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Hey all, yes, I am alive. Life is still super crazy so I'm not online much.
I've been thinking though about something: I am looking at a more... permanent backup for my computer. I just bought a new 2TB hd and only have it backing up the important files and thats already way full.
So I've been looking at getting either a Drobo or a Drobo S for backups, however whenever I look at what people are saying I hear a lot of negative stuff about them amidst all the good.
Anyone have any experience? Anything other than a Drobo you would recommend for big backups? I currently have 6.5 tb'a worth of HD's in my tower, and a good chunk of that is client work (that is also backed up on the Hd's they pay for as well) so I need it to not be flaky, however I don't have 1000+ to spend and I can get a regular drobo for $150 off right now so it would be only 250. Hence my thinking, well why the heck not for that price.

No personal experience, though a coworker has one. I'll ask him.

As far as an alternate solution goes, you might be happiest with something based on FreeNAS. It will let you increase the size if your storage if needed, but mainly because it has ZFS built in, which is extremely resistant to data corruption over time.

--Patrick

Interesting. I'm afraid I don't know anything about that. What appeals to me most about Drobo is that it seems brainless, just plug in HD's and it takes care of the rest, are the freeNAS stuff pretty similar?

I assume you mean TB? I can buy you a thumb drive that can store a copy of 6.5 gigs of data.

I've not used Drobo, they seem to pricey for my needs (although I hear good things about them when I listen to my podcasts). Have you considered cloud backup? Something like S3 or Carbonite? Or is there security concerns?[DOUBLEPOST=1341840661][/DOUBLEPOST]

Espy said:

Interesting. I'm afraid I don't know anything about that. What appeals to me most about Drobo is that it seems brainless, just plug in HD's and it takes care of the rest, are the freeNAS stuff pretty similar?

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Drobos are like Macs, FreeNAS is like Linux (BSD actually). There's initial setup, and it's not nearly as brainless.

Lol, yeah tb's. Good catch.
I've heard lots of good stuff about Drobo's as well but no I keep finding more and more articles/reviews that discuss peoples pretty serious issues with them.
I'm not really interested in doing cloud backups for everything, for a couple reasons: My isp will freak if I upload 6.5 terabytes of stuff, security issues with clients and I really prefer having the backup in a physical place + I prefer Time Machine. Not to mention cost. I can pay a yearly subscription to a online service or a one time fee for a the storage device + hd's as I need them.
Right now with this coupon I have for Drobo I can get the basic Drobo for about 250 which seems pretty cheap. But I don't want something thats gonna crap out on me in a year which seems to happen to quite a few people.

Just keep a backup of everything. Dropbox is a nas, not an infallible backup.

Just check out the amazon and neweegg reviews for drobo in general, and for the specific model you're getting.

Since your bread and butter now depends on your digital storage, though, y might want to bite the bullet and look into prosumer or professional equipment rather than consumer stuff.

I can't make any specific recommendation at the moment, but I've been researching nas for awhile and am seriously liking Synology disk stations.

I'm going into look into Synology... I've sent hem come up a few times in searches.

Right now I am backing up client work to separate HD's (although, on a side note: The clients tend to use Windows and I can't actually transfer all the files over from my computer since they tend to exceed 4gb and the fat32 formatting won't allow it... kind of frustrating...) AND I have my own backup for my computer which includes all my stuff and my client work. I also hand off the client files when I finish them so they have copies as well. I'm all about redundancy, I really just need a BIGGER personal backup so the basic Drobo sounded like just the thing. At least until I saw some of the reviews about them failing after a year...

why on earth would a modern windows machine still be in fat32 and not ntfs?

Bowielee said:

why on earth would a modern windows machine still be in fat32 and not ntfs?

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Sorry, I meant that in order for us to be able to swap files their external HD's have to be fat32 so both os's can read and write to them.

Short term solution: HJSplit -- lets you chunk a file into smaller subfiles, handy for busting up your .ZIP (you are .ZIPping it to preserve the metadata, aren't you?) into pieces small enough to put on FAT32.

Long term solution: Drobos are a little unclear. I know there was some trouble getting them to work properly with Time Machine. Looks like there are still some concerns when doing so.

The Synology systems look like the better turnkey solution, as well as providing a host of other features. My only concern is the lack of ZFS support, and that concern is minor unless your need for data integrity is absolutely critical (long-term storage, or data which absolutely must remain bit-for-bit perfect).

--Patrick

Never used a NAS setup myself, but a close friend of mine swears by Synology. He uses his setup for backup and streaming media throughout his house to a variety of devices/screens.

And as if on cue, WD has announced a new "red" line of HDDs specifically designed for home/soho NAS-type devices.

--Patrick

Intriguing... Also I'm looking into HJSplit. Very nice. Thanks man.

Espy said:

Intriguing... Also I'm looking into HJSplit. Very nice. Thanks man.

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It's the simplest solution.
"These files are too big to copy, even if I compress them!"
"So why not chop them up, like ye olde Usenet does?"
"<light bulb> Bwuuuh??"

It's less convenient, adding an extra step, but it works. And that's what matters.
The Java version needs to be run from the boot volume (can't run it off a USB stick) for some reason, but it's not that big. It can also CRC a file, which can be handy for integrity checks.

Also handy for sneakernet transfers:
"I need to update this system from vX.0 to vX.2 before the drivers will start working to access the Internet, but the DVD drive isn't working either and the 2GB vX.2 update .ISO is too big to fit on this 512MB USB stick I found lying around."
<notices HJSplit>
"Sayyy...."
I can't tell you how often something like this has saved my butt when onsite.

--Patrick

Drobo is designed to be simple and hands off. Covar's comment really sums up the philosophy difference pretty well. If you want reliable storage you don't have to think about, Drobo is a great choice. The S is significantly faster than the original 4-bay. I'd suggest looking at it for backups.

Which was the way I was leaning Stugs (although now I'm thinking about just waiting and getting the Thunderbolt one when it comes out since I'm sure my next mac will have t-bolt). I'm hesitant though, with all the negative stuff I've been reading about them failing. Of course it's hard to tell if it's a widespread issue or if it's just random like many issues with electronics.