DroboFS or Server + Drobo

Drobo - End of Sale Drobo FS
1

I need a network mass storage solution and i have been looking at the Drobo FS.

I have read allot of bad feedback about the FS so was wondering if it might be better to get a server (and when i say server i will probably use a SFF pc with a desktop OS, so not really a server) and a Drobo v2?

I know there are other RAID / NAS devices available which kick the ass of the drobo, but i need a solution which is very easy to upgrade by non technical users should i not be there to take care of it.

What do you all think?

Lloyd

2

Hey,
What kinds of things would you need a server/network device for? That’s a good start to thinking what kind of speed you would need.

3

I work for a skydiving centre and i need to keep a copy of all the video’s and photos we take.

We use 500gb a year and i want to keep all previous years work on a network device locked away from the main PC’s in case of robbery.

At the moment i just have 2 PC’s sync between themselves to keep all the data on 2 separate HDD’s but the amount of data is now getting out of hand.

The network device would not be used as primary storage, but only a long term archive.

Speeds are not really an issue as at the moment i sync at night and it only takes a few minutes.

4

It sounds like the Drobo FS is perfect for you. Servers are a lot faster transfer speed wise but you dont need that and I think they are more expensive. Also, as you probably already know, if you need to add storage to drobo you just add another big drive and you dont have to do any crazy server setup. I swear I don’t work for Drobo :slight_smile:

I use mine as my working drive so I don’t have experience with setting it up as a backup device so I can’t speak if it has any random problems with connections or anything like that.

5

Thank God I bought my DROBO from Costco! It’s going back for a full refund, and I am buying a Synology DS1511+ here’s their forum that is PUBLIC! you don’t have to buy their products first to have access to other users! http://forum.synology.com/enu/ By the way, how did you get in here without buying first? did DROBO forums finally go “public”?

6

Not being public is kind of nice. Where you don’t get random posts by people that don’t know anything about the product. It can be pretty annoying.

Plus there are plenty of public forums where people talk about drobo.

7

No i personally own a Drobo v2 and have never had any issues with it, but maybe i am just lucky

8

youre not alone - there may come a time (probably when am out of support) but all my experiences with the drobo v1 and v2 so far have been great.

(that might change when it comes to me swapping out old drives for newer and larger models etc, but so far so good :slight_smile: