Drobo (second-gen) mini-review
By Ryan Block 
posted Jul 8th 2008 8:36AM
posted Jul 8th 2008 8:36AM
We were kind of hoping they'd get it over with and build in Ethernet (or at least WiFi) connectivity instead of continuing to charge an extra $200 for the DroboShare add-on -- that it comes without left us with some mixed feelings. But then again, this new model doesn't cost any more than the first-gen product ($500), so we can't hold it too much against 'em -- and as we found, it is a fair amount faster (and significantly quieter) than its predecessor. Read on for more.
We won't dwell much longer on the fact that Drobo still doesn't have its own network connectivity (and if we were gamblers, our money would be on integrated DroboShare whenever the third-gen device comes out), but if you're not planning on connecting your device directly to your computer, be prepared for the extra cash outlay. The upshot, however, is that the DroboShare will soon be able to host on-board applications and servers ("DroboApps") that make use of your Drobo's storage pool, potentially giving your whole setup a great deal more value. That is, assuming the developer community puts some weight behind the recently released SDK (more on that here).
If you're just in it for the speed, we found the new Drobo does deliver -- although maybe not on the same levels demonstrated by Data Robotics. Their tests show fairly consistent speed increases of over 2x on writes and between 60-100% on reads using AJA Kona. We did all our tests using Xbench, which showed more conservative improvements over the first-gen device. Using a set of four varied SATA drives, we got somewhat smaller speed increases over USB, usually in the range of 10-20%. Occasionally we got up to 100%+ on some operations (like 4k block uncached random writes) -- but on other operations the new Drobo was actually a slight bit slower (like 256k random uncached reads).
If it fits the bill for what you're looking for, the second-gen Drobo is still our favorite home and prosumer storage device in this class. The new interface and speed increases are easy to appreciate, but even if you trade those in for slower access over a network-attached DroboShare, you still stand to take advantage its forthcoming DroboApps and unusually simple auto-mounting system. And running four hot 7200 RPM drives -- which should be fairly high up on the device's thermal envelope -- the new model is indeed noticeably quieter than its predecessor, even despite the unfortunate loss of the previous model's jet engine exhaust motif. Dropping $500 on a device with no included drives (or even network access) is still pretty tough to swallow for many buyers, but the benefits of having a dynamically expandable, redundant, easy to manage storage pool are still as strong an incentive as ever to be a little spendy -- if not on a Drobo, than perhaps on a ReadyNAS with X-RAID. It's your data, after all, so treat it right.
Reviewer's note: As we mentioned when this review was first published, our unit suffered from a strange series of random, somewhat jarring reboots. Data Robotics narrowed this issue down to a pre-production power Y-connector from our early-release DroboShare. Since replacing it with a production cable we haven't seen the issue pop up again; Data Robotics assured us that they've tested their hardware and software extensively, otherwise never having seen the issue we experienced.
I understand it's probably due to how the Drobo works as "one big drive" but I sure wish it came with eSATA.
Agreed. No reason why the second gen shouldn't have it, as the standard is well over 2 years old now.
I also wish there was an 8 bay version. Damn MKV's.
How is this thing in any way robotic? I know it doesn't require manual data migration, but it doesn't do this by using a little arm to move the drives around as I initially hoped.
Robot: any machine OR mechanical device that operates automatically with humanlike skill. (dictionary.com)
The scientific definition of a "machine" (derived from the Latin machina) is any device that is not a computer that transmits or modifies energy. (wikipedia.com)
Is this not basically a computer?
@WolfTicket
Ya, good point. Maybe the company name isn't suggesting it's a robot, but rather a Data Robot. Still just a fancy name for "Computer".
A computer is any device used to make mathematical calculations. This does include slide rulers and abacus. They are not machines. A calculator (computer) can take on many different forms in both machine and non machine.
We are nerds.
Indeed
still no eSATA...
oh well, dual firewire is good. just hope Ubuntu full supports the dual firewire.
The extra firewire port is for daisy-chaining other firewire devices. You don't connect both ports to your machine.
Great news. We've all been waiting for this.
