Drobo review
by Ryan Block 
posted Jun 5th 2007 at 12:12PM
Gallery: Drobo review
We've been following the Drobo for the past couple of months, and if any one thing is clear, it's that Data Robotics has a lot of work ahead of it when it comes to educating the average RAID-ready consumer why they should lay down five bills for an external enclosure that comes with no drives. We know, it's a tall proposition -- but the Drobo isn't your average external drive array enclosure. To better illustrate why, let's quickly compare some common usage aspects between the Drobo, with its virtualized storage system, and what many (ourselves included) have in their home, a RAID 5 array.
(For simplicity's sake, this example could be any RAID 5 array, we're not gonna get too specific. RAID 5 is possibly the closest consumer analogue to the Drobo's virtualized storage, so we're not gonna talk about RAID 10, or 0+1 or anything.)
Setup
RAID 5 - Three or more same drives required. (Some arrays will accept dissimilar drives, but will function as lowest common denominator. So two 300GB drives and one 20GB drive will yield a 40GB array.)
Drobo - One to four drives supported; two drives necessary for redundancy
Installation
RAID 5 - Drives in caddies or typically somehow screwed/fastened into the enclosure. From here you may have numerous means of access, including eSATA, USB 2.0, FireWire, even NAS.
Drobo - Drives slide into and are secured by enclosure with no tools. USB 2.0 only, sorry.
Redundancy method and data awareness
RAID 5 - Block-level striping with spanning parity. Array is block-level unaware of data though, meaning nothing intelligent is done with free space.
Drobo - Virtual storage pool is redundant, but also block-level aware, meaning that it recognizes free space, and automatically uses it for multiple invisible backups should drive sectors become corrupt. (The added benefit of block-level data awareness is external storage indicators, which show how much storage is being used in its series of LEDs.)
Redundancy overhead
RAID 5 - Space cost of any one of the identical disks in the array. (So four 250GB drives yields a 750GB array, raw.)
Drobo - Space of the largest disk in the array. (So two 250GB drives and two 500GB drives yields a 1TB array, raw.)
File systems
RAID 5 - Format any file system.
Drobo - HFS or NTFS. (Limited FAT32 support, future file systems to be added.)
Failure
RAID 5 - If a drive dies your array is at risk and goes into rebuild mode when you swap out the bad disk. Depending on your RAID array, you may or may not be able to use it during rebuild. Alternately, if a drive starts writing corrupt data, that data may stay corrupt, with backup recovery being your only option of restoration.
Drobo - If a drive dies your array still goes into rebuild mode, but your data may still be protected. Depending on how much capacity you're using, if there's enough free space in the array, your Drobo may still be able to ensure full redundancy. (Again, thank that block-level aware array system.) If your Drobo doesn't have enough free space during a disk loss, your data will be at risk; after inserting a new drive it will go into rebuild mode, but will still continue to be available.
Upgrading
RAID 5 - Users must back up contents and replace their entire array of drives to increase array storage. (Read: no drive recycling.)
Drobo - Upgrade storage a drive at a time. If you have empty bays, simply insert a new drive -- that storage is instantaneously available. If you are out of bays then remove smallest drive and add its larger replacement. Once that array is rebuilt and the new storage is available, remove the next smallest, etc. until you've reached the capacity you desire. Drobo can support 4TB+, and can supposedly address an infinite amount of space as drives push past the 1TB mark.
So it's pretty easy to tell that there are some very distinct advantages for users who aren't attached to the idea of RAID. The usability of a virtualized storage system is a powerful proposition -- especially considering that it's even possible to make backups with entire sets of drives. (Simply turn off your Drobo, remove all drives, and store them away. If you want to recover the data, just put them all back in, the Drobo is aware they are a Drobo drive array and picks up where the set last left off.) Some of these capabilities may not seem too foreign to those familiar with Infrants products, namely those featuring X-RAID (which seems to be that company's take on virtualized storage).
