Storage/Network options

thecommander

Trying to figure out the best way to configure my network at home/home office.

In sitting room
Mac Mini running Plex
1 Gb HD
Airport Express

In home office
Macbook Pro
Printer
4 x External HDs

I was thinking of buying a Drobo unit for the office, stick all my externals in it and tidying it all up. Wanted to put all my movies etc from the Mac Mini downstairs on it too, and replacing the Mac Mini with an AppleTV in the sitting room.

The Mac Mini then could be moved to the office as a second computer, and would run Plex Media server that the AppleTV would connect to.

The MBP is used for 99% of my work, and comes with me when Im out.

What Im trying to figure out is the best way to connect it all. I want the Mac Mini to be able to access the Drobo, but I also want the Drobo to be connected the fastest way possible to my MBP. When I disconnect my MBP I still want the drobo to be connected to rest of the network.


Can anyone help me figure it out? Is the Drobo the wrong option?

Stainless_Steel

What you need my friend is a Drobo FS.....the NAS version of Drobo.

I have one and it is pretty cool. 5 HDD bays with 1 or 2 redundant disks (configurable). I have the exact set up you are looking for. Have everything except system files on the Drobo. Have a jailbroken Apple TV gen 2 with the Plex client to watch everything in the sitting room. Works a treat.

In terms of transfer speed, I am getting 27 MB/s transfers to the Drobo when my computer is ethernet wired. I have never seen that using a USB attached external disk.

john__long

Stainless_Steel wrote: »

What you need my friend is a Drobo FS.....the NAS version of Drobo.

+bajillion

I'm currently saving to get one! If anyone wants to donate to a good cause (poor student), please do!

Talisman

Can I ask why Drobo? QNAP, ReadyNAS, Synology and Thecus offer similar NAS products which deliver better performance.

I'm just curious as this is the second thread I've seen recently mentioning Drobo.

Stainless_Steel

Drobo products use what they call BeyondRAID technology. There is lots of details on their website.

Essentially there are no limitations that traditional RAID has, such as specific order of disks, use disks of equal size, inability to increase array size without starting over. Drobo does not have these limitations.

Also, as the Drobo FS is essentially a PC running Linux, you can install applications to it to extend It's features such as FTP serving, media serving etc

thecommander

Stainless_Steel wrote: »

What you need my friend is a Drobo FS.....the NAS version of Drobo.

I have one and it is pretty cool. 5 HDD bays with 1 or 2 redundant disks (configurable). I have the exact set up you are looking for. Have everything except system files on the Drobo. Have a jailbroken Apple TV gen 2 with the Plex client to watch everything in the sitting room. Works a treat.

In terms of transfer speed, I am getting 27 MB/s transfers to the Drobo when my computer is ethernet wired. I have never seen that using a USB attached external disk.

Was thinking as much. Was worried the transfer speeds over ethernet would be really slow compared to USB/Firewire.

doopa

Talisman wrote: »

Can I ask why Drobo? QNAP, ReadyNAS, Synology and Thecus offer similar NAS products which deliver better performance.

I'm just curious as this is the second thread I've seen recently mentioning Drobo.

Er... cos this is the Mac forum where the marketing campaign used to sell you products is as important (perhaps more so) than the actual product.;)

Whilst the Drobo box is nice - the options you list offer similar services at a much reduced price.

thecommander

doopa wrote: »

Er... cos this is the Mac forum where the marketing campaign used to sell you products is as important (perhaps more so) than the actual product.;)

Whilst the Drobo box is nice - the options you list offer similar services at a much reduced price.

No need to be a tool.

As I said in the last line of my post;

Can anyone help me figure it out? Is the Drobo the wrong option?

john__long

Drobo seems perfect to me. I'm biased, I haven't researched the alternatives. I've been watching Drobo for the last few years. Still haven't managed to get one yet!

I think they look effective, aesthetically pleasing and, like my laptop, they just work!

Talisman

Stainless_Steel wrote: »

Drobo products use what they call BeyondRAID technology. There is lots of details on their website.

Essentially there are no limitations that traditional RAID has, such as specific order of disks, use disks of equal size, inability to increase array size without starting over. Drobo does not have these limitations.

Also, as the Drobo FS is essentially a PC running Linux, you can install applications to it to extend It's features such as FTP serving, media serving etc

There's nothing new or unique to Drobo listed there. Infrant launched their ReadyNAS product in 2004 offering X-RAID as a setup option. X-RAID offered all the benefits of RAID along with the ability to swap in larger drives to create a larger disk array dynamically. It was revolutionary at the time but it's a standard feature now.

QNAP call it Online RAID
Synology call it Hybrid RAID
Thecus call it RAID Expansion

The technology is the same idea as Drobo's BeyondRAID.

All of the systems run a Linux kernel and offer similar suite of features : FTP, Web hosting, Database hosting, iTunes/UPnP/DLNA media servers, Torrent clients.

If I was to buy a new NAS today I would go for a Synology because the company wipes the floor with the others in terms of their customer service.

Stainless_Steel

Talisman wrote: »

There's nothing new or unique to Drobo listed there. Infrant launched their ReadyNAS product in 2004 offering X-RAID as a setup option. X-RAID offered all the benefits of RAID along with the ability to swap in larger drives to create a larger disk array dynamically. It was revolutionary at the time but it's a standard feature now.

QNAP call it Online RAID
Synology call it Hybrid RAID
Thecus call it RAID Expansion

The technology is the same idea as Drobo's BeyondRAID.

All of the systems run a Linux kernel and offer similar suite of features : FTP, Web hosting, Database hosting, iTunes/UPnP/DLNA media servers, Torrent clients.

If I was to buy a new NAS today I would go for a Synology because the company wipes the floor with the others in terms of their customer service.

Ooops I should have researched more before I purchased the Drobo

Synology looks good.....they've an awful website though.

jester77

I would go with QNAP or Synology. I prefer QNAP but either of these will give you a great device that is very extendable and has excellent 3rd party support.

You mention plex media server. It would be worth your while also looking at Unraid. The plex developers are going to add linux support for the media server and while it should run on QNAP or Synology hardware and be ok for streaming, I'm not sure if their limited RAM and Atom CPU can handle transcoding on the fly. Plex media server on a capable NAS device would mean that you wouldn't need a mac sitting between your NAS and Apple TV

brav

Well you could put XBMC on your Apple Tv, and that can read the files off your NAS, no need for plex server(although I do like plex for its ease of use, but XBMC once configured is just as good)

I would also go for Synology or QNAP over Drobo

thecommander

Right so. Bought the Drobo FS. Have it connected to my AE and all is working fine. Have an iTunes server set up on it which is nice.

Might be a bit slow for my day to day design use but great to have a box that can be dumped out of sight and pretty much looks after itself.

Currently transfering over the data on each of my externals and then taking apart and using the drive in the Drobo. Pity there wasn't a way that you could insert the drive and it would cover over there.

Bonavox

I have a Synology DS211j and love it. The features are excellent, definitely a great addition to my network.

Talisman

thecommander wrote: »

Right so. Bought the Drobo FS. Have it connected to my AE and all is working fine. Have an iTunes server set up on it which is nice.

Might be a bit slow for my day to day design use but great to have a box that can be dumped out of sight and pretty much looks after itself.

Currently transfering over the data on each of my externals and then taking apart and using the drive in the Drobo. Pity there wasn't a way that you could insert the drive and it would cover over there.

Does the Drobo not have the facility to connect an external drive to it and directly transfer the files from it?