Drobo announces 'easiest and fastest ever' 5-bay NAS storage with 5N2

I think it all comes down to preference. I don't have any of then, but have heard the QNAP is quite good. I'd say if you're happy with the brands you have, and they do what you need to, why switch. To me, NAS devices are about a dime-a-dozen (very common). Most people switch I think because they hate the one they have, or they THINK the one they're going to buy is better. For me, I just use an older PC as my NAS. Easy to maintain, lots of more options for adding storage when needed, and on top of it, I can have on-demand file scans (something some NAS boxes can't do (or require additional software to do so). I just repurpose an older desktop after it's "useful life" (for me I consider useful life to be about 5-6 years), throw a bunch of HDDs in it, and it becomes a server for a few years.... Costs me hardly anything. Then in 5 more years, I "upgrade" my NAS to the next hand-me-down computer that's being retired as a primary computer.

I have several synology NAS, and they also expand storage when replacing disk with bigger one by one... Would never trade a Syno for a Drobo!

Thanks for guys reply. In my personal experience, I don't trust any kind of RAID. All disks in my NAS is independent. I think Drobo is no benefit for me. Thanks again.

Someone told me at one point that RAIDs actually put more stress on HDDs (or at least makes them more likely to fail), which doesn't make sense to me as either way you do it (RAIDed or NOT, the drives still have to write data. If anything, in my opinion, a RAID-0 stripe would mean less writing as each disk only has to write half of the data). Either way, I'm not a big fan of RAIDs either (unless of course it's a mirror or a mirror-and-stripe (RAID1 or RAID10). I will never to just a strip of any computer, because if one drive fails, you lose everything in most cases. At least with a mirror (RAID 1) or mirror+stripe (10) you have a backup to you can fall back on.

"All disks in my NAS is independent" - If all the disks are independent, then you don't have any backup. If any disk fails, you lose data. The point of a RAID is to give you protection if a hard drive fails. At the simplest level (RAID 1), you have two duplicate drives. With the more advanced methods, you get both duplication and speed improvements. The Synology I use for work has two 2 TB drives set to RAID 1, for example.

OK my mistake. I should have put it this way... I'm not a fan of RAID 0 configs. RAID10 is fine as you have a backup, as well as a RAID 1. RAID 0 does have its place, and I always tell people, if you just want speed, and can lose losing your data (ie. If you only want to do RAID 0 and not a 10, only use it for a system drive, and keep your valuable data elsewhere, as it can help you with speed, but at the risk of data loss).

At the very least, you should have a RAID 1 if you're going to RAID anything, unless (like I said above) it's only for speed and you can replace whatever you may lose (ie. operating system and programs). But anything labelled as a backup device (NAS/ SERVER, etc) should have at least a RAID 1, if not a RAID 10 for extra speed and backups).

Me personally, I'm still not sold on dedicated NAS boxes, as I like to have automated virus scanning and additional security measures that many NAS boxes cannot provide, but a PC w/ Windows or Linux could.

I don't consider RAID 0 of any value for backup. It is fine for working space (where you want speed and can risk data loss - such as video editing) but not storage. One complaint about the Drobo is that it uses a proprietary storage method - this allows mixing hard drives of different capacity/speed, and therefore allows progressive increase in storage capacity. By default, the Drobo set up has one redundant drive (five 2 TB drives gives you 8 TB of usable space) - I have mine configured with two redundant drives (the five 2 TB drives giving me 6 TB of space), so I can theoretically have two drives fail without data loss. I have recovered from a single drive failure, and I have replaced all the drives, one at a time, while upgrading the capacity without data loss.

No, RAID 0 alone has no value in a backup system. RAID 1 and 10 (1+0) is a different story... Like I said, for people just looking for speed in their normal computers (not a storage device) RAID 0 can give you a performance boost but at the potential for data loss if one or both drives fails. Controller failure applies to any RAID configuration and is a risk itself. I have a spare computer at home that's used mainly for playing videos and playing games, so it has very little on it, but has a RAID 0 Configuration. There isn't anything on that machine that cannot be replaced from one of my backups os should the RAID fail, it's not a big deal (I'll lose a few hours from re-setting it back up but NO irreplaceable data would be lost).

Hi Jeff, I know no RAID mean no backup. That's why I have two NAS.
One at my home and another at office. and there is a backup process run at 2AM to sync my backup folder.
I am IT man since Novell age, I am tired to maintain any kind of RAID.
NAS for me is only for simple backup and easy share photos for my family. (I like Synology's photo station more then Qnap, but Qnap is more cheap so ideal work as a backup)

At least with regards to RAID-0-only systems, which as I've stated above, only really give a performance boost but no backup, since SSDs (and thus the SATA/PCIe) spec has been improved drastically, RAID-0's really don't offer much anymore in my opinion, in terms of speed. An SSD will beat the hell out of two HDDs in a RAID 0 these days. RAID 1 (and i guess 10) still have their place, particularly for servers, but the RAID 0 only configuration is going the way of the dinosaur IMO, as most users (except media creators and high-end gamers) won't notice the difference. I haven't, and won't, use a RAID 0 as to me, the risk is too high for the (probably not noticeable) speed boost (unless it's part of a RAID 10 or some other form where there is also a backup at the same time).