OMFG - you left out the best news of all -- crazy deals on Drobo plus drives
Drobo plus 0 TB: $499
Drobo of two 1 TB: $899
Drobo plus four 1 TB: $1,299
This beats the crap out of Infrant ReadyNAS -- the Infrant with 4 TB costs $2,999. Instead of a ReadyNAS, I can buy a Firewire Drobo, *and* a Macbook, plus a Mac mini *and* still have $2.00 left over.
Wow.
You forget that the ReadyNAS has ethernet. The Drobo does not. unless you buy the Share addon which +$200.
the Drobo still doesn't quite "beat the crap" out of the ReadyNas. At least not yet.
Why not get the HP WHS over this? It does the same thing has gigabit ethernet and esata. Who the heck uses Firewire anymore for storage? Even camcorders have gone usb. I realize it works a little better than usb but not better that esata. FIREWIRE IS DEAD PEOPLE.
The WHS is $690 at amazon but I paid $590 for the 2X500GB version almost a year ago and it trumps the drobo in so many ways. And don't bring up the stupid data corruption thing. It is VERY minor and will be corrected soon.
So, how is paying $200 per 1TB drive a "crazy deal"? Newegg has several models for around $180, and I've seen sale prices elsewhere in the sub-$150 range.
The data corruption thing on WHS is in fact corrected.
Except you would be an idiot to spend $2800 on a ReadyNAS with 4x 1TB drives when you could get one without the drives and buy the drives separately, saving you $1200. Which basically makes it around the same price as the Drobo (if you then addon the $200 drobo share to make it equivalent to a ReadyNAS).
...but yes Netgear are ripping you off if you buy the drives with them.
Except you would be an idiot to spend $2800 on a ReadyNAS with 4x 1TB drives when you could get one without the drives and buy the drives separately, saving you $1200. Which basically makes it around the same price as the Drobo (if you then addon the $200 drobo share to make it equivalent to a ReadyNAS).
...but yes Netgear are ripping you off if you buy the drives with them.
Give me a 2 drive version for $300 that I can daisy chain together with other 2 drive boxes to make the ultimate expandable DROBO array.
This would be a bad idea, technically speaking. If you ever unplugged on the cables while the dirves were running you'd effectively simulate a 2 drive failure and lose all your data. If $300 is your threshold, though, they're clearing out the v1 Drobo's at $350 and you can have 4 bays.
I really wish this unit didn't use proprietary methods to store/stripe the data. If it dies, the only way to get your data back it to buy another one to stick your drives in whereas a regular RAID device you can recreate the array with any RAID controller. The other problem I have is the lack of network connectivity unless you buy a $200 adapter that adds nothing but a Ethernet port. Given those limitations, I think a Synology CS407 or DS508 would be a better choice. (Or Thecus if you prefer)
The benefit of the drobo way is that all four of your drives can be of any type/size. Makes it a lot easier for the average consumer to slowly build a RAID storage device. Also makes it a lot easier to recover your data later when you can't find a Western Digital 80GB 5400 RPM Clavicle (yes, I know their brand is not really Clavicle), you just stick in any drive that is larger and it will mirror it onto the new drive.
"...whereas a regular RAID device you can recreate the array with any RAID controller."
You sure are naive.
That's totally untrue. RAID standards only extend to technique, not to implementation. If your RAID controller dies, you can only run it on identical hardware (or, if you're lucky, maybe a newer model from the same company -- but no guarantees).
I'm still torn.
Love Drobo for the features it does have
Hate Drobo for what it doesn't
-REALLY easy to use. Large, ready to go capacity
There's not much middle ground.
-No network. No media server software
ReadyNAS is -exactly- the opposite on each point
Guess I'll wait longer still
yay
WTF???
Firewire 800 on the device, but the Droboshare will still only connect via USB2.0????
Am I the only one that just wants to scream at Data Robotics "WHAT??!! Are you insane?!"
USB 2.0 should be able to handle whatever is coming/going on the network, no?
Still no ethernet? I can't understand their philosophy behind this device if you're not going to make it networkable.
@ghostfish - do you really think you can take drives from, say, an Adaptec controller and plug them into a Readynas and have them work? NFW. Drobo is like all other storage arrays out there -- pull the drives and put them into the same unit.
I would never pay this much without an eSATA connection.
Someone please make a Portal Companion Cube case mod please
So what happens when the drobo itself dies (has to happen some day).
I guess you can buy a new drobe, but are they backwards compatible?
