Drobo

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  • byDefault00

    Looking for some insight as far as large storage suggestions.

    Drobo appears to be a killer solution - would love to snag some insight from fellow QBN'ers.

    Thanks in advance.
    S

  • monNom0

    drobo is SLOW. at least as a NAS. think 10-30 seconds to return a directory listing and you can imagine the level of suck.

    if you run it through a file server/computer it's quite a bit faster, but then you might as well just buy a raid card for your server.

    • only advise it for automated nightly backups and that sort of thing.monNom
  • byDefault000

    Hmmm - I see.

    It's more for massive amounts of data that needs to be securely stored but will only be accessed on occasion. Not sure if I'm game for a raid card just yet but will definitely look into it.

    Thanks for the feedback @monNom

    • that would probably be okay, but transfer will be slow when you do access.monNom
    • ok perfect - thanks again MonNom!byDefault00
  • Boz0

    byDefault.. you are MUCH better off just building your own NAS computer.. I mean you can go very light with parts.. and it will most likely cost you cheaper than DROBO with network mind you. DROBO you have to buy that thing extra which is not cheap.

    The only real investment you need to get for your own NAS is a nice big case that can house up to 6-8 5.25" drives. The reason is that you can buy hot-swappable racks like this:

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Pr…

    And you can build a kick ass RAID5 and JBOD file server....

    Definitely suggest that over buying Drobo.. yes, it will be a bit of a hassle making everything set up but you will save money, have more drives and have maximum expandability.

  • Boz0

    Here's what I posted somewhere else:

    I made this the other day cause I want to make a separate media server and completely ditch HTPC but have that 1 server store full HD content and music and everything and just use extenders (Xbox 360 or PS3) around the house as I have it already set up like that.. but then I realized that I have a full HTPC build set here and I have older very expensive Lian Li case.. so I'll just buy the swappable HDD cages..

    But here's for your info:

    ASUS M4A78LT-M LE AM3 AMD 780L Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Pr…

    Antec BP550 Plus 550W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Pr…

    2x SNT SNT-SAC2131B 3x3.5" Hard drive in 2x5.25" Bay Hot Swap SAS/SATA Backplane RAID cage (6 HDDs overall capacity)
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Pr…

    AMD Athlon II X3 450 Rana 3.2GHz Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Desktop Processor ADX450WFGMBOX
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Pr…

    Mushkin Enhanced Essentials 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Pr…

    Whole setup - with no HDDs is $439.93 and you have the expandability up to 9 or even 10 more hard drives.. for total of 13 SATA HDDs not to mention full gigabit ethernet and expandability to eSATA or whatever you really want..

    If you have Windows 7 you can just install that.. otherwise there are some free NAS OS available out there but I would advise Windows 7 regardless because you can configure it however you like and you will have Windows Media Center as well and you can even install PS3 Media Server to serve to your PS3 with all the covers and nice stuff.

    When you connect drives you connect them as RAID 5 and since we got these swappable cages it's perfect. I think the motherboard supports only 6 SATA drives though.. so later if you want to go over 6 HDDs you might have to buy a cheap 4-port or 6-port SATA controller but those are getting cheaper every day.. I mean in the end though, it's very easily upgradable, which is what's the most important thing for me.

    The AMD Triple Core AM3 processor there is actually very nice and can handle quite a bit of beating up.. full HD 1080p is really no issue whatsoever. It can encode and transcode or whatever you need it to do as well..

    So this setup ends up doing A LOT more then you actually need.. which is only a good thing.

    To be perfectly honest, I could have built this for about $100 cheaper but then it would be just pure NAS, not like Media Server that can process full HD content and run WMC7.

  • sublocked0

    Get a ReadyNas NV+

    I have one.
    It's fast and has great features.

  • ian0

    Indeed, we also have the NV+ it works great and is plenty fast.

  • byDefault000

    Amazing thanks guys!! Appreciate this input - will look into this now