This is why i've not bought one... This is the 3rd time i've been on a forum and read that someone just "randomly" lost a load of data on their Drobo
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Drobo on the cheap!!!
- Thread starter nando2323
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This is why i've not bought one... This is the 3rd time i've been on a forum and read that someone just "randomly" lost a load of data on their Drobo
In the initial setup in the drobo dashboard, I partitioned the unit as 16TB (thin provisioning?)
The initial partition is fine. There is an issue with partitioning a Drobo with tools other than the tools provided by DRI. Currently, DRI only supports and recommends creating partitions inside the original one using their tools. Using disk utility or another third party tool will result in a partition that under certain scenarios cannot be seen. The data is still there.
My advice really is to go over to www.drobospace.com and post on the forums there. Like I said though, this doesn't sound like a cut and dry case of the Drobo eating up data. I have yet to see a Drobo 'lose' data outside of the infamous Seagate firmware debacle, which can hardly be blamed on a Drobo. Those suckers seemed intent on swallowing your data whether in a RAID array or otherwise.
My advice really is to go over to www.drobospace.com and post on the forums there. Like I said though, this doesn't sound like a cut and dry case of the Drobo eating up data. I have yet to see a Drobo 'lose' data outside of the infamous Seagate firmware debacle, which can hardly be blamed on a Drobo. Those suckers seemed intent on swallowing your data whether in a RAID array or otherwise.
I have a FW800 Drobo and lost close to 1.5TB of media, both music and movies. That was the second time I lost data on the Drobo. I contacted Data Robotics both times and after a unacceptable amount of time (more than a week each time) they finally responded and looked at the logs then said it wasn't their problem. It was hard for me to believe when the Drobo showed all drives as good and after running a hard drive fitness test on each drive individually they showed up good. I still have the Drobo but do not use it as primary storage.
Because of the Drobo I have built an OpenSolaris 2009.06 server with 6 2TB hard drives in a ZFS raidZ2 pool. The benefits that ZFS provide are far better than anything that Drobo could ever give me.
Drobo is a nice idea but not something I would trust important data to. I will never buy a Drobo again because I like my data and their support is a joke.
Because of the Drobo I have built an OpenSolaris 2009.06 server with 6 2TB hard drives in a ZFS raidZ2 pool. The benefits that ZFS provide are far better than anything that Drobo could ever give me.
Drobo is a nice idea but not something I would trust important data to. I will never buy a Drobo again because I like my data and their support is a joke.
Before I go any further, I'd like to say, while I'm an extremely satisfied customer of DRI's, I'm by no means an apologist.
The biggest reason DRI got a bad reputation was the almost year long period where Seagate was putting out the 1.5TB drives with faulty firmware. I think DRI was pretty much brought to a standstill in their tech support department as no one (not even Seagate) could get a handle on why the drives and the Drobo were suddenly acting so strange. Everything from drives dropping out of the array randomly to whole arrays lost due to data corruption.
That being said, I'm a frequent visitor to the Drobospace forums, and since DRI basically disqualified those drives for usage, the forum has become a ghost town with regards to problems (not to say the product doesn't have it's share of problems - just nowhere near the level it had at one point).
Around the time of the 'mystery seagate drive problem', I was concerned enough about my data being on an unstable device that I offloaded the data and put the device and the drives through a series of tests design to replicate every one of DRI's claims with regards to data safety and drive fault detection. What I came away with was a feeling that, barring putting known bad drives in that your Drobo had rejected already, I was unable to cause a data loss.
The biggest single issue I see over at the DRI forums are when people (generally tech-savvy individuals) attempt to treat their device as something more than it is, which is a device for users who want something stupidly simple that keeps their data relatively safe in the event of a single drive failure. It will NOT protect you if you decide you know better or want to tamper with it because you feel the device is at fault and is wrongly flagging a drive as bad.
Keep something in mind - the Drobo, as well as any other RAID device, is by itself not a back-up solution. It is merely protection against a drive failure. That is all it is. If it is your primary back-up and storage, you are a complete idiot (not throwing stones here, just stating the reality of data retention and redundancy).
With regards to your ZFS array, that sounds fantastic, but it makes me wonder why you went with a Drobo to beign with if I am to assume your level of hardware and software knowledge is where I think it is. The Drobo was conceived for exactly one reason - RAID arrays are difficult to start up and maintain (and expand in certain instances) for the average user. Thus the Drobo.
As I stated above, I am not defending DRI or their products. My only gripe is that the Drobo was given a pretty bad reputation due to what ultimately turned out to be a manufacturer whose products were not in compliance whatsoever with the SATA II spec and adamantly kept restating that their drives were perfectly fine.