So basically you need to backup you data. Well I guess you can buy two drobos right away...
You take your drives out of the dead Drobo and put them in the new Drobo -- all you need to make sure of is that you put them in the same slots. The USB-only 1st gen and the new USB/FW 2nd gen are format-compatible. The speed ups are largely due to a newer, faster processor on the 2nd gen unit.
It's FASTER! How fast? Who the hell knows, because you never published any actual throughput, just % changes.
What was throughput before hand? What were the test drives? What is the new throughput? How long was the 1.25GB file transfer?
I am disappointed in this article. It gives no meaningful data.
eSATA--you and all five of your friends. eSATA has so many compatibility issues I am not surprised they would not include it. Who wants to buy an expensive PCI Express eSATA card when FireWire 800 will do for 95% of people? There's a reason Apple Mac Pro's don't ship with eSATA...
because eSata wasn't standardized until after the Mac Pro was developed?
DAMN.... and i just ordered a drobo on sunday from newegg that arrives today! I wish they could let people know it was coming!
No ethernet connectivity.. wtf ? I had no idea the Drobo had no ethernet, wow what a misstep.. the whole reason I would buy one would be to share it on my network. Oh well.
Network sharing is available through an add-on device.
The only reason I haven't bought a Drobo yet is because the network functionality is not built in. There is no way I'm paying $200 for a network card. I was hoping that Drobo G2 would seal the deal, but I guess not.
I am in the same boat. I just bought a link station pro to hold me over until G3 comes with gig eth and hopefully at least 5 drives.
there's no way to connect a USB WiFi dongle?
I don't fully understand the obsession here with having ethernet in the box. I'm sure there are people for whom that is the best use case but I'd rather have the choice of not buying something I don't need. Am I the only person with a Desktop PC? (Maybe that's it.) My PC can provide the networking stack just fine my desktop can provide the sharing stack just fine and when I'm using it (which is where I edit the baby videos) I don't take the performance hit of accessing things over SMB. Several NAS boxes reviews I've read show that they are fast in and of themselves, but when you access them through SMB instead of FTP you hit get overhead that cuts performance by 20%+, and even that assumes everyone has already upgraded to wired gigabit ethernet or 11n at very close range to not have a much slower connection than USB2 or Firewire. Besides, if I were going to upgrade to 11n (I'm in a holding pattern for the draft to get finalized and prices to come down), I'd probably buy an Apple Airport Extreme which has a USB port to share my Drobo from so I still wouldn't need that networking. The only question is whether the v2 is different enough to warrant upgrading... probably not but a move in the right direction.
I agree with you... desktop networking gives me a lot more flexibility, BUT I can also see the other side of the coin. People buy the Drobo 'cos they don't want the hassle of maintaining a RAID array or a server -- so why would you want the hassle of maintaining sharing via your desktop OS when something like DroboShare (or an AirPort Extreme, or a "real" NAS) can do it for you?
For me, it boils down to the fact that connecting the Drobo directly to my machine is a) faster for my primary machine and perfectly fine for the rest of the network, and b) more configurable.
If the choice is between adding cost & complexity to the base product or offering it as an add-on via the DroboShare, I favour the latter... but yes, I wish the Drobo & DroboShare were connected via a faster link than USB 2.0.
So does it still have that annoying ass 2TB cap on volume sizes that in my opinion defeats the whole purpose of the Drobo? Or was that really just a USB 2 issue?
No, firewire has it too. eSata does not.
Their tech spec page for the Drobo-2 claims 16GB.
See better Array: Thecus intros 5-bay N5200BR NAS Server
More expensive, but I want my ports damnit! Is a gigabit ethernet port too much to ask???
No ESATA??
All I really wanna know is, is this fast enough with the DroboShare to stream video on my home network to my PS3. Anyone know?
Well, it's fast enough to stream HD content from my Mac+Drobo (rev. 1) over GigE (Airport Extreme) to my MythTV box (Asus P5E-HDMI mb, 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo).
Does the PS3 support GigE or 802.11n? If so, and your network supports it too, then the answer is "probably".
Ok, I lied. The more I thought about it, I have more than one concern.
I've been looking at the QNAP TS-409 (good reviews, tons of server stuff, not enough memory) but they've got a new model due soon (TS-509 July?) which adds more horsepower and memory which should boost performance (and price I'm sure).
