Data Robotics introduces the new Drobo S, a professional 5-bay storage solution that offers 150 percent of the performance of the current four-bay Drobo. The new Drovo S is able to accommodate up to five 3.5-inch SATA I/II hard drives providing up to 10TB of storage capacity.
The Drobo S is built on BeyondRAID virtualized storage platform, which eliminates the lock-in of traditional RAID configurations. It features a one-click toggle between single- and dual-drive redundancy and provides protection against up to two concurrent drive failures and supports on-the-fly capacity expansion along with the flexibility to replace failed drives, add drives, and swap out drives. The system includes also Self-Healing Technology.
Other than USB 2.0, the Drobo provides also eSATA and FireWire 800 for high-speed data transfer. It is compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux computers. The price starts at $799 with no hard drive, and goes up to $1,799 for a 10TB (5x 2TB) solution.
You are probably right about RAID 1 and 5. Mirroring is what I was thinking.
I run win7 and the Drobo S is fine with USB. But will not mount esata when volume size is above 2TB. Although it can be ‘seen’ by the OS disk manager, it cant be formatted or operated upon. I only have a single volume as the motherboard esata does not support multiple ports.
We have lodged the issue with Drobo, but no response so far. The external card has only just arrived and will be trying it today, if it works I will update this post.
At this stage I dont know who’s hardware is to blame!
I have a Drobo S. I use Windows 7 64bit(Ultimate). You can indeed have a volume size greater than 2TB. I have the Drobo set at a 16TB volume size, although I have actual size of 5.4 TB. It mounts fine.
Once you get the new controller, start completely from scratch. Make sure the controller has all the latest firmware and drivers. This may take a little digging to get. Then set up the Drobo S and before you start creating volumes and such, upgrade the Drobo firmware and Dashboard. Also make sure your eSata cable isn’t longer than 6ft.
This should take care of your issues. If at that point you have an issue, open a ticket, and send them a diagnostic file from your drobo.
Good luck.
PS. NOTE to all drobo users: Do NOT EVER use Windows 7 Backup and Restore software with Drobo as the destination. It will ruin your volume and disrupt your life, trust me. It’s now a documented issue. You’ve been warned.
You must be referring to RAID 1 (mirroring of 2 drives), not RAID 5 (striping over multiple drives). RAID 1 you can do as you mentioned, but not RAID 5. I’ve dealt with dozens of enterprise level RAID 5 configurations, and the arrays are unique to the controller. Even when replacing the controller with the identical one, even the firmware has to be precisely the same as well. Very finicky.
What OS are you using? If you’re using Windows 7, there should be NO issue with larger than 2TB volume size. You just have to create your first volume size of 16TB, and windows sees it. I have Nvidia 590 chipset. What does Data Robotics have to say?
I bought the Drobo S and use it just for backup… my extaernal esata 1TB drive is my ‘working’ drive. The Drobo S does not work properly (cant see more than 2TB) with the eSata interface on my NVidia 780sli motherboard and I have tried everything… bios/drivers/cables etc etc…
I have ordered an external card as recommended by Drobo, so hopefully that will work.
As for normal RAID drives requiring the same controller if the controller fails, that is not entirely correct. It depends on the RAID configuration. For RAID 5, the data is stored 1:1 on each drive in the OS format. So you would be able to take one of your RAID NTFS drives and recover the data in a normal PC.
I uses my Drobo S to backup source code and wedding images, mainly images, and it seems to be working well.
Let’s face it, if the unit failed and I did not have all my data backed up on DVD or Bluray, which I always do, then I would happily buy or borrow another Drobo to get my data back! It’s worth a lot more than the cost of new Drobo…
and that’s crux of the matter… what is your data worth and how much will you spend to protect it!
For me, if I lost months of source code (I’m also a programmer – syrius.com.au) or if I lost a wedding clients precious photo’s I would be beside myself!!!
“For RAID 5, the data is stored 1:1 on each drive in the OS format.” I think you mean RAID 1 (mirroring of two drives).
you are correct! RAID POTATO TOMATO it’s all the same to me!
In answer to previous question: “what happens if the unit itself fails”
That’s a good question, and while having a second drobo unit on hand is the only real solution, you have to put into perspective the fact that a traditional RAID setup is the same. If your RAID is on a card, you have to replace the card with the identical one to successfully access your data. If it’s on the motherboard, you need the same board. There is no RAID, where you can take your volume sets and transport them to another ‘controller’ and just work. This is the only shortcoming. It’s still better than having your data on one disc, and losing the disc.
The best practise would be to use the drobo as a backup device, backing up data you already have.
I have a drobo S, and I also currently have 2x 1.5TB data drives in my pc. All my important files are there, and get backed up to the drobo for safety. If the drobo fails I have the originals, if the originals fail, I have the drobo. This cost me $215 for the 2 extra drives.
Not a cheap solution considering the cost of Drobo S and the drives, but it does work and gives great peace of mind.
About 50% of drobo unit failures are the external power packs, so it may also make sense to buy another as a spare.
BeyondRAID is interesting, but what happens if the unit itself fails? how does one recover the data off the HDD’s??? From what I can see, you can’t, at least not without another Drobo. Please correct me if I’m wrong.