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Mac Mini + Drobo/Alternative?
- Thread starter JLandis
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I was a fan of the HP MediaSmart Server when I had one. Hot-swappable bays expandable to 4 internal disks plus a few more external. Time Machine capability, plus it's a Windows server that can run several plug ins and full on applications in the background (including iTunes).
My main complaint is it's kind of an energy hog for something you keep on 24/7.
My main complaint is it's kind of an energy hog for something you keep on 24/7.
Drives
OK, looks like I am pretty set on a Drobo. Trying to select a couple of 2 TB drives for it. I found this Hitachi 7200 drive I can get for $144 from Dell, on sale (expires today). Reviews say it runs a little hot and a little noisier than WD Caviar Green, but for the price might be a good choice. Anyone disagee?
Hitachi on Newegg
OK, looks like I am pretty set on a Drobo. Trying to select a couple of 2 TB drives for it. I found this Hitachi 7200 drive I can get for $144 from Dell, on sale (expires today). Reviews say it runs a little hot and a little noisier than WD Caviar Green, but for the price might be a good choice. Anyone disagee?
Hitachi on Newegg
Really? Crap, because the Qx2 seems really ideal for hooking up to a Mac mini for HTPC/server duty since it's got four drive bays, hardware RAID, and a Firewire 800 connection.
Got any specific links about this to share? I'd be very interested. (I just saw a couple of user comments on MacObserver about glitchy behavior.)
I read the comments on the MacObserver page, plus another on OWC's own blog. Further research revealed that it's not manufactured by OWC/Newertech, but appears to be a rebranded Hydra: http://www.macpower.com.tw/products/hddmulti/hydra/hydra_superscombo
As much as I wanted a fast RAID-5 device, I decided to give it a pass. I'd love to see lots of happy reviews, but I haven't run across many of those.
A.
Hope you didn't already buy, though it's not a disaster if you did.
I would get the WD Green drive - the one thing you'll find with a Drobo is that it tends to run hot, and the fan is loud (louder than my Mac Pro), so anything you can do to minimize heat inside it will be to your benefit.
I'm in the same situation as you, narrowed it down to a Qx2 or Drobo. I like the speeds of the Qx2 (eSATA) but the limited reviews on the internet scares me.
The biggest advantage of the Drobo is that you can use different size drives.
I don't see their proprietary RAID as being a negative. If you choose another branded RAID box and it fails, can you go with another manufacturer and quickly recover data? I doubt it, most likely you'd have to get the RAID box replaced from the same manufacturer. As long as Drobo is a financially sound company then you're safe.
The biggest advantage of the Drobo is that you can use different size drives.
I don't see their proprietary RAID as being a negative. If you choose another branded RAID box and it fails, can you go with another manufacturer and quickly recover data? I doubt it, most likely you'd have to get the RAID box replaced from the same manufacturer. As long as Drobo is a financially sound company then you're safe.
The Drobo is a great product except for two things:
(1) The noise sucks
(2) Can't be used for Video Editing. The speed of the "BeyondRAID" system is simply too slow sadly. I thought something was wrong with my system because everything was going so slow in Final Cut Pro, but it was the Drobo. Bought a OWC 2TB Raid-0 drive for editing and back up on the Drobo.
Otherwise, it is great, especially for iTunes.
(1) The noise sucks
(2) Can't be used for Video Editing. The speed of the "BeyondRAID" system is simply too slow sadly. I thought something was wrong with my system because everything was going so slow in Final Cut Pro, but it was the Drobo. Bought a OWC 2TB Raid-0 drive for editing and back up on the Drobo.
Otherwise, it is great, especially for iTunes.
I have two Drobos (v2 with Firewire 800) stacked on top of each other. One is loaded with four 1TB Seagates and the other is loaded with four 1.5TB Seagates. Both run silent and I can't hear them at all.
I think the older USB only models were the ones that were noisy.
I think the older USB only models were the ones that were noisy.
Actually, they are looking for beta testers for a new product. I got picked to fill out an application. So there may something coming within the next 6 months.
1) Interesting...Do you have the Drobo v1 or v2? Some, like Pastrychef say that their Drobo's are silent.
2) When you say video editing do you mean heavy stuff like Final Cut work, including more common processes with HTPC's like video conversion using handbrake/MakeMKV and the like programs. I plan on doing a lot of the latter only.
I am talking about video editing like Final Cut. Playback of video streams is laggy. Go search the Final Cut Pro forums for Drobo and see what comes back. No one recommends it. I have V2, and connect via Firewire 800.
For Handbrake it should be fine.
Yes! I did pull the trigger since the deal was expiring that day. I did notice that the drives run about 5 degrees hotter, but I saved about $100 on (2) 2TB drives: total purchase with tax/shipping $310 @ Dell (Hitachi Deskstar 2TB 7200rpm - 7K2000). Pretty good deal. I also bought a Drobo v2 from Amazon. Both etailers have good short term return policies. I will see how the combination works out and modify from there.
Although, after 'calderone's comment on the beta testing for new Drobo hardware, I feel like just sticking one of those 2TB drives in my single external enclosure and waiting until Drobo v3 is released. I am sure they will be attacking much of the complaints we have seen with v2. At least I have a week or two to think about it. In the meantime, I will check out the current set-up that is on its way and report back. Thanks for all the comments. I think this turned out to be a pretty useful thread. Please continue.
When I was using my Drobo, I had 3 drives fail. All 3 drives were Seagates. That should tell you something. The Drobo will protect you if one fails, but what if one fails and another fails before it finishes rebuilding your array? Bye bye data.