I'm new to RAID, so I have some simple questions about it...
One feature of the Drobo that is always touted is the 'any size disk' - is this like JBOD?
Can't a standard RAID system like the new Thecus just let you swap out a disk and do a rebuild?
I've always wondered what happens down the road when you have a set of drives they don't make anymore and one dies. Can't a RAID system just accept any old drive? (assuming it's as big or bigger than the one that died) (also assuming it's a RAID level for security, not speed of course)
As long as I could hook the Drobo up to my (almost always running) PC can't I just use the PC to share it on my network? Don't need the $200 DroboShare then.
Haven't read reviews of the Thecus products, but it looks to be coming down to:
Wait for QNAP TS-509 and see how much it is (maybe go with TS-409 then)
Wait for some more reviews of the new Thecus device.
Get a Drobo V2 and hope it's fast enough to stream files smoothly.
I actually already have 4 1TB SATA drives waiting to be used in one of these. Where to put em!
Now this is something I'd hook to my G5 tower running 10.4 server. I've managed to shoehorn a third drive in by removing the optical drive. So now it has a 1Tb sata iTunes drive, a 500Gb sata Files drive, and a 60Gb pata OS drive. I used to have a freenas box that I rsynced the iTunes and Data drives to until it crapped itself a couple weeks ago. If the iTunes disk dies, that's a hell of a lot of cd ripping again. Not to mention the tv shows my wife has bought.
@tservo24-
I'm happily running two eSATA drives on my Mac Pro (1.1 model) here. Mac Pro's do ship with eSATA.
There are 6 total eSATA internal ports on a Mac Pro: 4 on the internal drive bays, and 2 on the motherboard.
OWC sells an inexpensive kit that jumpers the 2 motherboard ports to an external bracket. It's fairly easy to install, but requires a bit of jockeying the internal cooling ducts to get the out (Mac Pros are built tight!). Choice of external eSATA drives is important though - avoid Seagate FreeAgent Pros, which have had bad logic chips for eSATA. Other enclosures work just fine.
Just because *you* don't find eSATA useful, don't write it off for others. I get internal drive like speed on two 750gb external drives. That's nothing to sneeze at, and it's (theoretically) 8x faster than USB and 3.5x faster than FW800, and 3x faster than Gigabit ethernet. Granted, actual drive speeds limit the real world performance data transfer rates, but you can tell the difference between eSATA and USB even without benchmarks.
I want to want a Drobo, it's got neat features, but FW800 alone isn't enough to interest me. It needs built in ethernet to even be considered ($200 for a port is just obscene), and it would take eSATA to become a must have device.
Let me correct myself before someone else points out my error.
Mac Pros do not ship with eSATA. I phrased that incorrectly. My point was what followed after that, which is that while they don't have eSATA ports shipped from the factory, they are easily made to have a pair of eSATA ports for a $20 cable without requiring "an expensive PCI Express eSATA card."
I think the internal ports might be intended for optical drive upgrades, but that needs to be researched, and isn't an issue for me until read/write BluRay for Mac becomes affordable.
Also, an advantage to the "expensive PCI Express eSATA card" is the port multiplying, allowing numerous eSATA drives to be attached via one cable. You could probably even (software) RAID such an arrangement.
One thing I don't hear a lot of folks touch on is the SDK that was released. I think that's significant. Depending on the level of adaptation this thing gets, there could be a lot of interesting plays on this.
I wish I was a developer, but I'm not. I know I'll get killed for this, but personally I'd love a Zune Server on this.
Also, the DroboShare seems to share 2 Drobo units. If I understand it right, it's more than just a simple NIC, but also an expansion back-plane.
The SDK is vaporware until apps utilizing it, and improving the functionality of the Drobo actaully appear.
I'm not going to buy an overpriced piece of hardware that doesn't meet my needs because someday, some developers might add some unspecified application to it.
Meanwhile, plenty of NAS/RAID devices out there already that do things like run an iTunes server, and XBox media server, torrent server, ethernet out of the box, etc, etc.
Concerned about buying something you don't need? What about people who would rather they include a $20 component rather than charge $200 for the add-on? Oh, that's right - so the company gets the $180 markup...
I'd much rather the Ethernet be integrated, and not only for cost reasons. The USB/Ethernet conversion is going to cause a performance hit. This thing's almost got to be able to put out to an Ethernet adapter directly, confirmed by the addition of FireWire 800; my concern would have been that the drive controller was USB-native.
And I'll voice my support for adding eSATA. Yes, 800Mb FireWire would be a nice plus, but I don't have a FireWire 800 interface, just 400 (and USB 2.0). On the other hand, I have eSATA on my desktop, and the 3Gb bandwidth would be really helpful. Again, as with Ethernet, adding the interface should be cost-effective, as it should be able to integrate with the base controller (which is likely using SATA anyway).
$20 Ethernet? An Ethernet chip might have cost $20 back in 1997 maybe. I suspect its only a few bucks by now for 10/100. GigE might be $10 I suppose, but Intel's cards sell for something like $40, so I doubt it...
Ethernet ports are built in to just about everything these days because they are really cheap. There is no reason the 2nd generation Drobo doesn't have them other than greed or stupidity.
Sure there are great reasons to hook the Drobo up to your desktop in some applications. Others (network backup, say) suggest a SAN configuration. Why offer only one of these out of the box?
Which reinforces my point exactly. I didn't know component costs, and didn't want to underprice them.
If Gb Ethernet only costs $10 on a $500 item, why would they ever not include it?!? Worse, how can they justify a 2000% markup? (except that some morons will buy it, instead of a D-Link version for $75, which is also overpriced...)
I don't get why people here are comparing it to NAS boxes. You simply won't get the kind of speed over Wifi or even ethernet that you will with FW800. I don't know about everyone else here, btu I am planning on storing my media collection on it which includes 30,000 photos and hundreds of gigs of music/movies/tv shows. I can't even imagine trying to stream that stuff over wifi when I actually want to use it. Loading my pictures in Lightroom takes long enough over FW800, I would not be happy doing it over WiFi/ethernet. I certainly see this box in my near future.
Has anyone had success at using the Drobo as a backing store for a WHS box such as the HP EX470?
That's a solution that might interest me. As I understand it the WHS operating system drive management doesn't virtualize and pool storage down to the block level (as the Drobo does) so it wouldn't necessarily protect against data rot. I believe that in the case of the EX470 you are limited to using all drives of the same capacity if you use the internal caddy arrangement inside of the device.
If I'm wrong and someone can enlighten me I'd love to hear it.
Maybe with the Drobo SDK someone will develop a WHS add-in for the Drobo dash board with some management tools.
I should also point out one sour item with Drobo. The semi-official user forum "drobospace" now won't let you read or post in the forums unless you provide a valid serial number. That kind of closed mindedness is a real turn off to prospective customers like myself.
Okay - okay - lets see if we can get a few things straight.
1) Yes, it would be nice to have the NAS (Ethernet) port right in the box, but not having it shouldn't be a complete deal-breaker; there's a lot of ways to get that functionality, not just the DroboShare. Got a new-style Apple Airport Extreme? Plug it in there! Now you've got router, wireless access point, 3-port GigE switch, print server AND storage. I've also seen little USB NAS adapters for around $50; plug in a USB drive and a network cable, and you have a NAS. Personally I use my old Mac Mini as my media center/fileserver and it works great; dead silent, Wireless, shares my Internet connection as a wireless router, runs my TV over DVI (beautiful) and only takes 30-60 watts.
2) I'm not surprised that the box doesn't have eSATA; eSATA isn't really a peripheral interconnect technology. It's point-to-point, and assumes that the other end is a hard drive or other block-type storage device (such as a tape drive or optical drive). As a result, for them to put an eSATA port on the box would require some pretty involved software and hardware engineering to essentially "fool" the SATA controller into believing that the Drobo is just a simple hard disk, and you'd probably still have to have a USB connection for the dashboard management program. USB and FireWire are both peripheral-interconnect busses; because of their design it's much, much easier to build a simple, reliable, and standards-compliant port that the computer will see as "Disk, Hard, XXXGb, External." Yes, eSATA is very fast for an external disk, but when you try to go to multiple disks, you usually wind up having to buy port replicators, or port multipliers, or special raid cards, or fairly expensive RAID enclosures. The whole point of the Drobo is to Keep It Simple!
