I can stream to 3 Apple TV's simultaneously with my Drobo S with no problem at all.
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Drobo or TC + external HDDs
- Thread starter Rocco83
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I can stream to 3 Apple TV's simultaneously with my Drobo S with no problem at all.
Oh, I missed that. However, I had a Drobo gen 2 before this and also had no problems streaming to the Apple TV's in my house.
I can confirm that I have the Drobo V2 and have had it since its early days (October 2008, I think). I have done all of the firmware updates since that time and replaced all of the hard drives twice, going from 1TB Seagates to 1.5 to 2TB WD Greens. My large iTunes collection has lived on there for a couple of years now, since it became too big for my internal hard drive. I have lost no data in that time, even though I have had occasions where a drive crashed (the damn Seagates).
The iTunes serves media to another iMac, an iPad, and an ATV2. Even with all drawing at once, I have not had problems with the viewing quality.
The iTunes serves media to another iMac, an iPad, and an ATV2. Even with all drawing at once, I have not had problems with the viewing quality.
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the Drobo is looking more and more like the way i'll go. I think I'm going to sell off a few thousand of my extra wine and try to step it up to a Drobo S. Although at least from reveiws I've read outside Macrumors the Drobo S is liked less than the regular Drobo. More research is need I guess.
The more you can invest in a drobo the better you will just benefit from faster speeds more drive bays. Like any other products there are some horror stories.
Personally, I'd find it hard to justify the jump in price from the Drobo v2 to the Drobo S. It's double the price for one more bay and a slightly faster processor (something like 30% in real-world usage). That might be useful in a professional environment, but for home media server purposes I think 4 bays and a theoretical storage capacity of ~11TB is plenty.
Even though the write speed is garbage (and it is), you're only putting the media on there once. And the read speed is such that you can easily stream two 40Mbps Blu-Ray rips all day long.
It's not silent -- you've got 4 drives spinning -- but a quick check with a iPhone decibel meter app measured around 25dB. That's acceptable for me.
Even though the write speed is garbage (and it is), you're only putting the media on there once. And the read speed is such that you can easily stream two 40Mbps Blu-Ray rips all day long.
It's not silent -- you've got 4 drives spinning -- but a quick check with a iPhone decibel meter app measured around 25dB. That's acceptable for me.
That was one of the things I could really understand when people were complaining who were using it for a media server. You aren't writing the information on it over and over so why does the write speed bother them so much. As long as it can steam to 2-3 ATV2s it will be good enough for me.
To get redundancy you need 2 drives once you add more drives the RAID config will arrange itself accordingly. I own neither but this is my understanding from extensive research.
I keep reading a lot of...not necessarily conflicting accounts, but moreso different accounts depending on the manufacturer as far as what they allow in their different products in relation to RAID. I think I'm just going to suck it up and get the 2TB TC as I can't even get close to picking out something between the Syno, Drobo, or Qnap. It is haunting me and I just want the decision to be done.
Money wise since I need 2 TB of storage, a backup, and a router I think I am just going to switch it up and get the 2TB TC which will knock out the storage and router. In addition I'll grab a 3TB Hitachi external and I'll be done. That should hold me over while I collect more funds to get a nice 5 to 8-bay NAS that costs a little more and is faster.
Well with NAS not working so hot on Lion at the moment and my MBP that is in the air right now coming to me with Lion that helps. I can't afford a NAS that I want right now so I'm not going to pay $500 for something I know I don't want.
Nothing in my price range seems to get enough good praise across the board to warrant me spending that much money on something I am unsure about. I don't feel comfortable with any of the options to serve my needs in the future, so I am going to take the cheaper route for now that will work just as well. Gives me just as much storage for less.
My MBP comes tomorrow, as well as the ATV2s, PEAs, and all my ethernet cables. All I need now is another router, storage, and backup. Going to just order what I need tonight.
Amahi
HP ProLiant MicroServer or Acer EasyStore MicroServer running Amahi: http://www.amahi.org/. You can expand later with an eSata 4-bay TowerRaid.
HP ProLiant MicroServer or Acer EasyStore MicroServer running Amahi: http://www.amahi.org/. You can expand later with an eSata 4-bay TowerRaid.
I have been basically researching the same as you. I also have a lower budget (though the same config would cost me twice as much as yours, since I live overseas in Istanbul, Turkey and everything costs about twice as much). When you have the time would you mind laying out the hardware that you are using now (please no abbreviations as my first tongue is not English
), and are you happy with your configuration so far?Much appreciated,
Omer