http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/ Engadget Comments for http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 1:07AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Whats a drobo fs?]]>Jul 31st 2010 1:20AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 1:40AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 1:43AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/What the hell is it? I've never even heard of this thing. Does it even warranty a public opinion on what to change about it?]]>Jul 31st 2010 2:10AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Looks like a lot of people don't know what the Drobo FS is. It's a storage robot that works a lot like a RAID 5 array. You can put 5 sata drives into the device and it combines them into one or more volumes. The largest disk is used as a parity disk to protect your data against drive failure. The difference between Drobo and other RAID 5 solutions is that Drobo lets you use harddisks of different sizes. Any sata disk will fit in any Drobo disk array. If you would have a Drobo FS with 2x a 1TB disk, 2x a 2TB disk and a 500GB disk, it will give you 4.5TB of storage room. The remaining 2TB disk is used to protect your data. If any drive fails, you simply replace the failing drive and it will rebuild your data and even during that process your data is accessible. It also allows you to create up to a 16TB volume even when the drives inside don't offer that much storage. That way it lets you upgrade the capacity of your Drobo by switching drives, without having to format or backup your data. As long as you upgrade only one disk at a time. The Drobo FS combines this with NAS capabilities to let you connect the device directly to your network.

Now to answer the main question. I own a 2nd generation original Drobo. Mostly because the Drobo FS is much much more expensive. I noticed that even though I get 4 drive bays in my original Drobo, harddisk space fills up quickly. I have 2x2TB, a 1.5TB and a 250GB drive in there right now and it already needs an upgrade soon. My conclusion is that having a lot of disk space spoils you and it's never enough. What would I change? More drive bays for less money. I have an always on computer which the Drobo is connected to, so I have no use for NAS capabilties. Just something with a slightly higher price than the original Drobo and say 6 drive bays. The original Drobo functions just fine for my needs and I don't need the option of 2 parity drives or nas capabilities. Though an eSata connection would definitely be appreciated.
So an original Drobo with 6 bays and eSata for around 450 EUR. (the original cost met 330 EUR, while the FS if I remember right is closer to 600 EUR)]]>Jul 31st 2010 3:38AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/
The current price is a little outrageous.

Increased energy efficiency and faster wake times would also be handy.]]>Jul 31st 2010 4:11AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/
Damn but you people are cynical. Let's assume for a second that it is in fact paid market research - so what? You have a forum to vent your opinions about a gadget and someone from the company is listening intently. I, for one, am glad for the opportunity to give feedback on devices. By the way, this is not an "Ask Engadget" column.]]>Jul 31st 2010 4:19AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/I can use different size disks in my synology ds710]]>Jul 31st 2010 5:31AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/I agree. The only thing wrong with the Drobo FS is the price. ]]>Jul 31st 2010 5:32AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 5:34AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/I'm aware that this is not a Drobo exclusive feature. Netgear's ReadyNAS drives with X-RAID can do the same thing too. Most RAID solutions don't though. And the Drobo goes a bit further in active data protection (it's always looking for bad blocks on any drive to predict drive failures etc.) Honestly the differences are minor though. I didn't know this synology drive, I like how you can expand it with the DX510. The DS710 is already more expensive than the original Drobo, which has 4 bays instead of 2 though. ]]>Jul 31st 2010 5:50AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 8:39AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/
Owned one of the first models. Never again, what an overpriced fiasco with fail performance. Maybe they've improved in subsequent models but who cares they already stole my money once, nevermind that these clowns charge a separate yearly "software maintenance fee" after the first year just to be able to download the dashboard software or any updates.

Only real reason to buy one would be for work, where you just really hate your company but aren't quite comfortable with the idea of poisoning the coffee in the break room yet, so this would be like a step right before it, convincing someone this purchase is a good...you know, "idea."
]]>Jul 31st 2010 11:10AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 12:58PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/
So I have a question - one of the great things about this is that you can swap out any disk at anytime, and one disk is always used to protect your data incase any of the other disks fail. Well what happens if the disk that is saving data is the one that fails, then what?]]>Jul 31st 2010 1:10PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 9:03PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://drobo.jhah.net/]]>Aug 1st 2010 12:10AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/
The Drobo is not unique in that in can combine drives of different sizes with redundancy. Other real RAID NAS' can do that as well like Synology.

Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR)
DSM 2.3 introduces Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR), an intelligent volume type that optimizes volume size when combining hard disks of varying sizes. When set as the standard volume type in DSM 2.3, SHR provides one-disk data protection and the flexibility of expanding to an optimal volume space when a larger or additional hard disk is inserted into the array.

As to the original question what would I change?

Make it faster. My Synology can do 115MB/s reads and 109MB/s writes in RAID5 mode. The Drobo can barely do half that from the benchmarks I've seen.

Also, give the Drobo a better WebUI like Synology. That's the main reason that I chose Synology over Drobo, for the applications. My Synology has a dual-core 1.6Ghz Atom with 1GB of RAM so its a quite capable erver. I am able to compile and install just about any unix server app that I want and install tons with ikpg. The Drobo has none of this...]]>Aug 1st 2010 2:15AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 1:10AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 2:24AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 1:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 1:24AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/
I don't think the drobo ties on features. You can throw in random disks and it compiles them into one big drive and you don't have to worry about losing your important data with a harddrive loss, sure.