Excepting the defective first unit we got -- which worked fine other than a wire which came loose inside the box and ground up against the fan, making a hideous noise -- our Drobo has worked very well. Upgrading its firmware is dead simple just use the desktop app and it's all done for you. And unlike many external devices, you don't need to install the Drobo desktop software to use the device. It's just a mass storage drive, all the software does is break down how your storage is being used, give diag info, etc.
The unit itself is always cool to the touch, and more than often quiet. When its fan does engage, it doesn't seem to get unbearably loud, but we still wouldn't want it in our bedroom. Data rates are acceptable -- we averaged 12-15MBps write throughput during large file transfers. Drobo promised "mid-range" performance, and that's what it delivers. (In other words, don't expect this thing to carry your data center.)
However, Drobo isn't without issues. As advanced and advantageous virtualized storage is, for most users it's going to be a pretty confusing experience, and that may never change. The guy who thinks his Drobo can handle having two drives yanked out at the same time is going to be in for a sad surprise. We thought our 1/3rd-full 1TB array would be totally happy about us yanking the smallest drive and upgrading it to something a bit larger -- and it was, 7 hours later after rebuilding. Unfortunately, only adding new drives to empty bays is a fast process -- upgrading existing ones can take a while, and be nerve-wracking if your array doesn't have enough space to keep things redundant during the rebuild. And that's when you'll most notice the bright, blinking lights on the front of the unit, which can't be shut off, even during normal use.
Finally, we'd friggin' kill for this thing to be a NAS box. We know that it's not, but it should be. We can live with the fact that it doesn't have a lot of extraneous inputs (really, it's true, most users probably don't need anything faster than USB 2.0 -- few consumer drive arrays can read/write faster than 800Mbps anyway), but needing to have the Drobo live behind a PC or Airport Extreme router in order for it to be network capable is just so unfun. It's counterintuitive to have a massive storage array that is only easily accessible via a single PC -- unless that PC is set up to serve. At this point in the came it's not unfair to expect your storage array to be smart enough to serve its own content, and a Drobo with an internal DLNA media server and an Ethernet port would totally have blown our minds.
Let's finish this thing off: do we like the Drobo? Yes, absolutely, we think it's great. We heartily endorse it -- but as with any kind of relatively new technology, users need to be aware of its limitations and how it does business differently from other similar devices on the market. If you can get past the fact that your drives won't be living on the network, there are many wonderful surprises about the Drobo. It's not a hard call for us -- no way we're going back to a RAID array after using one of these.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
BigD @ Jun 5th 2007 1:37AM
Thanks for the review. This all seems like very good info for the prospective buyer. I was kind of wondering what the hefty pricetag was about at first (especially considering that it didn't have NAS and a torrent support and a media server built in).
It seems cool though.
TeddyB @ Jun 5th 2007 2:15AM
"you probably actually don't need anything faster than USB 2.0"
That's false. Video editors (such as myself) need a firewire connection for video editing. USB2 is faster in theory, yes, but it is only in burst speeds. Compare this to the constant high-speed of firewire which will keep our editing programs from slowing to a crawl.
It would be nice to use a Drobo on an editing project and then be able to back it up later to a regular ol' backup drive. The current project at least would have backup all the time in case something happened in the middle.
m16 @ Jun 5th 2007 2:23AM
The crappy thing is: Is that you have to buy all new HDD's. You cant just stick all your current HDD's in and have it work. It reformats all the drives....so you would lose all your data if you just put in the four 500gb drives that you already have. So you gotta spend hundreds more dollars for new drives to format then load your data onto. :/
Darwin @ Jun 5th 2007 3:36AM
Wouldn't you just need 1 drive that is as large as your current largest (assuming it's not jammed full)? Pop in the new one, copy data over. Pop in the old one, and let it build up. Fill up free space with data from next drive. Pop in that drive, let it build up...
Mike @ Jun 5th 2007 9:49AM
You would suffer the same fate using a RAID 5 array.