(3) If your Drobo dies, you're SOL, unless you buy a new Drobo. I had a Drobo v1, it was fine until it started going into an endless cycle of rebooting, rendering my data inaccessible. It was out of warranty. Fortunately, Data Robotics helped me install a read-only firmware on mine, which stopped the rebooting, but the filesystem was hosed so I had to use data recovery software to recover everything off the Drobo. They seem to think the problem will fix itself if I wipe all the drives, install the standard firmware and start over (I haven't done that yet), but if it's a hardware problem with my Drobo, too bad, I'm out of warranty and have to pay for a new one. Hence, I no longer use my Drobo. My story turned out OK, and my data is now sitting on a RAID1 array in my Mac Pro, but I shudder to think what could've happened. I had a ton of important data on my Drobo and it might've all been lost unless I wanted to drop another $400, or whatever it is, on my Drobo.
My Drobo v1's noise level ranged from silent to a 747 taking off in my bedroom. It depends on the ambient temperature and if there's a lot of HD activity or not. It adjusts fan speed accordingly.
In summary, the Drobo is a great concept. And in fact, I would recommend one with one caveat: Keep a backup of the data on your Drobo somewhere else. The Drobo protects against single drive failure, but you need to protect yourself against Drobo failure. And since it's a proprietary system, you just can't stick a drive in an external enclosure and use it independently like you can with a drive from a RAID1 array.
Seagate had firmware issues for a while. It's well documented all over the internet. As far as I know, those issues have been resolved.
I've had two different Drobo v2, and both had equally loud fans - I put them in standby and disconnect the FireWire cable to keep them quiet until I want to do a backup. I have SuperDuper set to do a backup when the Drobo is connected, so I just plug the cable in, it wakes up, runs a backup, and sleeps the computer - great for doing a backup at the end of a day.
I think this OWC quad drive enclosure is a very elegant solution. The two main things that Drobo has over it are is the ability to specify larger drives than you're actually storing and the ability to mix and match drive capacities more efficiently. The only way to maximize this enclosure is pure raid 5 which would mean 8tb of drives will yield 6tb of storage.
It's true that it's merely a raid 5 enclosure, but there just aren't that many choices for "prosumer" grade raid 5 enclosures. The ones that are out there are bulky, expensive and don't have the OWC name behind them. The pricepoint of this one puts it directly in the ring with the Drobo.
See the discussion between Alrescha and myself about this enclosure further up in this thread.
I've been looking at various models of Drobo and Qnap as backend storage to a Mac Mini server setup I have planned. The solution that Apple suggest as an option when buying the Mini server is the Promise SmartStor DS4600:
http://store.apple.com/uk-business/...e=MTY1NDA0Nw&mco=MTMzNzkyMTc&p=1&s=topSellers
From what I've read about it this looks to fit the bill for what I want; quiet, firewire 800 connected RAID 5. Anyone got any dirt they'd like to share?
http://store.apple.com/uk-business/...e=MTY1NDA0Nw&mco=MTMzNzkyMTc&p=1&s=topSellers
From what I've read about it this looks to fit the bill for what I want; quiet, firewire 800 connected RAID 5. Anyone got any dirt they'd like to share?
From what I've read about it this looks to fit the bill for what I want; quiet, firewire 800 connected RAID 5. Anyone got any dirt they'd like to share?
These folks were not thrilled with the performance:
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/29...4600_4_bay_direct_attached_storage/index.html
But I think that was their only real criticism.
A.
Update
Update: I just wanted to post and let others know what setup I went with. I bought a Drobo, added (2) 2TB Hitachi Deskstar 2TB 7200rpm - 7K2000 drives. LOUD, which vibrated the drobo to make this aweful growling sound not to mention the noise of data access. I called Dell and they have started a return. I ran to Best Buy the next day and bought (2) 2TB WD Caviar Green drives. What a difference. The Drobo is now really quiet. The only time I hear it is when I am close to my entertainment center and the fan is running when accessing heavy data.
With the two drives the Drobo gives me about about 1.75 TB of free space. I will add 2 more when I get low. I love the option of using any combination of drives. Drobo Dashboard is easy to use and it formatted the drives pretty quickly. Throughput is slower than most external 4-bay enclosures but not too slow for streaming movies and music. I have had no performance/streaming issues from the Drobo with mkv, iso, img, avi, m4v with Plex.
I now have to think of a backup solution. Even though the Drobo allows you to hot swap the drive if one fails, with any RAID system you must have a backup of the data in a separate location. So, maybe a 4 bay QNAP or another Drobo. We'll see.
I am running the Mac Mini with Plex. The interface is pretty sweet. Using this setup over the Apple TV is a lot more flexible, although pricey.
Update: I just wanted to post and let others know what setup I went with. I bought a Drobo, added (2) 2TB Hitachi Deskstar 2TB 7200rpm - 7K2000 drives. LOUD, which vibrated the drobo to make this aweful growling sound not to mention the noise of data access. I called Dell and they have started a return. I ran to Best Buy the next day and bought (2) 2TB WD Caviar Green drives. What a difference. The Drobo is now really quiet. The only time I hear it is when I am close to my entertainment center and the fan is running when accessing heavy data.
With the two drives the Drobo gives me about about 1.75 TB of free space. I will add 2 more when I get low. I love the option of using any combination of drives. Drobo Dashboard is easy to use and it formatted the drives pretty quickly. Throughput is slower than most external 4-bay enclosures but not too slow for streaming movies and music. I have had no performance/streaming issues from the Drobo with mkv, iso, img, avi, m4v with Plex.
I now have to think of a backup solution. Even though the Drobo allows you to hot swap the drive if one fails, with any RAID system you must have a backup of the data in a separate location. So, maybe a 4 bay QNAP or another Drobo. We'll see.
I am running the Mac Mini with Plex. The interface is pretty sweet. Using this setup over the Apple TV is a lot more flexible, although pricey.