[jrad]

eeek! It's now $998 from Zyech! Damn our Australian economy!

I imagine it'd be cheaper to get it though PriceUSA, perhaps?

[El Guardo]

Streetwise

[pengu]

Originally Posted by El Guardo

Streetwise

must.
try.
hard.
not.
to.
point.
and.
laugh.

[Mac Ram]

Not much cheaper - $889 at Nexus

Cheapest I could see via staticICE :: Australia's comprehensive computer hardware and gadget price comparison search engine

[frenchtoast]

Drobo's have seen half a dozen or more price rises in Australia, from both Australian distributors, since version 2 was announced. For those fortunate enough, the price was reasonable before the dollar crashed (dependent on your definition of 'reasonable'). Wait until the dollar settles before making a decision on this one.

And to the naysayers about certain resellers and their pricing. I'd imagine they aren't discounting heavily in order to protect themselves, should the arse fall out of the dollar again.

[Asher Tuzza]

Originally Posted by Jazzdogg

G'day MTAU.

I know there are similar threads online here so I won't waste time and I'll try to get right to the point. I deal with a lot of video media (DV/HDV, Digibeta, REDCODE etc) and as of late I'm noticing that keeping all that data managed over multiple hard drives is not only difficult, but scary... knowing if one of the hard drive fails I'm really in trouble!

I feel your pain!

Originally Posted by Jazzdogg

I've heard both good and bad things about Drobo (gen 2) and I'm at a loss as to if I should consider using it as a secondary source of storing data or to look elsewhere. I'm really looking for a solution thats really a seamless path for upgrading as well as safe redundant storage. I know speeds aren't groundbreaking so I'd plan only to keep older files/backups on the Drobo whilst keeping my Icecube Gen 2 caddie in use for editing and compositing.

The networking speed is a bit slow - ok the networking speed is a LOT slow - and its windows/smb networking... outside the networking issue its a terrific little device, the way it works is its got the raid stuff done for you so you have excelent backups in there... you can remove a drive and add a bigger one at any time which is constantly increasing the capacity...

the best way to look at the drobo is as a data dump destination, if you keep a regular eye on the lights on your drobo you can get GIGS into it without a problem, as i just mentioned the drobo is covered with lights that indicate the state of the drive externally...

Originally Posted by Jazzdogg

Would people suggest using the Drobo in the scenario suggested above? Also, does anyone know if it's possible to setup a secondary petition on the Drobo for Time Machine use (as to limit it to a particular size and not use up all the HDD space...) or should I keep Time Machine separate as is now?

you cant set up extra partitions on the drobo, it just does not work that way, i definatley think shouldnt use a drobo for backups with time machine, the drobo will chew a lot of space on all those tiny files esepcially as its space gets bigger, and we all know how many tiny files there are in a time machine backup... the time machine backup would in essence have another internal backup inside the drobo - i would say that the time machine backup is good the way it is

Originally Posted by Jazzdogg

Any feedback or recommendations for other units would be greatly appreciated! Many thanks in advance

there are a lot of different RAID type devices about the place, basically you want a bunch of disks in a device for a lot of storage or do you want the redundancy that the drobo gives as well??

[leon]

Originally Posted by Jazzdogg

eeek! It's now $998 from Zyech! Damn our Australian economy!

I imagine it'd be cheaper to get it though PriceUSA, perhaps?

Not really that much cheaper as shipping from the U.S.A is an absolute killer these days. Works out to be about the same, possibly higher once PriceUSA take their cut.

[Japester]

I was going to buy one of these six months ago. I needed it to replace a 1Tb My Book. The price at the time was $780 from a local reseller. Two weeks ago I looked at it again. It was going to cost just over $1000. Shocking, but I thought I could stretch it. I then optioned it using the Drobo site's Drobolator and was shocked to realise that I would have to buy at least one 1Tb drive to combine with my current crop of drives just to get it up to 1Tb usable space, which would give me no advantage whatsoever. I would have to buy at least 2 1Tb drives to get any extra space, and that priced it beyond any feasibility at this time ($1400). Instead, I bought a 2Tb My Book for $670. I use a combination of my original 1Tb My Book and a 500Gb USB drive to back up my stuff at the moment. I'm happy with the new My Book.

The Drobo costs more than your ordinary case but I think it's well worth the money. The only knock against it is our shit exchange rate, not Drobo's fault. I think if you're visiting the US and can buy one there, it would be viable. They only cost $500US. That's about $780AUS at the moment. Reseller markup of $220AUS kills the value.

[blakat]

Originally Posted by Japester

Reseller markup of $220AUS kills the value.

Don't forget to factor freight and GST into that "markup" there's a reason retail pays so badly the margins on most stuff is shite...

[leon]

Glad I got mine for $640 when the exchange was better. Guess I won't be purchasing another one for a long time now.