Infoclipper @ Jun 5th 2007 2:30AM
So can anyone explain the difference between this and the Netgear (Infrant) NAS with X-Raid? They seem to be doing the same thing, except the Infrant is a true NAS and has been out for going on two years (if not longer).
http://www.infrant.com/products/products_details.php?name=ReadyNAS%20NVPlus
$546 with no drives...
Ryan Block @ Jun 5th 2007 2:36AM
X-RAID may be a misleading name for a good technology -- their concept appears to be very similar (in theory) to virtualized storage. See: http://www.infrant.com/wiki/index.php/FAQ#What_is_the_advantage_of_using_X-RAID_over_RAID_5.3F
Seems pretty clear, though, that Infrant is not stating X-RAID is RAID as we all know it.
Kevin @ Jun 5th 2007 2:46AM
Great overview. I'd very much like to see how this thing performed when attached to the Airport Extreme router you mentioned. I just bought a new 802.11n base station specifically so I could plug in a USB drive. I'd love a drobo!
e_rocm @ Jun 7th 2007 2:00AM
This device looks really cool, but the fact that it does not support ethernet is a major deal killer imho. A $499 premium for a usb drive enclosure is quite a bit. With 500GB SATA and USB drives selling for as low as $100, you could come up with your own redundant disk system for a lot cheaper.
jtw @ Jun 12th 2007 8:56AM
The cost is high compared to individual USB drives, but I don't know of a way of using USB drives to make a RAID array. My understanding is that Windows can only access them as individual drives and will not allow you to use them to create a RAID partition. If anyone knows differently, please advise.
e_rocm @ Jun 12th 2007 2:56PM
I thought you could set up dynamic disk raid arrays (Raid 0,1, & 5) in XP pro / Vista Business with USB drives but I may be wrong. Looks like this is only a feature of Server 2000+.
Regardless, I use software to mirror most of my drives. Every morning the software copies any changed or new files from the source to the destination. I also have it set up to keep shadow copies (previous versions) of files in an archive folder. Then, once a week, the files are uploaded to an online backup service (Mozy.com - $5 a month for unlimited space). This way if my apartment building burns down I am not screwed.
A setup just like mine could cost as little as $200 for 1TB worth of USB drives and $30 for secondcopy (the software I use). Using the Drobo would make some things a little easier (like adding additional disks), but I don't think it’s worth $500.
Julian Bond @ Jun 5th 2007 3:18AM
I wish there was a low end NAS that had all the obvious features. There really should be an updated WRT54G+NSLU-2 in a single enclosure that takes 3.5" disks, running linux and with a bit more horsepower.
Juaquin @ Jun 5th 2007 3:44AM
This is an awesome idea, but I wish they would support eSata. USB2.0 is just too slow to be storing 1TB+ amounts of data. I have a backup 320GB drive and that's bad enough over USB2.
oddity @ Jun 5th 2007 4:37AM
When securing your data, you have to look at all the components of the system, not just the hard drives. My main concern would be what happens if/when Drobo itself breaks down, and there's no replacement unit available. Can the data still be accessed, or is it completely unreadable without another Drobo?
One important advantage of software RAID setups is that there's no need to rely on any single hardware manufacturer.
Mike @ Jun 5th 2007 4:35AM
Their explanation for only offering USB2.0 was that the Drobo itself wasn't capable of making use of faster connections.
Michael @ Jun 5th 2007 5:51AM
What no-one can explain to me (and the company seems to refuse to talk about) is what is the underlying FS used on the device. They talk about how you connect your computer Mac/Windows to format the "virtualized" space. But that is just the virtualization layer no? what is the true on the platter FS being used? can we trust it? why can we trust it?
I will never buy one until I see that. Oh - and until it gets a better interface - USB2.0 is not acceptable.
Amos @ Jun 5th 2007 8:17AM
I've had a Drobo for about a month or so now. Running with 2 500gb drives. No complaints other than the techie rant of wanting more ports and capabilities. Great unit.
Quiet. Good power management, sleeps when I put my computer to sleep or turn it off. Decent performance for the general file storage and backup stuff I'm using it for.
