Comments on: Two New Drobo Storage Robots

By: Stan Burman

Stan Burman — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 01:48:36 +0000

Hi Terry,
Your blog is excellent. Thanks. If you publish your Drobo S test results, would you include some comments as to what card I might need to purchase and install on my Mac Pro to be able to connect to the Drobo S via eSATA?
Thanks! And Happy Thanksgiving.
Stan

By: Rorey

Rorey — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:44:20 +0000

Thank you Mark i will try it

By: Terry White

Terry White — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:49:38 +0000

Thanks!

By: Rorey

Rorey — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:42:37 +0000

Thank you Terry, you do a great job keep it up. By the way Architect by trade, Photographer by hobby and love, your Photos are very good i really enjoy your work

By: Mike Skocko

Mike Skocko — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:06:06 +0000

(Terry is so polite.) The Drobo is our classroom has been on the job for over a year with nary a problem. Simply a killer product!

By: Terry White

Terry White — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:37:21 +0000

Mark,
No, because it is using Drobo’s “Beyond RAID” format. So the drives will not be readable outside of a Drobo.

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:32:57 +0000

Hi Terry what an excellent Blog!! I’ve been sat on the fence for a while now about using a Drobo I love the idea of “Beyond Raid” technology just am a bit disappointed with the connectivity issues. For example I’m currently using a Thecus N5200 with is great as I can use ISCSI, SMB and AFP to connect to it and it will even power down at certain times of the day, but upgrading the RAID is a nightmare as you have to change all the disks at once!!!
I can see if I go down the Drobo route I would need an Elite with ISCSI connection from windows (still use media centre for main TV playback and for the kiddie to learn the OS he has to use at school) and a separate box using ISCSI (as the media centre on is not on all the time) to act as an interface for OS X and media sharing such as SONOS. Unless there are any other solutions that I’m missing?

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:27:27 +0000

Terry, if you aren’t using a RAID configuration – can you take any drive out of a Drobo and read it on another computer without a Drobo?

By: Terry White

Terry White — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:38:27 +0000

Curious as to why you posted this anonymously?

By: Data Expert

Data Expert — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:56:20 +0000

Drobo’s are garbage. As someone who is VERY familiar with multiple installations of Drobos in multiple companies and home offices, I wouldn’t use one to store anything I cared about. They fail. They fail often. They fail hard.

By: Terry White

Terry White — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:34:00 +0000

CORRECTION: The Drobo DOES come with DroboCopy. See more about it here: http://drobo.posterous.com/more-on-using-drobocopy

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:00:54 +0000

@Rorey; Although I don’t use it anymore since switching to Mac , Acronis TrueImage is an excellent backup software / cloning software package. It made moving to larger hard drives when I was on a PC very easy. They now offer smart backup clones now I believe, which makes them faster.

By: Terry White

Terry White — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:49:25 +0000

Thanks!
The Drobo doesn’t come with backup software. I don’t use PCs enough to have a backup app recommendation. So I can’t help you there. As far as setting it up as a NAS you would either need to plug it into a Host computer or buy the external DroboShare unit. There is no networking built-in to the standard Drobo. If you went with the new Drobo Elite you would have networking built-in.

By: Rorey

Rorey — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:39:57 +0000

Terry, I read your blog daily and love it, i have been looking at the drobo system to get one for myself. How easy/hard is it to use it as a nas drive, and does it come with backup software? if not what backup software do you recomend for a pc?

By: Terry White

Terry White — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:00:56 +0000

Great idea.