What was even funnier about that situation was that Seagate, upon initially getting a grip on where the problem resided, attempted to throw blame back on their customers by stating that the line of drives causing problems in RAID arrays (the 500GB through 1.5TB models) shouldn't be used in RAID arrays to begin with. Except their website and sales literature stated that their primary usage was as an excellent platform for RAID type storage!
By the way, if youhave no desire to trust your Drobo V2, have you any interest in selling it?
The biggest reason DRI got a bad reputation was the almost year long period where Seagate was putting out the 1.5TB drives with faulty firmware. I think DRI was pretty much brought to a standstill in their tech support department as no one (not even Seagate) could get a handle on why the drives and the Drobo were suddenly acting so strange. Everything from drives dropping out of the array randomly to whole arrays lost due to data corruption.
That being said, I'm a frequent visitor to the Drobospace forums, and since DRI basically disqualified those drives for usage, the forum has become a ghost town with regards to problems (not to say the product doesn't have it's share of problems - just nowhere near the level it had at one point).
Around the time of the 'mystery seagate drive problem', I was concerned enough about my data being on an unstable device that I offloaded the data and put the device and the drives through a series of tests design to replicate every one of DRI's claims with regards to data safety and drive fault detection. What I came away with was a feeling that, barring putting known bad drives in that your Drobo had rejected already, I was unable to cause a data loss.
The biggest single issue I see over at the DRI forums are when people (generally tech-savvy individuals) attempt to treat their device as something more than it is, which is a device for users who want something stupidly simple that keeps their data relatively safe in the event of a single drive failure. It will NOT protect you if you decide you know better or want to tamper with it because you feel the device is at fault and is wrongly flagging a drive as bad.
Keep something in mind - the Drobo, as well as any other RAID device, is by itself not a back-up solution. It is merely protection against a drive failure. That is all it is. If it is your primary back-up and storage, you are a complete idiot (not throwing stones here, just stating the reality of data retention and redundancy).
With regards to your ZFS array, that sounds fantastic, but it makes me wonder why you went with a Drobo to beign with if I am to assume your level of hardware and software knowledge is where I think it is. The Drobo was conceived for exactly one reason - RAID arrays are difficult to start up and maintain (and expand in certain instances) for the average user. Thus the Drobo.
As I stated above, I am not defending DRI or their products. My only gripe is that the Drobo was given a pretty bad reputation due to what ultimately turned out to be a manufacturer whose products were not in compliance whatsoever with the SATA II spec and adamantly kept restating that their drives were perfectly fine.
What was even funnier about that situation was that Seagate, upon initially getting a grip on where the problem resided, attempted to throw blame back on their customers by stating that the line of drives causing problems in RAID arrays (the 500GB through 1.5TB models) shouldn't be used in RAID arrays to begin with. Except their website and sales literature stated that their primary usage was as an excellent platform for RAID type storage!
By the way, if youhave no desire to trust your Drobo V2, have you any interest in selling it?
If I'm a tech minded person, is the Drobo a worthwhile investment? It seems terribly expensive for what it does. Something like FreeNas would be cheaper to me and just as well.
I'm contemplating working on a large storage solution for home and the Drobo keeps coming up in my search but man it's not cheap. Would I be better off just rolling my own?
I'm contemplating working on a large storage solution for home and the Drobo keeps coming up in my search but man it's not cheap. Would I be better off just rolling my own?
You will get biased opinions to that question as each person has there own feelings towards there own device/homebrew setups.
As I have said many times I am a fan of unRAID. The way it works is in general safer then the way the drobo does, in my opinion. I can also expand past the 4/5 drive setup that a drobo has (I currently have 10 drives in my unRAID system). unRAID protected you from a single drive failure just like the original Drobo but does a better job when it comes to multiple drives. if multiple fail in unRAID you lose the data on those two drives, assuming you can't get it back, but the other remaining drives are still fine. 2 drive failures in a Drobo can mean total lose of data.
Also, with a system like unRAID you can build a system that will hold more then 4/5 drives when you need the extra space.
Depends on which Drobo you're talking about. DRI sells much more than just the original 4-bay Drobo. Three of their four products can survive multiple (2) simultaneous drive failures and keep on humming away. As Prostuff said, depends on who you talk to. Me? I built PC's for gaming, media, and other needs for 10+ years. Between a family, work, and other more time consuming hobbies, there is something very stress-free about just looking at the four drive light indicators for a quick status update. But to each his own.
Good luck!
I realize they sell more products now but none of them are a true NAS. They really would have to add a true GB Ethernet port to the Drobo before I would consider getting one, even for family. I would probably build an unRAID machine for them and use the free 3 drive version to get them started.
