New to Drobo, looking for advice.

Forum History General Discussion
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Hello! I am new to the Drobo, and have been doing research here and there.

I posted in another sections asking about HDD’s. Of course that is an important consideration to make!

However in this thread I would like to ask as to which Drobo is best for me.

The problem here as well is that I almsot only see bad reviews about ANYTHING on the internet. Some good yes. I applaud them for taking their time. However that is not the majority for anything, ESP when it comes to HDD’s and backing stuff up. People who loose data are VERY frustrated people, I get it.

Also, the more cheap something is (price-wise), the more people are willing to take a chance because they can afford it NOW.

So I hear far more negative reviews about the standard Drobo then I do about, say, Drobo S, because it is simply cheaper in price. Which doesn’t always mean that the quality is also down.

I am about to get a new Macbook Pro when the line is refreshed.

When that happens, I want to keep it clean. Files I need for school, games I may be playing at the time. That is it. Everything else will go on an external. With an external or cloud network backing it up.

I decided on Drobo, just because I feel good in getting it. Maybe it is the look, but I think it is mostly the ease of use. I love playing around tech, but my back-up is just something I want to work and stay working. I wish Time-Capsule was better, then all problems would be solved.

However it is not yet, so I look towards Drobo.

Which is best for me?

I thought about the Drobo FS.
IF I have the Drobo FS, can I

  • Stream 1080p vids via wirelessly from network, to my laptop, and/or to my media server.

  • play music via ftp from my Drobo at home, to my computer while I am at school

  • flawlessly use time machine.

After reading forums, I think I can do all this, but I would just like confirmation. For the music streaming, obviously internet connectivity/3G network strength is a factor. but use best-case scenarios for things that the drobo has to utilize to get me my content.

If I can’t do all this, then perhaps the Drobo or Drobo S is better for me, as the network connection would really not be a big loss for me then.

Thanks for your patience in reading this, in hopes of a reply!

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Maybe, depends on the file you are attempting to stream. For high quality BluRay rips you will probably not be able to stream without stuttering.

You will need cabled network for that.

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Most of the complaints about the Drobo V2 regards speed (throughput). The overall build quality is probably the same as the others you mention, as well as the firmware.

As I mentioned in the other thread, I would get an S and direct attach if that works for you. It’s better to have too much throughput than not enough. Especially if you think you will need more than 15MB/s read and write speeds because that is probably a realistic likely result with a V2. And the nature of the Drobo is such that it can stall or slow down when you don’t want it to, like when you are streaming a 1080P while Time Machine kicks in late at night :-). You can’t have too much horsepower under the covers of a Drobo.

I don’t have any experience with the FS but I have spent some time reading the FS forum to see what performance problems people are reporting. You will see a lot of complaints but that is true of all NAS units because the performance includes all sorts of network issues. You may get lucky or you may have to become a network geek :-). Personally I would not buy an FS, just based on my assessment of the performance discussions but that’s a tough judgement call because you will see a lot of people there happily streaming their vid.

You would almost surely get better results hooking an S to a real PC (at least core2duo level) than an FS. Even a decent Atom based server should outperform it. But you never know for sure ahead of time, that’s the nature of networking :-). If I felt like I had to go NAS today I would probably go with a ReadyNAS Ultra4 or NVX, something like that.

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hi, also do a search on articles from Raoul Pop on the web
it was his deatils that helpmed me to get a drobo v1 initially, plus docchris for what top put in it :slight_smile:

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Ignite: Good point. However even with the Dlink 323 2-Bay NAS I could get clear speeds from a blueray, and that thing is probably slower then a drobo. Though I think that a non-nas is better for me after all.

NeilR: Thanks a ton for the information - Just before reading this thread again I was looking at a review of the software, and the FS has no ip-based web interface, and that all addons are separate apps! Which, in my mind is not what I would be looking for in a clean Drobo unit. web interface or no, it should still all be stand-alone, addons integrated in when added…so they…just work. With that and yes you are very right, in fact I have an older C2D mac mini that I was wondering what I should do with. There is my new NAS. Well, should I even need it.

Paul: Raoul’s articles are great! He responded to nearly all comments to the articles and helped a ton. Thanks a lot!