3) Why Firewire? because firewire beats the pants off of USB and always has. USB drags on the CPU and saturates very easily. With a good-quality bridgeboard and a decent high-speed hard disk, I can consistently get 40-50Mb/s out of Firewire 400, and rarely more than about 32Mb/s out of USB 480. Add a second hard drive on the Firewire 400 chain, and my throughput from both is still about 40-50?Mb/s overall. Add a second hard drive on the USB 480 port, and overall throughput from those two drives will generally drop 15%-40% because USB doesn't handle contention worth crap. Firewire 800 can actually approach the throughput of Gig Ethernet.
4) I think the 2Tb limit is a per-file limit and it's based on the filesystem you format the Drobo with. I know the previous-gen Drobo could do at least 3Tb. The site says that the 2nd Gen unit is capable of supporting a single volume up to 16Tb (presuming that SATA Drives will continue to get individually larger).
I've been holding off on a Drobo, hoping they'd go to Firewire - now I just need to scrape up some money.
My $0.02.
BigHorton
Dude, isn't the Drobo supposed to look like a single drive to the computer your using? Even with multiple partitions, that's a basic part of the design, so your reasons for no eSATA go down the drain there. I'm pretty confident that your computer doesn't see 4 individual drives on the thing, even when hooked up via USB or FW. The whole point of Drobo is to RAID the drives into one. You don't need port multipliers or any of that crap if you're connecting a single RAID enclosure (with all the RAID hardware internally).
You even support my position with your own comment about the Drobo supporting a "single volume" up to 16gb.
Additionally, any non-internal solution, such as an Apple Airport Extreme or a USB-Ethernet dongle (assuming that dongle would actually work on the Drobo, which I doubt), you're still limiting the DISK in the Drobo to USB transfer speeds. Yeah, your Airport Extreme has gigabit (1000mbs) speed, but the USB interface is limited to 480mbs. That's a bottleneck that can only be bypassed with direct to ethernet built into the Drobo motherboard. I'm not even sure their $200 attachment gets around that limitation. Perhaps someone with hands on experience with one can let us know.
Plenty of eSATA RAID enclosures out on the market, implying it's not an insurmountable problem to implement.
Scott--you might have a point about eSata, don't know enough about it. I do know that the first gen Drobo is pretty slow, both at startup after power save and in file transfers. Was hoping the next version would improve this. Sounds like the new one does, both via a processor boost and Firewire 800. Problem is I don't have any Firewire ports, and I do have eSata...
The 2TB limit is NOT per file. On the first gen unit if you fill a Drobo with 1TB drives and format with ntfs you'll end up with 2 drives mapped, neither of which can hold more than 2TB. Drobo claims this is a USB limitation. I wouldn't know whether this is true or not, first I've ever run into it. But as 1TB drives can now be had for well below $200, the fact that you won't really be able to use larger drives effectively kinda makes the "grow forever" mantra of the Drobo meaningless...
Isn't this Engadget? Like the Nerd paradise news blog? I'm reading a lot of folks complaining that the drobo doesn't have built in ethernet.
Don't your network routers have a USB port to share a drive on them? The last two I've purchased did.
Linksys also makes a USB to network adapter for two drives for something around $90. WTF do you need Drobo share for?
Continue bitching about e-sata...
The drobo with its $500 price tag is definitely playing in NAS territory and I think a lot of people are rather amazed that the new version simply didn't integrate the Drobo Share functionality so that you can buy a single device and connect it ANYWHERE on your network.
The 1st generation of Drobo was lucky to see 30mbps read/write speeds so it is unlikely that the USB port is the limitation on speed of the Drobo. Drobo speed limitations are around the disk technology being utilized, use of software raid (CPU dependant) etc.
So, Let's see:
DistortedLoop:
Yes, it's supposed to look like a single drive. My point was that creating what would amount to a software emulator that would allow the software-based Drobo to appear to a computer's eSATA port as a single physical SATA disk will be difficult; while the same function (appearing as a single physical disk) is pretty much trivial when using USB or FireWire. Yes, there are lots of eSATA RAID enclosures, but so far all of them I've seen have been hardware based (many using Silicon Images' "SteelVine" RAID chips or similar bridge chips), and were pretty darned expensive. Even further, many products which are billed as "eSATA RAID" enclosures are actually just eSATA enclosures, some with multiple physical ports, some with internal port multipliers, and they all include actual RAID cards with one or more cables to do actual RAID. And, they're ALL expensive, many as much as Drobo, or more, before drives.
