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Mac Mini + Drobo/Alternative?

JLandis said:
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.
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I just bought a new Drobo FW800 and also using the Hitachi 7K2000 2TB drives. Other than the drives running much hotter than the 1TB 7K1000.B that I have my Drobo is silent. I don't have any of the vibration problems.

I agree that the Drobo over FW800 is way slower than any other FW800 enclosure I've ever used. Maybe it's the RAID that's slowing it down.
 
maestrokev said:
I just bought a new Drobo FW800 and also using the Hitachi 7K2000 2TB drives. Other than the drives running much hotter than the 1TB 7K1000.B that I have my Drobo is silent. I don't have any of the vibration problems.

I agree that the Drobo over FW800 is way slower than any other FW800 enclosure I've ever used. Maybe it's the RAID that's slowing it down.
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Well that is good. Glad you got a good copy. They did run somewhat silent when no data was accessing them, but the when Drobo was going through data protection mode or on a few movie streams the drives would be spinning at max and cause bad vibration sounds. Anyway...enjoy.
 
I know this is an old thread, but I was interested in knowing how your solution worked out JLandis? Still going strong? I ask because I am interested in a similar set-up, especially now with the mini packing HDMI.
 
srexy said:
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.

qx2_4.jpg
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I have had 2 of these for about a year and they have been trouble free, fast and quiet.
I use them as RAID 5 with 2TB drives for media server - HD movies, SD movies, music and photos.
 
Drobo is not fast for file transfers. For 1080p video playback it is fantastic.

I use 4 2Tb WD Caviar Black Drives. The cache and speed of the drives helps a lot.

When you have a drive fail on you and you have almost 3 TB of stuff, you are glad when you can just buy another drive and throw it in and away you go.
 
The Drobo is by far the best solution. You can swap in ANY 3.5" SATA drive anytime you want, and the BeyondRAID technology is awesome. Probably the most future-proof setup.

Edit: looks like you got the Drobo. Good purchase!
 
filemeaway said:
I know this is an old thread, but I was interested in knowing how your solution worked out JLandis? Still going strong? I ask because I am interested in a similar set-up, especially now with the mini packing HDMI.
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Hello, The system DROBO + Mac Mini has worked great with a couple of side notes.

I currently have 3 WD Green 2TB drives in the unit. I am 70% full. That is a lot of data. My concern is that I soon need to invest in a backup unit/plan for the Drobo's data. I haven't done much research into what that might be yet (another Drobo, External 4 bay) but I should have something. Right now, if one drive fails, you just swap it out with a new one. But if the drobo unit fails or the directory structure gets corrupted (1 close call which I will explain below) I am at risk of data loss.

I had one close call with the unit. When you start use of the Drobo you partition the drives to a max of 16TB, so no matter how many drives you add the computer connected to the Drobo thinks there is enough space to add data. About 3 months ago (just under 2TB of data on drobo), my Drobo unit directory structure reverted back to a partition size of 2TB (1 drive). I do not know how this happened. Even the though the data was still there I could not add any more files. I worked through email support for two weeks going back and forth trying different solutions to get the partition back to 16TB. No solution. I had to find a friend with an external drive large enough to hold all the data on the drobo. I had to transfer all files off, re-format drives and partition to 16TB, and then transfer all the data back on. I was lucky that I didn’t lose anything, but sure was a pain.

The transfer speeds from drobo to Mac is adequate. I usually have no problems. MKV files stream just fine. I have noticed one issue with large MKV files 11gb +. After transfer of the file to the drobo most of the time these large files do not play smoothly. They skip and audio is off. I think this is a replication issue though. If you wait a few hours or a day, the file has had time to span its data across drives and soon will play smooth. As a general rule I do not store MKV files over 13gb or so. I just do not have luck with smooth play at those sizes.

The quality of the video play is great. I have a Pioneer Kuro 500M 50in. display. The videos played through the Mac Mini are so crisp and HD. Just make sure you are using quality encoded video files. Now that Mac Mini has HDMI out that is great. I do not have an issue though with the HDMI conversion cable. Seems just as good.

Any more questions please ask. Enjoy! Let me know what you do.
 
So im looking at getting a mac mini just after xmas as a htpc... i have amassed lots of movie and tv data which im having to store off a few external HD's...

I want to be able to store all my data, be able to add to it and view all these through itunes...

Do you recommend the drobo 4 bay?

