OT: Drobos

[www.larryjordan.biz]

Larry Jordan just did a review on it. What are your thoughts?

For me, the data expansion is cool, as well as the redundancy, but if you can't use it for general editing purposes because it's not fast enough, and it doesn't guard against directory/file corruption (unlike DVDs or LTOs which are substantially more reliable for archiving), where will you place the uses?



www.strypesinpost.com

LaCie are now offering something similar:

[www.lacie.com]

these seem more expandable than the Drobo,
but i haven't looked into it very much


nick

His review is pretty fair but his conclusions are a bit extreme/questionable.

"...its expandability and data protection make it ideal for use in acquiring tapeless media"

I've often championed the idea that dropped frames are not a show stopper during editing itself, annoying yes, but not critical. During ingest from and layoff to tape then its critical that you drives can keep up with the data rate its processing but in the tapeless world that issue is moot. Such tapeless workflows open up a whole world of potential mobile workflows where access to rugged and fast storage solutions are less possible ... but even I would hesitate to suggest that such a relatively slow storage system as the Drobo would be "ideal" as ones dedicated primary desktop storage device for post production. Consider for example its unsuitability for multiple stream playback, and its lack of flexibility in handling higher bandwidth formats that we all come across from time to time (even those of us who work primarily with lower data rate tapeless formats). The unit does look good but to my mind it does not look "ideal". Maybe its just me, maybe its just semantics, but the "ideal for ..." line would have been easier to swallow if he had pared it down to "suitable for ...".

What's cool about the Drobos is that the drive sizes do not have to match. In other words, they can be a mish mash of whatever spare drives you have lying in your store room that you haven't used, drop them in and you have a redundant storage. Very cool.

As for its role in the tapeless workflow... I think he means on location, where you don't need fast drives, but is it rugged enough that it doesn't spoil easily during handling? Reliability would be another question as it's fairly new. Will it be prone to data corruption?

Also, Disk Warrior may not work on this at all since they're neither solitary drives or RAIDs.



www.strypesinpost.com

>As for its role in the tapeless workflow...

yep... I misunderstood his meaning there, and in fact Larry's already updated his review to make that clearer

Disk Warrior will work on a direct connected Drobo. I don't think I shut mine down right, and it got a bit corrupted, so I took it off the Droboshare, direct connected it, and got DW to fix it. I got all the data back off, now formatting the drobo and copying all the data back onto it. It seems that although the raiding or whatever goes on in the Drobo keeps your data safe, it doesn't help the file structure of the drive, which can still get corrupt via the usual methods. From this, it's vital you:

a) shut down a drobo properly. You can't just switch it off. You must either shut it down from it's control panel first, or remove the drive cable and let the power light go orange before removing the power

b) always keep them on a UPS

Graeme

Good observations, Graeme. Great to hear that DW still works.

Hmm... This also kinds of puts the Drobo in a unique position...

1. As an editable drive solution, they may be a bit slow for editing. (and this is where we usually use RAIDs- for speed and reliability)

2. As a solution to store tapeless footage on location, you should bring along a UPS to prevent data/directory corruption. In built batteries, like laptops, would have been a good selling point, actually.

3. As an archival solution, you are still prone to corruption.


Otherwise, the advantages are:

1. You can install up to 4 drives in each drobo, and drobo share lets you connect up to 2 drobos simultaneously.

2. The drive speed and sizes don't have to match

3. Less redundancy (so more bang for buck for your storage, so to speak). RAID 1 speeds at RAID 5 capacity (according to the website).

4. You can upgrade the drives at anytime.



www.strypesinpost.com

For archiving, give me LT04 over this hunk of junk any day.

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I don't see the Drobo as an archive solution. It's a drive, so the advantage is real time access to your data, which makes it useful for a media server (my intended use) or for live backups. 1TB drives are so cheap these days, I think multiple drive backups are as good as anything for myself at the moment.

Graeme

Not to hijack the thread or anything but anyone know anything about Proavio?

[www.proavio.com]

Michael Horton
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Ha ha ha ! Did you saw my post about 2 8tb towers crash. We replaced them by those you linked on your post.

Really nice tower, make no noise at all...AT ALL !

We had an other 16TB tower ( too heavy) and it was making hell raiser noise, imagine our surprise when we turned on those babys.

They are formated SAS RAID 5, so if one drive failed you just open the front panel than eject the bad drive than replace it and your good to go, quick and easy, did i mentionned they dont make noise at all.