I'm sure it's possible, I'm sure they'll do it, I just think it'll be a lot of work, and I'm not surprised that feature didn't make it into this version of the product.
FanFoot:
Yep, I understand the frustration of having that nice, fast eSATA port sitting there being ignored. On the other hand, I've spent a lot of time looking at various "eSATA RAID Enclosures" and some of them pull what I consider to be some pretty kludgy tricks (port multipliers, software RAID in the host's OS, etc) to keep their prices down. The ones that don't are all pretty pricey.
I was actually really disgusted with the first Drobo being only USB; in my experience, 30Mb/s is pretty much saturation point for USB2.0. (USB3.0 is supposed to beat this by up to 600%.) Doesn't matter what's on the other side, it just ain't going to go any faster. On the other hand, apparently the old Drobo couldn't always keep up with that, so I figured they chose to stick with USB since that's the best it could do anyway - and USB does have excellent market penetration...
As far as the 2TB filesystem limit being a function of USB, with some googling I did find a reference in some old Microsoft driver documentation mentioning that USB2.0 actually does have a 2048Gb limit on external mass storage devices. USB3.0 is supposed to fix this, too. I don't think FW has this limit.
Jason:
Yes, at $500, the Drobo is in NAS territory, but so far I've found almost no NAS units at the $500 level that *also* do RAID for more than two disks, and they only do simple mirroring. If you know of one (other than eBay) please, please let us know!
I also agree that the original Drobo's speed was limited by it's internal processor; I'm completely convinced that the Drobo is totally software based - I surprised nobody's hacked the think and found a way to load Linux on it. USB is very CPU-intensive, so if they're running it on something like a 200Mhz ARM or a 500Mhz Geode, between the RAID and the USB, it's going to be sweating.
I also agree that DroboShare will be limited by it's USB port, but that may not be that big a deal; 802.11g saturates at about 3-4Mb/s, 100Mb Ethernet saturates around 9Mb/s, you have to have GigE to get past USB's 25-30Mb/s threshold. I'm thinking most home users would never know the difference.
Of course, keeping the Ethernet off the Drobo 2nd Gen may be a simple marketing decision; putting an ethernet port on D2G would kill the DShare. *shrug*
I still think that overall, given it's capabilities and simplicity, it's a great product and a (-fairly-) reasonable price.
Unfortunately, none of this argument gets me the money to buy one. *sigh*
Scott
The inside industry buzz is that eSATA is going to die and be replaced with USB3. As a motherboard manufacturer USB3 is far more attractive since it's not only faster than eSATA but the same interface gets you support for all sorts of other devices, and you _have_ to have USB on the mobo anyway.
I have a question for any Drobo owners out there (or Ryan):
Do you know if it's possible to attach the Drobo to one of those USB networking devices? Like that Belkin? Not sure how it'd work, but it's less than half the price of a Drobo Share.
Personally, I love the idea of the Drobo and don't care if it doesn't have network connectivity. At this moment I have three external drives connected over USB, and I'm perfectly happy, aside from the fact that they don't have any protection against disk failure.
The only thing that has ever held me back from getting a Drobo is the price. I just think $500 is too much for an empty drive casing. I can almost get two Shuttle barebones systems for that. But at $350 for the clearance on the 1st-gen products? Now we're talking. I don't care much if it's USB, I'm just using this for archiving. I'll get a small eSATA drive for current projects, and back up the contents to the Drobo at night. These days, USB is fast enough for my storage needs, especially with Teracopy installed.
So stop hatin' on the Drobo. It's a robot and it has feelings.
I am also curious if those 3rd party USB Bridges work along with the Drobo to save some pennies over a droboshare.
Wow, a lot of misconceptions about how the Drobo (even the 1G) works.
There is no 2TB "limit" that renders future expansion irrelevant. Available disk space is *presented* in 2TB volumes; if you inserted four 1TB drives, after RAID overhead you'd have about 3TB of usable space. This 3TB would be presented as one 2TB volume and one 1TB volume.
If, at some point in the future, you had four 3TB drives inserted, after overhead you'd have 9TB of usable space, which would be presented as four 2TB volumes and one 1TB volume.
If being limited to accessing your data in 2TB chunks renders further expansion pointless in your eyes, that's up to you.
Paul,
Understood. I have a Drobo with 4 x 1TB drives in it. And it presents as 2 x 2TB drives, even with the latest firmware etc.
Understood that I therefore store some 3+ TB of data on those two drives, but since I'm using it as a backup machine for a large system which doesn't have things partitioned into two drives... it basically is only going to let me back up 2TB of data on my 4 x 1TB drives unless I do some complex partitioning. I'll probably move to a new solution once I run into that.
To me this is NOT acceptable, as nice as the box is.
If you run on Vista or OSX you can have Drobo present 16TB volumes instead of 2TB... the 2TB it an XP NTFS limit that has nothing to do with Drobo.
Can someone please comment on noise levels? My Mac Pro is fairly quiet and I want a QUIET option for additional storage. Bought a supposedly quiet eSATA 5 drive RAID box and it's WAY too noisy.
All I need/want is a upgradeable multi-bay system for Final Cut so I can grow as my work load dictates. I'm hoping it will give me expandable storage and enough throughput for my DV editing needs with FireWire 800. No hassle with setting up networks or RAIDS. Drop-dead simple and expandable...,that's what I need and it fits the bill. I don't have time to manage a network and don't want to learn.
If the time comes when I need to share files over a network, I'll probable buy another one with the DroboShare and just keep going till the technology changes.
Unless I hear "it won't handle DV video in Final Cut", it seems like a very practical and (almost) reasonable priced item for my uses.
(I use Firewire 800 on my 1TB G-raid Pro for video since I don't have eSata on my PPC Dual 2.5 OS X 10.4.11)
Can anyone "directly" answer about using it for editing with Final Cut Studio 2 and Motion? Any issues I should be aware of?
To follow up on my question...
Has anyone else seen this??? It just came out today.
http://reviews.cnet.com/drobo-second-generation-2tb/4505-3186_7-33142477.html?tag=box
PRODUCT SUMMARY
The good: Protects your data automatically; easily expandable with SATA hard drives of any size; has both USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 interfaces; faster processor than the original Drobo; works with DroboShare.
The bad: Terrible performance; expensive; device proved to be finicky and required more than the occasional restart; eSATA and Ethernet connections still absent; no bundled backup software; takes a long time to restart; can't recover data without having another working Drobo.
The bottom line: The second-generation Drobo adds a FireWire 800 connection, but the direct-attached storage drive offers no improvement over the original USB-only Drobo and, in fact, may represent a step backward. We found throughput speeds to be very slow, and more shocking was the finicky nature of the device. ~
Would anyone care to comment on this???
I have had a Drobo 1st Gen and DroboShare for about 9 months... and while the stability of the setup has been rock solid (4 drives x 500GB), the performance of the device is abysmal. By USB it's, well crappy USB2 speeds of 20 MB/s max, but over the droboshare it's lucky to get a sustained 7MB/s. I've actually abandoned the droboshare altogether because of it's performance. Note: however slow the droboshare was, it was still fast enough to stream HD content off from, it just sucks if you want to transfer any large, multi-gigabyte amount of data at once.
But even with all of these performance issues, that's not been the biggest let down for me... it's been the droboshare file permissions and access. The drobo basically has two options... Shared with a password, or Read Write for everyone... and furthermore you can't provide specific folders certain access... the entire device gets the same level of permissions. I want users and groups based permissions. Also, I want to be able to SCP for SFTP into the device from outside my network without having to mount the doboshare as a network share through my linux server. And there are no additional features... services, etc... it's basically a dumb cube that allows hot swapping with shitty performance.
All these things combined have led me away from the drobo, I'll soon be getting a Synology CS407 which has the same great features of mix and matching drives, but also supports printer sharing, external hard drives, built in gigabyte ethernet out of the box, lAMP webserver, secure FTP access, user and group level permissions, iTunes server, uPnP server (supporting direct streaming to XBOX360&PS3). Other crappy services I don't care about too. All for about the same price as a drobo with a droboshare.
Anyone want to buy my retired drobo/droboshare :)