In a simple answer as im not the most computer literate...

Thanks...
 
srexy said:
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.

qx2_4.jpg
Click to expand...

Can you run something like this without RAID? Just have 4 separate drives.
 
I'll be damned. I just found a possible option.

http://www.sansdigital.com/mobilestor/ms2utnplus.html

Turns out they have a term what I'm looking for. It's known as "JBOD" which stands for "just a bunch of drives".

Also googling for "JBOD enclosure" and other variants brings back a bunch of different options. Awesome.
 
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I just picked up one of these:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEPT934AL2C/

I have two 2TB WD Caviar Green HDDs in it. One for my bulk media storage, one for a clone of the same drive. You can set it up in Independent, Span (JBOD), or RAID0 modes and if you need more space you can daisy chain additional units.

So far its working pretty well, there is a a bit of noise emitting from the built in fan but its nothing that's terribly annoying.
 
i have a pair of these collecting dust.


http://store.sansdigital-shop.com/ms2c1.html

they will hold a pair of 2tb hdds separately total of 4tb . if you run them as raid0 for speed they will not go over 2tb so you would put 2 1tb drives in them. but for jbod they are simple they have a switch in the back. they will give you about 50MB/s for jbod more then enough for movies.


nice gear i swapped out the loud fan and put a quiet one in. I no longer use them i have the mac pro now and use this;

http://store.sansdigital-shop.com/totr8baysass5.html


http://store.sansdigital-shop.com/totr8baysass5.html
 
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ZRD said:
I just picked up one of these:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEPT934AL2C/

I have two 2TB WD Caviar Green HDDs in it. One for my bulk media storage, one for a clone of the same drive. You can set it up in Independent, Span (JBOD), or RAID0 modes and if you need more space you can daisy chain additional units.

So far its working pretty well, there is a a bit of noise emitting from the built in fan but its nothing that's terribly annoying.
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I have had one of these for about a year. It's in my bedroom so I do hear the fan enough I have to turn up the volume. Otherwise it's a good unit. Am looking for a quieter fan for it.
 
I have a synology DS411+ with 4 1T drives in it on raid 10
it's quiet, doesn't use too much power, its on my lan as well
my apple tv pulls from it from a mac mini sever
i can access it from my iphone directly & can play any non drmed content from it.
the apple drmed videos needs itunes or my itunes & appletv to play
 
bearcatrp said:
I have had one of these for about a year. It's in my bedroom so I do hear the fan enough I have to turn up the volume. Otherwise it's a good unit. Am looking for a quieter fan for it.
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you need a fan like this


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&cm_re=scythe_fan_40mm-_-35-185-039-_-Product

you will need to cut the fan wire and patch it to this one . you have to do it because the connector is not available.

I have one of these laying around much quieter with the scythe fan. your unit must have 2 drives to work. the sans digital will work with one drive in JBOD setting. your unit is faster in raid0 the the sans digital is. your unit will do raid1 and not JBOD the sans digital will do JBOD and no raid1 both do raid0.
 
Got a response from OWC on the Qx2.....

The Qx2 is quieter due to being able to use a much larger fan that can spin more slowly.

Early next year we do have a new product line that will arrive offering an alternative to the QX2 which will allow independent drive mode. In the present – we could only go to 4 drives with RAID and non-RAID span in order to support eSATA. Next year will have full independent mode available on 4+ bay solutions that offer the quad interfaces including when connecting via eSATA.

These solutions will require matched drive for RAID modes... But we expect to officially support them for non-RAID modes when using non-matched drives as well.

I will be waiting until next year when this comes out.
 
bearcatrp said:
Got a response from OWC on the Qx2.....

The Qx2 is quieter due to being able to use a much larger fan that can spin more slowly.

Early next year we do have a new product line that will arrive offering an alternative to the QX2 which will allow independent drive mode. In the present – we could only go to 4 drives with RAID and non-RAID span in order to support eSATA. Next year will have full independent mode available on 4+ bay solutions that offer the quad interfaces including when connecting via eSATA.

These solutions will require matched drive for RAID modes... But we expect to officially support them for non-RAID modes when using non-matched drives as well.

I will be waiting until next year when this comes out.
Click to expand...


You are smart to wait it is a big investment. Say 300 plus drives 4 at 100 or 4 at 200 if you use high end ones. so at 700 to 1100 make sure you get exactly what you want.
 
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