Right now in my "NAS" PC, I have two 4TB hard drives in a raid 1 configuration, plus a USB 3.0 4TB backup drive (which gets swapped every week) to backup the files incase the RAID fails.

I think all in all, people need to realize that NASes can and do fail. Regular backups are still a necessity whether or not you have a NAS or just a networked hard drive (like some of the WD drives can do now). Drive failure/NAS failure is not a question of IF, but WHEN and I think some people don't really think much about that until they've been burned once (maybe more) by a failed NAS/hard drive. I've had a few failed hard drives in my day, and one or two of them caused me to loose a lot of data that took a while to get back/recreate, so I'm speaking from epxerience (this was 20 years ago....). I now have a very specific and methodical backup strategy, which has been helpful (not so much for drive failure, but more for accidental deletion of a file or folder). But regardless, backups are necessary and people need to realize that and put a backup strategy into place.

Not necessarily. Having a link aggregation between the NAS and a switch allows 2 computers to use the NAS simultaneously without one slowing down the other. And maybe more, depending on what the PC can ingest (depending on its drive, network connection, antivirus, firewall, etc.).
I made some testing last week-end with my Synology, which was outputting 223 MB/s. To reach this, I had to connect 4 computers, my MacBook Pro was downloading at around 100 MB/s, while other computers were downloading at various speeds from 20 MB/s to 60 MB/s.

The show stopper for me was finding out that Apple in their wisdom (some time ago) dropped spotlight support for NAS.

@PatrickJ: that's one way to use link aggregation, but I was thinking more along the lines of increasing throughput from a client PC equipped with two NICs to the NAS.

Seriously? €599 is $643 by today's exchange rate. That is 29 percent more than $499!
So you say, you'd be cool with paying nearly 30% sales tax/VAT?

I wonder what US consumers would say if Drumpf proposed such a thing in order to, I don't know ... finance one of his bold plans for the future?

@AndroC do they still require Java installed to run their management console?

I think what @AndroC meant to say regarding how bad it is to recover from a Drobo hardware failure is that 'that is the price you pay for using a proprietary RAID architecture'. I certainly wouldn't classify Drobo or BeyondRaid as enterprise class.

@AndroC,

Yup, I read about "BeyondRAID" when they first announced it in 2007. I was just wondering if the inherent drawback was still present today.

I understand the expandability, however it is still a shame that they couldn't have engineered a way for data to be read by other devices in an emergency.

The ever-expandable nature is indeed nice. I would buy one if I needed that. I just don't need a dozen TB at my fingertips, for any reason.

I don't blame a single vendor for theft or disaster. I blame the marketing of the last decade for encouraging people to think that a single device is actually a "backup" and not just one copy of your data with single disk failure protection.

Drobo just happened to be one of the devices / companies that I heard *tons* of sob stories about, when the device itself went south or was stolen / destroyed, fellow photographers lost all their data. Thei own fault, obviously, but still I can blame hype and flashy advertising a little bit too.

Yep, that's always another option, but. I like a raid array, gives some measure of protection to the data and means all the data is on one drive.

My Drobo is hooked up to a Mac Mini for video playback with Plex under the telly and is fast enought, all a bit old but works perfectly fine. The new Drobo box I'm vaguely interested in has USB C as standard so that will work fine if I update the Mini at some point too. Having one drive is just a bit simpler than loads of external drives, and, no room in Mac Mini for any drives anyway.

On my photo processing desktop tower I just periodically update the data drives. Currently I boot off an internal Samsung 2tb SSD which is fantastic! And store data and archives on any number of internal 4tb drives. May be tempted to migrate those at some point to 10 or 12tb units 😎 which should keep me going for many more years. Just waiting for the price to drop slightly at I don't actually need that capacity at the moment, so it would be money wasted!

And the declared speeds for the "fastest ever" drobo are measily compared to what Synology or QNAP can offer. Though admittedly fastest Synology boxes are very expensive.

And 14TB drives are also out but not to general public yet ;-)

Some drobos have an m2 slot on the bottom.

64 is the limit of the way the "brains" are built.

Especially since they say they're beyond raid.

Even if the parts aren't necessarily available yet.

Drobo supports 64TB volumes which you normally thin provision, i.e. you start with less disks than the volume size and grow as you need by replacing disks with bigger ones...the Drobo will tell you when. By then large enough disks will be available which you can use. Important is that you don't need to grow the volume on your computer

Wow... If 64 TB is the limit on volume size then this is to be avoided as outdated to modern demands.

14 TB HDDs are available now but not for general public. This already takes 5 disk RAID0 volume to 70TB and already
16TB HDDs are planned to be released next year. This would already take 5 disk configuration in RAID0 to 80TB.

This compares really badly to competition. E.g. Synology supports 108TB volumes (or even 200TB on some NAS models).

not quite correct, on a 5 day Drobo device you have a RAID5-like storage model which defacto takes the largest drive away from the net disk capacity for redundancy, i.e. you will only hit the limit of the 64TB volume if you load it with 5 16TB drives.
In the past Drobo has increased the maximum supported volume size with a firmware upgrade and some of their devices support multiple volumes