He mentions something like FreeNAS though which means he is looking for something that is going to be attached to the network. To do that with any Drobo you are going to need there DroboShare which increases the costs even more. The Drobo, in my mind, is much more suited to being attached directly to a computer instead of used as a NAS. For the price of a Drobo and DroboShare you can build an unRAID box and buy a Plus license for less. And it is nearly as simple to set up the unRAID machine (short or putting the components together) as it is to get the Drobo working.
Yeah I think I'm out on the Drobo. I'm not a fan that the file system is only readable by the Drobo hardware and I require it to be attached to the network on its own. Otherwise I'd just put more drives in my Mac Pro and leave that on without sleeping 24/7. From what I see, the cheapish Drobos are USB/Firewire which I don't want. Ah well... to each their own. Just not for me.
Perhaps I am an idiot, but Drobo promotes its consumer product with "plug-in peace of mind" slogan. Its website is filled with phrases like "all data on Drobo is safe no matter which hard disk fails" and "redundantly safe". It repeats the virtues of its self-healing technology, how it "proactively advises you with a series of warnings" before it happens. It goes on to discourage buying external drives, claiming how its "instantly expandable redundant storage solution" "protects your most valuable assets" so "no matter which drive fails your data is safe and you maintain access."
Now, I realize backup system should be entirely separate from data storage but Drobo leads consumers to think that using its product for storing data is completely safe and redundant.
Marketing strategy. They really do want to sell that thing, and they actually do!
But still, a single device, may it be a Drobo or other NAS boxes is not a backup. It's a single storage device. The internal RAID system increases the data availability, it's not supposed to actually back it up. Of course you get a certain drive redundancy, but what about the box itself? It the Drobo fails, your data is gone for a while (till you get a new box), and even then, a fully working re-build of the array on another device (although it's the same) is not granted!
Re-building working arrays with hardware RAID controllers is much more likely, which is why I prefer Netgear NAS systems.
Best thing you can do is to buy a second device (preferably not the same product) and back up the data every now and then.
I have an external hard drive that I keep locked in a fireproof, burglar proof, waterproof safe. About once a month I re-add things I could never recover to it... mostly pictures and home video, tax returns in PDF... that kinda stuff.
I do backup everything via Time Machine so if I delete my iTunes library I'm covered unless my house gets set on fire or something... but I'd have other things to worry about then!
I do offsite backup with a service called Crashplan. I use to use Mozy but have found that crashplan is much better for my needs. It allows me to have a family plan and backup my parents, my sisters, and my computers to there cloud AND to my unRAID server in the basement. Backing up to my server is completely free and I would not have to pay for that; it is the cloud service that costs to use. I then also back certain parts of the server up using crashplan so that in the case that the server goes up I can get the important stuff that was archived on there back also. Crashplan really is a nice and very flexible service, and very cheap also.
My sister also does Time Machine backups to a drive I gave her. She has used that once to get back some documents and iTunes music. Worked really well and she was impressed at how easy it was.
Nutmac-The base Drobo can withstand the failure of 2 HDD, just not simultaneously. I have as close to a bullet-proof back-up strategy as one can have. But whether you trust ZFS, Freenas, or a Drobo as your sole back-up or main storage medium, you are going to fail, and you are a fool. They are all susceptible to a single point of failure, and that's either the software or hardware they are based on. A valid back-up strategy contains a minimum of two 'back-up' copies of data (I would argue 3) and each set of that data is kept secure using a different hardware or software protocol, with both sets in a different location.
What the Drobo offers that I love is in the event of a hard drive failure, it gives me warnings that a drive is no longer safe (some say it is overly cautious here-I call those people idiots) and rebuilds the array, also giving me time to pull off any data that has been altered since the last back-up to another storage array WHILE the rebuild is in process.
As stated before, we could sit here all day and argue one storage medium over another. Different strokes for different folks. A quick trip to the FreeNAS's forum and a search resulted in the same dissatisfied customers, complaining that the NAS failed them and that 'this product is terrible, I'm never going to use it again, I cannot trust it, blah, blah, blah. It's what you are comfortable with and at what price point you wish to go to.
Personally, this boils down to the age old Ford versus Chevy versus Dodge argument. One person owned a Ford once and he'll never own another one. Another one has ONLY owned Ford and calls the first guy an idiot. Like I said, to each their own.
What the Drobo offers that I love is in the event of a hard drive failure, it gives me warnings that a drive is no longer safe (some say it is overly cautious here-I call those people idiots) and rebuilds the array, also giving me time to pull off any data that has been altered since the last back-up to another storage array WHILE the rebuild is in process.