But AFAIK the drobo can't be a torrent box, Orb media streamer, print server, health monitor, sport shadow coy, headless windows console via LAN or logmein, remote access gateway, integrate into media center, or host a FTP or website. ]]>Jul 31st 2010 1:49AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/
"You can throw in random disks and it compiles them into one big drive and you don't have to worry about losing your important data with a harddrive loss, sure."

Oh, and if I was vague, both the HP Home Server and Drobo both do this, albeit in slightly different ways. ]]>Jul 31st 2010 1:51AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/
or, better yet, build your own WHS out of whatever trash you have lying around the house.]]>Jul 31st 2010 2:16AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/
And again your comment is spot on. The Drobo has "Apps" but these are limited (from what I've seen) to a command-line only BitTorrent client, an Apache isntallation, and a UPnP server.

The Mediasmart series from HP, and Windows Home Servers in general, are much more feature rich and capable. I myself have mine setup as a automated BitTorrent/NewsGroup download, I manager the Antivirus installs on every PC in the house from the WHS console, and a mediastreamer via the built in Twonky media-suite among other things.

Looking back I would probably change my comment to say the Drobo tries to compete on features but fails on both features and price.]]>Jul 31st 2010 5:16AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/
I don't trust those HP mediaservers. I have an EX485. For some reason it stopped communicating on the network. Sometimes it would show up for five minutes. To make a long story short, it's not the network, something is wrong with the device when the main HD is in the bay. I can't even put it into recovery mode to restore the system. On top of that, when I hook the HD up as an external on any of my desktops, I see my data there, but windows says it won't let me transfer, osx let's me transfer but the data is corrupt. So far, there has been no way to recover my data, even though it's there. From what I've read in forums, people are saying that the server claims ownership of the files, and only it can release them. No good, when the OS doesn't work. ]]>Jul 31st 2010 7:25AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/The company has to create an awareness of the need it fills: pro-level redundancy with consumer ease, and performance somewhere between. It's expensive up front but since you can toss in random drives of different sizes, it may be cheaper over time.
I wish the app store was really built out... seems its mostly stuff that pros wrote for themselves. They should encourage more interesting consumer apps that have the same level of install-and-forget-it that the hardware does. ]]>Jul 31st 2010 11:44AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/I kept waiting for the Drobo's to come down in price since they introduced them a few years ago. That never happened and with the introduction of WHS, I decided to go that route (on my own server.) With plenty of large drives in a eSATA enclosure, I get more functionality in from the overall package than the Drobo for 1/2 the cost.]]>Jul 31st 2010 12:38PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 2:02PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/
My HP Home Server has 4TB in it right now. o_O

All you do is plug a drive in and it adds it to your total storage space.]]>Jul 31st 2010 7:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/
"They should encourage more interesting consumer apps that have the same level of install-and-forget-it that the hardware does." - And that is were a Windows Home Server wins it out. Their are pages upon pages of Add-In apps for a WHS server.]]>Jul 31st 2010 9:45PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Aug 2nd 2010 5:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 1:14AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 1:20AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 1:48AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/
The HP Home Server was only mentioned twice IIRC, once for the original, and once for the updated models. ]]>Jul 31st 2010 1:54AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Not only does Drobo not advertise. Her in the Netherlands it was nearly impossible to find a place that sold em. Not a single store had them in storage and in the end one ordered it for me. They tend to use media like engadget for selling their brand, but they can use some advertising and better distribution worldwide.

Still I love the "turn it on and it just works" upgradeable storage it gives me. Connected the original Drobo (got it for 330EUR, so under the price of the HP home server) to an always on PC that already functions as a server and media center. It's ideal for my use. And I do use the thing for orb servers, torrents, ftp storage etc. Just through my server I already had.]]>Jul 31st 2010 3:49AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/relying on memory? drobo fs has been featured all of 3 times--not 5 nor 6. all you need to do is click the above tag to know that. if you click the corresponding "hpmediasmartserver tag," you get 4, but in its various incarnations, "hp home server" (entered in the search box) shows it has garnered more than a dozen stories in all--at least as many, if not more, than "drobo" alone.]]>Jul 31st 2010 3:56AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/
I said the Drobo has gotten crap tons of free press, and it has:

http://www.engadget.com/tag/drobo/
22 articles]]>Jul 31st 2010 9:55AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 1:16AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 1:16AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/+1. Is my reason for holding back on it. ]]>Jul 31st 2010 1:28AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 1:17AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/That would, of course, depend heavily upon your drives! You aren't going to saturate much of anything with a 5200 RPM WD Green...]]>Jul 31st 2010 1:20AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 1:34AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/
This is Gigabit Ethernet only - we should be able to buy a single Drobo that has USB3/gigabit Ethernet/eSATA for choice as we want, rather than being required to chose at the point of purchase]]>Aug 1st 2010 9:22AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 1:18AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/how-would-you-change-the-drobo-fs/Jul 31st 2010 1:25AM