A little pricey but I had a $25 coupon that helped a little. If your looking for a low maintanence solution it's the way to go.
hoberion @ Jun 5th 2007 9:59AM
give it 8 slots, web interface and UTP.. then you got a winner. Im going for Windows Home Server
RikF @ Jun 5th 2007 10:20AM
What about redundancy for a failed Drobo? Can I transfer the drives to another unit and have it recover?
Ryan Block @ Jun 5th 2007 12:16PM
From what I understand, yes, you can swap a drive set to a new Drobo with no issues. (I didn't test this.) That's definitely not something a RAID array normally does.
engadget @ Jun 8th 2007 1:38PM
Ryan, what are you talking about, you can almost always move a Hardware Raid array to a differnt card if it uses the same chipset, and with windows raid 5 (at least on xp/2003) you can move it to a differnt one just fine.
Johnny @ Jun 5th 2007 11:42AM
Please excuse this irrelevant comment, but I can't help but notice how much it looks like a napkin dispenser.
Stephan @ Jun 5th 2007 12:42PM
I hate myself for being the grammar police but...
"which worked fine other than the wire inside which game loose and ground up against the fan, making a hideous noise"
game should be came, unless the wire was playing a game with the fan?
Nic @ Jun 5th 2007 10:56PM
Most of you might not be aware of this, but this technology is old. This kind of use has been done for over 10 years now in the enterprise world. I worked at LSI Logic for a few years and they specialize in making enterprise class storage systems that can do everything this can and far more. Granted, most of us will never afford a system like this, but this is exactly what they are trying to do at the consumer level. They can sustain transfer rates to servers at 1000+ MB/s while adding, deleting, modifying your RAID arrays in an active state. However, keep in mind that these Dual-Active controllers are using Fiber Channel connections, Dual Intel Processors, up to 8GB RAM for cache, and supports live RAID Array expansion, backup, and array swaps to different enclosures upon failure of such enclosure. Check out their stuff at http://www.lsi.com/storage_home/products_home/external_raid/6998_storage_system/index.html and you can see what this company and others are trying to accomplish at the consumer level.
rob @ Jun 5th 2007 1:37PM
I have used a Drobo and it is pretty cool.
t-bone @ Jun 5th 2007 5:10PM
You must have really liked this to post it again.
youdiejoe @ Jun 5th 2007 1:40PM
More police action:
"At this point in the came it's not unfair to expect your storage array to be smart enough to serve its own content..."
Hezekiah @ Jun 5th 2007 2:05PM
Your missing C is in this sencence:
"At this point in the came it's not unfair to expect your storage array to be smart enough to serve its own content"
I'll trade you my C for your G . . . ;)
rcme @ Jun 5th 2007 2:01PM
I read on their website that this device looks to the OS like a 2TB USB drive (regardless of how much actual storage is available), and you have to use the blue lights on the front of the box to determine the % of disk used/left. This is worthless, especially if the box is tucked out of sight under my desk, where one can't see the lights. I don't get this, why can't they simply provide to the OS the full available capacity, like any other USB drive. When I add/remove disks, just report the new maximum size to the OS. No different from plugging in different USB drives or when I swap the drive out of my current external USB case.
Also, there doesn't appear to be any software to actually monitor the health of the disks or the disk array. It would appear that one has to monitor the color of the lights next to each drive, which is hard to do if the box is not visible. Again, this seems like an easy thing to provide by having a simple application that runs on the OS to provide info about the box.
bluemonq @ Jun 5th 2007 2:19PM
Or you could, you know, use the small program to look at usage. Create a shortcut to it, drop it in the Start menu somewhere, and you're done.
morcheeba @ Jun 5th 2007 7:41PM
bluemonq explained your lights problem; I'll explain the rest.
The 2TB size is set at the USB maximum so that you don't have to reformat when you add more drives. Formatting sets aside a used/unused table (like the FAT in FAT32) that is dependent on the size of the drive. There are programs that will do this when they resize a partition, but the 2TB feature means you'll never have to do that.