As stated before, we could sit here all day and argue one storage medium over another. Different strokes for different folks. A quick trip to the FreeNAS's forum and a search resulted in the same dissatisfied customers, complaining that the NAS failed them and that 'this product is terrible, I'm never going to use it again, I cannot trust it, blah, blah, blah. It's what you are comfortable with and at what price point you wish to go to.
Personally, this boils down to the age old Ford versus Chevy versus Dodge argument. One person owned a Ford once and he'll never own another one. Another one has ONLY owned Ford and calls the first guy an idiot. Like I said, to each their own.
I e-mailed Drobo support, and I guess the problem has been identified(?)
Drobo Support said:
ME said:
Drobo Support said:
I guess the answer is better than nothing, but shouldn't the drobo dashboard notify me somehow??
If I update the firmware, do I have to wipe the drive(s)?
It does notify you if the dashboard is opening and running at the time. This is also one of the reasons that the dashboard contains the email function; to email you in the event of an issue. I know when I performed a recent upgrade of one of the disks in the pack, it emailed me periodically to let me know that the data was protected while the rebuild was in progress, and that my data was still accessible.
As far as the Seagate HDD, this was the problem I was referring to earlier. I don't believe you will wipe the data from the drive during a firmware upgrade, but I also don't think it would be wise not to back up this data first. Personally, I dodged the Seagate bullet (barely), returned the one I had, and stuck with the WD green power I had perviously been using. The only reason I had strayed from WD was due to needing more space and at the time only Seagate offered it.
As far as the Seagate HDD, this was the problem I was referring to earlier. I don't believe you will wipe the data from the drive during a firmware upgrade, but I also don't think it would be wise not to back up this data first. Personally, I dodged the Seagate bullet (barely), returned the one I had, and stuck with the WD green power I had perviously been using. The only reason I had strayed from WD was due to needing more space and at the time only Seagate offered it.
I have found with the drobo that you have to be careful about how much data you put on them When they are full they tend to struggle.
I though my Drobo was failing, I put in another drive and everything was fine.
Keep then under 90% full.
I though my Drobo was failing, I put in another drive and everything was fine.
Keep then under 90% full.
The slowdown is not a design flaw. At 90% of full capacity, the Drobo slows the read/write speed on purpose and also reports in Dashboard that you need to insert another disk (and fires off emails to you if you have that command set up). The fear is that if you're running with a smaller disk pack, you could run the chance of 'overfilling' the Drobo, due to the fact that the OS you're using sees the Drobo as having a capacity total that you originally formatted it at.
For example, I formatted my Drobo initially to 16TB. I can keep adding disks until I reach the volume limit. But right now, I only have the drive capacity to hold 4TB of data. The Drobo lies to your OS (OSX in this instance), telling it that the volume is 16TB, thus there is never a need to reformat a volume when adding capacity. This is where the dashboard comes into play. It is there as a 'communications host' to relay to you, the user, what the status of the Drobo is and what it's capacity is, as well as to help you perform various tasks on the Drobo. The Drobo isn't so much a DAS or NAS, as it is a small computer with a large storage capability.
Where the problem could arise is that if a user is to never use the dashboard, has a formatted volume of 16TB (as far as OSX knows) but only has 2 500GB HDD installed, the OS wouldn't know the Drobo is getting full and he/she would simply keep throwing data at it. You can probably see where this is going. It is a feature design to get your attention and get you to expand the 'array' with either more or larger disks.
Plus, it's not healthy in any circumstance (Drobo or not) to constantly run HDD at above 90% capacity, anyways.
For example, I formatted my Drobo initially to 16TB. I can keep adding disks until I reach the volume limit. But right now, I only have the drive capacity to hold 4TB of data. The Drobo lies to your OS (OSX in this instance), telling it that the volume is 16TB, thus there is never a need to reformat a volume when adding capacity. This is where the dashboard comes into play. It is there as a 'communications host' to relay to you, the user, what the status of the Drobo is and what it's capacity is, as well as to help you perform various tasks on the Drobo. The Drobo isn't so much a DAS or NAS, as it is a small computer with a large storage capability.
Where the problem could arise is that if a user is to never use the dashboard, has a formatted volume of 16TB (as far as OSX knows) but only has 2 500GB HDD installed, the OS wouldn't know the Drobo is getting full and he/she would simply keep throwing data at it. You can probably see where this is going. It is a feature design to get your attention and get you to expand the 'array' with either more or larger disks.
Plus, it's not healthy in any circumstance (Drobo or not) to constantly run HDD at above 90% capacity, anyways.