I just got the 4 bay Drobo and I am excited. I will pick it up from fedex Monday.
I am filling all 4 bays with 1 TB drives.
Now my home setup is as follows… One main PC in my office with a slaved drive.
In living room I got my TV hooked up to a laptop.
What is the best way to setup my Drobo? I don’t mind having to transfer movies and files to the Drobo…
Set it up as a 16GB volume
If you are planning to put all of your movies onto the Drobo, then you will probably want to connect it to your Main PC in your (home) office. Having the Drobo connected to the Laptop->TV might not be the best thing, because of the noise of the fans of the Drobo. You might not like it there in your TV room while you are trying to enjoy movies.
…And good thing you don’t mind transferring files to the Drobo, because the 4Bay’s aren’t the fastest for that.
Setup depends on the OS you use…Windows XP is limited to a 2TB volume, anything newer go ahead and max it out! I have my V2 Drobo connected to my HTPC in the living room and have no problems with noise, but I research drives before purchase and try to pick ones that are silent and don’t generate a lot of excess heat, so the fan never really kicks into high gear.
You’ll love your new Drobo!
Not sure if it will work for you but i have my tv hooked up to and apple-tv2 and that streams content over wi-fi from my main mac-mini in the office upstairs which has the drobo hooked to it. It might work on a pc too? That would release your laptop from tv duties and the apple-tv was only £80 odd.
The drobo is excellent, no fan noise at all.
Hey all late on the reply but I just loaded my drives up and I am going to format tonight and Try my main office setup and see. My issue was streaming off the laptop to the TV wasn’t always the best frame rates but I am going to give it a shot.
I’d probably go a little higher than 16GB.
Bet you won’t.
ETA: duett suggested GB, not TB. now I see it mgriffin34. thanks.
I think he was alluding to the OP who meant 16TB, not 16GB.
But, hey, it’s your Drobo…use it like you want. 