One interesting thing that turned me off is that if you've got more than 2TB of storage available, it'll appear as multiple 2TB drives. Apparently this is due to a limitation in the USB specification... why didn't USB-SIG make the spec either outrageously large (and, no, 2TB isn't outrageously large. 2^64 blocks is), or make it inherently extensible (first byte=# of bytes used to make up the address). Anyway, I'm looking forward to a network mode, but I'm awfully tempted to put this behind an airport extreme.
Teetdogs @ Jun 5th 2007 3:02PM
Why do people insist on correcting the spelling of posts, are you that anal of a person that you need to point out grammar or spelling errors of a person that you dont know on a blog that you have no other interaction with other than browsing it. If you dont have anything to add to the disscusion of the artical posted then dont add anything at all.
Anthony @ Jun 5th 2007 3:33PM
Teetdogs: I believe you are missing a question mark after the word
"posts". Additionally, using a comma to separate two complete
thoughts is incorrect. In some cases a semicolon will suffice.
However, in this instance I believe a two sentence approach would be
better. Finally, apostrophes are missing on your use of the word
"don't". This may be a literary style choice*, so it would not
necessarily be wholly incorrect.*Cormac McCarthy frequently makes use
of this in his works (most notably his two National Book Award
Winners)
Teetdogs @ Jun 5th 2007 3:41PM
Smart a$$
Anthony @ Jun 5th 2007 4:09PM
Teetdogs: I kid, I kid. Actually the thing that bugs me about Engadget & all tech blogs isn't their spelling, grammar or other artificial language construct. It's that everyone's so quick to get to the initial press release that they don't really have a chance to follow up.
Example: Wildcharge.com - induction charging for cell phones, ipods, etc.
Big splash in Jan (on Engadget & numerous others) w/ "coming in March". Now the only point of contact gets a returned email response.
This happens again & again & I see things every day I think, "wow. that's neat," but there's no way to really keep track, follow up or later buy the item (if it ever moves from concept to reality).
TK @ Jun 5th 2007 3:35PM
This thing would be amazing if it just wasnt so darn expensive!!
Stephan @ Jun 5th 2007 3:42PM
I don't think that comments need to be edited but at the very least the main post should be verified with more than the spellchecker turned on.
Teetdogs @ Jun 5th 2007 5:54PM
stephan: While I agree with you I just dont see the need to criticize the author with comments like
" "which worked fine other than the wire inside which game loose and ground up against the fan, making a hideous noise"
game should be came, unless the wire was playing a game with the fan?"
WHO CARES I am pretty sure that unless you are a mouth breathing retard you can understand the context. In fact I kinda feel hypocrytical typing this because it is so far off track and has nothing to do with the artical.
So just to make up for that I will say that I think this device is kinda neat and the idea is promising, it just doesn't seem like its ready for prime time yet. Especially with all of the other storage options out there with more(albeit different and possibly weaker) features. Now WHS that is something I would like to see a full review of. :)
Bean @ Jun 5th 2007 4:11PM
This seems to be similar to how the new Windows Home Server works. I'm a beta tester, and have been using it for about a month. WHS does everything the drobo does plus a whole lot more.
You can just keep adding drives (internal or external) and WHS adds it to the storage pool. There is an option to eject a drive and it automatically reallocates the data so it is safe to remove. You can choose whether folders have redundancy or not. Not to mention you interface through the network, not USB2 so gigabit ethernet would be much faster.
This reminds me of my NSLU2 (which can mirror only 2 disks). A single purpose device that ends up being limited in use.
No clue on how much the WHS os will cost, but for $500 you could build a decent pc to install it on, the system requirements are very modest.
4in0r @ Jun 5th 2007 5:01PM
It has to have support for specific file systems built in? WTF? I don't have any problems with my UFS-formatted USB drive, what's wrong with the Drobo? Why doesn't it act like a block-structured USB device that the host OS can format however it pleases?
Eicos @ Jun 5th 2007 8:31PM
The author's assertion that RAID5 does not support seamless integration of new drives is not necessarily true. Under linux, mdadm does support adding drives to a RAID5 array - and you can buy a lot more linux box (including NAS of course) with $500 dollars.
Still, for people who don't want to plunge into building their own NAS or RAID array, it seems to be a nice option. Mdadm DOES drive me nuts, after all.
Hezekiah @ Jun 5th 2007 8:32PM
Teetdogs, as a copywriter, I hate it when people nitpick my work. 99.99% of the stuff I catch in newspapers, websites, magazines, and everywhere else I don't mention. I simply thought it was fascinating that there were two typos in the same article, and that the typos could fix each other. I don't think I've ever seen that before. I almost wonder if the writer did it on purpose to see if anyone would notice.
George Ou @ Jun 7th 2007 2:06AM
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=508
This review gives a more detailed explaination of how the array works by using multiple RAID tiers. It also gives more specifics on performance characteristics.
danaldonova @ Oct 5th 2007 11:09AM
I would like to put my 2 cents in for the drobo. This little box has made my life so much easier - no more raid, no more tech issues. Just throw in another drive when it gets full, and you're back in business. FYI - If you are looking into a drobo, go to their online store ( www.drobostore.com ) and use the coupon code REFDANA to save $25.
jtw @ Jun 14th 2007 4:36PM
Whilst I'm not critical of the USB interface, the actual throughput of the interface is around 360Mbps with 120Mbps overhead. Using an eSATA interface would give the best performance as this is much higher (3Gbps) and has no overhead. This is higher than the theoretical output from the unit which should be in the region of 2000Mbps, approximately 3x that of the slowest drive with four drives fitted, as most modern SATA drives support sustained transfer rates in the region of 80MBps (that's 640Mbps).
With four drives running at this speed, as the data is spread across all four drives (with one drive holding redundancy information) the data throughput should be 3x this speed of an indivudal drive which should be close on 2000Mbps. This is 5 to 6 times the throughput speed of the USB interface.
IMHO, the next interface to be supported should be eSATA. However, the USB interface is a great start for this product as it makes it available to the largest market and in general for the majority of users the data throughput speed shouldn't be too much of an issue.
Like some others, I too do video editing and processing. I have large fast internal SATA drives to handle this. Once done, it is then moved onto an external storage medium that supports redundancy.
danaldonova @ Jun 12th 2007 6:09PM
FYI - the reference code REFDANA will save you $25 on a new Drobo until July 31!!
Poohbee @ Jun 12th 2007 8:41PM
If you are planning to buy this unit you can Receive $25 off by using the discount coupon code: REFJAIME
thermo @ Jun 14th 2007 2:16AM
Spent the cash... wasn't worth it. The device is SLOW! If you are copying a large file, forget about trying to access anything off the thing. the usb is much slower than a single drive.
Decided to take advantage of the money back guarantee... that was a royal hassle.. took a month to finally get my money after numerous phone calls.
overall result... not worth consideration.
danaldonova @ Jun 17th 2007 9:09AM
FYI - For anyone looking to buy a drobo, the reference code / coupon REFDANA will save you $25 at their online store (drobo.com) through July 31
m00n @ Aug 20th 2007 10:49PM
I got a Drobo and love it. Had a few hiccups when I first set it up, but it turned out to be a bad 500GB drive. Apparently the Drobo doesn't recognize that fact when it is first formatted. I reformatted with the 3 good 400GB drives and then added the 500GB drive. It immediately told me it was bad. Pretty slick.
USB is slow, of course. Don't use this version of the Drobo for anything that requires massive speeds. I have it connected to my home Mac that is mainly used as a file server. It also backs-up my photos, songs, etc. so that I know they're safe.
All-in-all, this is much better than my old RAID array. Very easy to use and fast enough for just about everything I've needed it for. I'd love to see a Firewire version or NAS, but that will probably come.