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21-11-2008, 11:51 PM
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Un-Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: Mel-Boar-N
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Is it worth getting a Drobo or some other NAS
Hey anyone...
Firstly. Yes, I know Drobo isn't technically a NAS.
I had a panic attack with my LaCie Media Storage Drive. It's sorted now, It turned out to be the power supply died, but this is the second LaCie that I've had issues with.
Anywho, I'd still like to upgrade my storage and was wanting to get some opinions on the Drobo.
I've heard that it's good, that I should have got it 2 months ago before the exchange rate collapsed.
What are the options.
Help a guy out.
griffmiester
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22-11-2008, 12:39 AM
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Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: Melbourne
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I love the IDEA of the Drobo.
The thing that irks me most about it is that lack of NAS - it really bugs me that you can spend an extra few hundred to get a gigabit interface, but it still ties you back to USB2.0 speeds.
As I am all notebooks here, I can't fit a FW/USB device into my plans.
So, I'm waiting for 2 things:
1. a pay rise
2. full gigabit speeds
__________________
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22-11-2008, 05:23 AM
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Clinically Insane
Group: Regulars
Location: Sydney, Australia
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If one really wants NAS Storage - ( pure NAS at its excellence), suggests brand name Synology.
See specs on Synology Disk Station DS207+ here - scroll right down the thread. It's just below the Taurus LAN Enclosure. |
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22-11-2008, 06:37 AM
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Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: where it's damn hot in summer and freezing in winter.
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If you really wanted a backup solution, get a tape autoloader. Backup everything you have to tape. Test the backup once a month and run incremental backups every day using Retrospect.
Getting a NAS will just mean that if you have a failure, it will be much more data lost.
__________________
Macbook 13" 2.1GHz, 4GB RAM – iMac 20" 2GHz 4GB RAM – iMac 20" 2Ghz 2GB RAM – TV – 2 16GB Black iPhones – 160GB iPod Classic.
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22-11-2008, 06:45 AM
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Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: Melbourne
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I've been looking into a Drobo for ages now. The big argument seems to be that if the enclosure dies the only way you can recover your data is by getting another Drobo unit and putting your drives into it. Purists will say RAID is the way to go but I love the idea of being able to put different drive sizes and have the Drobo do all the work for me.
The other problem.... expensive! around $1600+ for the unit + droboshare and then you need to buy drives on top of that. (According to Connexus' RRP pricing)
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22-11-2008, 08:41 AM
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Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: Sydney, Australia
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How much extra does LAN component for the Drobo cost? I paid $1261 for a ReadyNAS NV+ with 2x 500GB drives.
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/bb|[^b]{2}/
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22-11-2008, 08:45 AM
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Member
Group: Member
Location: Adelaide, SA
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+1 for the Synology Disk Station DS207+.
Works well with Time Machine, relatively cost-effective to configure and has an attractive GUI. It's not the best looking device out there but I can't fault the performance.
The Synology forums are pretty active too which is a bonus.
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22-11-2008, 09:14 PM
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That TAM guy
Group: Regulars
Location: Melbourne
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wowbagger
I've been looking into a Drobo for ages now. The big argument seems to be that if the enclosure dies the only way you can recover your data is by getting another Drobo unit and putting your drives into it. Purists will say RAID is the way to go but I love the idea of being able to put different drive sizes and have the Drobo do all the work for me.
The other problem.... expensive! around $1600+ for the unit + droboshare and then you need to buy drives on top of that. (According to Connexus' RRP pricing)
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In terms of price, with Drobo being a US product, we are copping a flogging on the exchange rate. I purchased my Drobo in Australia a couple of months ago for $640. The Droboshare at the time was $250. If you want a Drobo, wait until our currency goes up.
__________________
WANTED: VIDEO INPUT CARD FOR 5500/225 TO MAKE TV TUNER WORK
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03-12-2008, 08:39 AM
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Un-Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: Mel-Boar-N
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I'm still following this up, and I had recommended to me by another source the RND4000 - ReadyNAS? NV+ 4-Bay Gigabit Desktop Network Storage (No Disks)
The advantages seem to be that it's a true RAID (not Drobo's proprioritary "RAID")
The price for one is comparable to getting a DROBO Ver.2 unit & a DROBO Share
Netgear RND4000-100AJS - $1,449.00 - Scorpion Technology
Thoughts? |
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04-12-2008, 09:44 PM
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Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: \\AU\Vic\Dandenong_Nth\
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I just purchased a WD ShareSpace with 2TB for $880. Then 2x extra WD 1TB drives from Scorptec for $179 each. We'll be running it in RAID5 so ~3TB usable. You can get it in a 4TB config, but it works out cheaper buying the 2TB and sourcing the extra drives.
It does CIFS, NFS, FTP. Can backup a usb drive or stick via a button. Can share attached USB drives/sticks. Can act as an iTunes server. Can integrate into a domain. Has a download scheduler (ftp or http)
The one minus is that it will only work with WD drives.
I reckon it's pretty cool for the price.
__________________
iBook - [PPC G3 600 | 384MB RAM | 40GB HDD | OS X 10.4.11]
iPod - [3rd Generation | 20GB | FW 2.3] + [Touch | 8GB | FW 2.1]
iNetwork - [Airport Extreme 802.11n | Airport Express 802.11g | WDS] |
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04-12-2008, 09:48 PM
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Banned
Group: Banned Users
Location: Melbourne
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what is a Drobo
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04-12-2008, 09:58 PM
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Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: 09-00-07-FF-FF-FF
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Quote:
Originally Posted by griffmiester
The advantages seem to be that it's a true RAID (not Drobo's proprioritary "RAID")
Thoughts?
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Even if you have a bog standard RAID 5 implementation, the likelyhood of being able to take the drives and put them in a chasis from a different vendor and have the drives work or rebuild correctly is slim to none. The proprietary bit of the Drobo is part of what makes it really awesome, you don't have to have the same size mechs (technically you can do this in a normal raid box but you'll effectively lose any space greater than the smallest drive) so you can have as I do - 3x 1TB and a 750GB drive all in a protected array, plus you have the ability that when a 1.5TB mech comes out you can rip out the 750 and put the 1.5 in it's place and schazam extra storage available for your virtualised volumes. Drobo is basically virtualised storage in the same way VMware ESX is Virtualised server hardware. |
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04-12-2008, 10:04 PM
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-insert witty title here-
Group: Regulars
Location: Cook, ACT
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04-12-2008, 10:23 PM
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Banned
Group: Banned Users
Location: Melbourne
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Sounds really cool  is there ever a possibility of ALL drives failing at the same time? |
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04-12-2008, 10:30 PM
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Member
Group: Member
Location: Melbourne (out west)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Samb0
Sounds really cool is there ever a possibility of ALL drives failing at the same time? |
Yep! It's called a fire! 
__________________
** Intel iMac 24", iPod Touch 32gb, Apple TV, Time Capsule & Airport Express ** (along with 3 scrapped windows pc's)
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