, do the drives need to be matched? And if so, if one drive fails in the future, and that drive is *no longer manufactured*, aren't you SOL too?


To answer your first question, Drobo's software and structure makes the swapping of HDs very easy and convenient, much easier than the Mercury (OWC). The Drobo even _tells_ you if there's a problem with drives, and instructs you on what to do, while protecting your data for you.
The main difference between Drobo and other RAID enclosures is that you (should) need almost no technical knowledge or fiddling to have safe data, if you use the Drobo.

Secondly, the drives in the Mercury (OWC) don't _need_ to be matched. But Mercury _recommends_ this.
I have 4 1Tb drives sitting in this Mercury enclosure, waiting for testing.
2 are one brand 2 are another.
From what I can tell from Mercury's literature, the _size_ of the drives don't even need to match, but if they do, it makes RAIDing more consistent. Or something. 

Sorry about my present vagaries (dogs need walking).

I'll get back to this thread after testing, with more comments tonight.


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## Guest (Sep 21, 2009)

Correct in that you only need matching drive sizes (they don't have to be exact same drives but you generally do get better performance with exact same drives).

I have 8 x 1.5TB Seagate drives in my DroboPro and they didn't complain about them.  There were a batch of "bad" 1.5TB drives that had firmware that could cause early/false failures earlier this year.


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## SoyMac (Apr 16, 2005)

Okay, I'm back.

I set up the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 today.
It's pretty straight forward, but far more steps than the Drobo.
The Mercury assembles like a beige Windows Box - lots of sleds and screws. 
The Drobo needs no screws as the drives just slide in and settle.
Like I said, the Drobo is all about convenience.

The Mercury has a booklet that explains the different RAID settings and their advantages.
One sets the desired RAID level with a tiny dial that I could barely see, and it required a jewellers screwdriver. I set mine at RAID 5 (setting #8 on the dial).
With a Drobo, one does not set the RAID - it sets itself.
Drobo = RAID for Dummies.

Once the hard-drives are inside the Mercury and the RAID dial is set, one plugs it in to the computer with one of the provided cables - USB, FW 400, FW 800, or eSATA.

When the Mercury boots up, one formats it just like any other external hard-drive, with options for partitioning.
Then it's set.

The Mercury is pretty quiet, maybe slightly quieter than the Drobo, maybe not.

Except for the inability to fix the main problems, I have had good support from Drobo so far.
They are in the process of refunding my money.
I will update here about whether or not that goes smoothly.


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## IllusionX (Mar 10, 2009)

mguertin said:


> Correct in that you only need matching drive sizes (they don't have to be exact same drives but you generally do get better performance with exact same drives).
> 
> I have 8 x 1.5TB Seagate drives in my DroboPro and they didn't complain about them. There were a batch of "bad" 1.5TB drives that had firmware that could cause early/false failures earlier this year.


You should update the firmware of those drives. Pull them 1 after another to do the update. My raid5 array had a filed drive.. so i replaced it, then immediately after, i had one of the 7200.11 fail on me. luckily my raid was rebuilt at the time.


@SoyMac: can your raid5 array grow once you've replaced all the drives with bigger drives? I just found out that it is possible to do that with a linux raid.

oh btw, i just sold my 4bay drobo fw800. Not because it is not good, but because i don't need it on top of my linux raid5. The drobo was also noticeably noisier and hotter than my 8HD linux box. The only thing i did not like about it was the fan, it kicks in even when the drobo had been on standby for days..


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## Silv (Mar 28, 2008)

If you go to the Drobo Store at Data Robotics, Inc. Online Store - Welcome and order a DroboPro, be sure to enter in the super-secret promo code TUAW2X100SS to get $200 off the price of one of these storage wonders. There's only one catch -- you have to purchase your DroboPro before October 1, 2009 and this offer is only good for the first 100 people who take advantage of the discount.


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## SoyMac (Apr 16, 2005)

And to close;
Yesterday, I returned my problematic Drobo for a full refund.

Again, I have to stress the excellent customer service I received from Drobo support. They always answered my emails promptly and personally.

When we hadn't fixed the Drobo's problem(s) within a reasonable amount of time and I stated my desire for a return and full refund, Drobo support handled it without difficulty.

Drobo may not be for me, but I must say they provided good customer service.


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## SoyMac (Apr 16, 2005)

IllusionX said:


> @SoyMac: can your raid5 array grow once you've replaced all the drives with bigger drives? I just found out that it is possible to do that with a linux raid...


Do you mean can I add more drives?
- My Mercury enclosure is a 4 bay, and I have 4 drives in it now.
Do you mean larger drives? Yes, you can add larger drives. But there might be a catch; It _seems _(I'm still not certain) that if one adds a new drive to the mercury RAID enclosure, _all _the drives must be reformatted to set-up the new drive. So it seems one would have to back-up their data to another storage system when adding or changing a drive in the Mercury RAID enclosure.
I say I'm not certain because the literature I've read has not been crystal clear on this.


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## IllusionX (Mar 10, 2009)

i'm doing it with a linux raid5, i am able to swap drives, one by one, and each time let it rebuild. Once all the drives are changed with bigger drives, i can command it to grow the array to reflect the bigger size drives.

I have not yet experimented it, but i did add a drive and then grow the array to use the extra drive.

The thing that i don't like about this is you have to change all your drives before you can expand to use the extra free space on the drives. With the drobo, you just go by your imagination to mix and match HDs.


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## Guest (Sep 26, 2009)

IllusionX said:


> You should update the firmware of those drives. Pull them 1 after another to do the update. My raid5 array had a filed drive.. so i replaced it, then immediately after, i had one of the 7200.11 fail on me. luckily my raid was rebuilt at the time.
> 
> @SoyMac: can your raid5 array grow once you've replaced all the drives with bigger drives? I just found out that it is possible to do that with a linux raid.
> 
> oh btw, i just sold my 4bay drobo fw800. Not because it is not good, but because i don't need it on top of my linux raid5. The drobo was also noticeably noisier and hotter than my 8HD linux box. The only thing i did not like about it was the fan, it kicks in even when the drobo had been on standby for days..


All my 1.5TB drives already had the updated firmware (I checked the serial numbers on their site). With the hardware raid5 like SoyMac bought you typically can't grow them, you don't really have any control aside from the little tiny selector switch. Since I'm a geek I'll stick with a linux based setup as you can grow them (although it takes a loooong time if you're got a big array). 

I've just finished setting up a raid6 setup on my linux box (with my 8 1.5TB Seagates) via a pair of eSATA connections, a fast PCIe dual channel raid capable sata card and an external 8 bay hot swap case. I went with raid6 (as opposed to raid5) as the dual redundancy is great, especially with larger arrays. If your drive failure had have happened before the raid was finished rebuilding you would have lost all your data! With very large arrays it can take quite a while (24+ hours) to do a full rebuild so at least while that is happening I can still feel reasonably safe about my data. Also if it takes you an extra day to get the drive set as failed, removed and swapped for a new one you can breathe a bit easier.

When it finishes building (another 20+ hours to go LOL) I'll do some benchmarks with it. I've set it us as an iSCSI target and will be connecting it to my OSX Server based Xserve to share across the network (I already have one raid5 coming from thelnux box and being shared this way). I'm not looking for massive throughput, since I'm using iSCSi over gigabit ethernet ... as long as it maxes out the ethernet speed I'll be happy.


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