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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Drobo Pro - useable for R3D files?

Martin Weiss

Martin Weiss

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Just found out about the Drobo Pro (http://drobo.com/products/drobopro/index.php). We have a first gen Drobo from before (and use it to backup all R1 footage), and are very happy about its concept and ease of use - but it is slooooow, especially on a Mac.

Now, the Pro has not only 8 bays, but features a port I have never heard of before, called iSCSI (http://drobo.com/resources/iscsi.php), which works over ethernet.

Has anyone tried using the Pro with R3D files. Obviously not meant for heavy editing, but for longer-term storage with the ability to pull files off rather quickly?
 
I really like the Drobo Pro (Abel sells 'em of course), but I do think that it is a tool for the edit room and not something to be taken out into the field.
 
Sorry, just for clarification, the Drobo would indeed be less-than ideal for field use.

We use it in the edit room, to keep a copy of all non-tape footage.

What sort of speeds do you get on the Pro on either FW800 or iSCSI and a Mac?
 
Be wary of tech support

Be wary of tech support

Just FYI - we've had three tech support incidents with our (Gen 2, non-pro) Drobo. Our experience has been that if they have to call you back because the call has to be moved up the tech support chain, be prepared to wait 3-5 DAYS for a return call.

There was a Drobo rep at the RedUser event at NAB with whom we chatted about our experience... he expressed awareness of the issues and indicated that they have limited tech support resources.

Our point to them is that if they want to be in the production and post-production business, they MUST reduce wait times... I cannot rely on a "solution" that can't be fixed when I need it to be fixed.

Your mileage may vary.
 
drobo pro is still slooooooow.....

It will run about 95MB/s or so connected via FW800 as that's the physical limits of that connection.

iSCSI is increasing in popularity and that's due to a simplicity issue and not much else. Over gigabit ethernet, the MAX throughput is about 122MB/s, but in reality it's near impossible to sustain a speed like that over time and with other network traffic and overhead. I think in a good or ideal situation, you can expect somewhere about 80~90MB/s over iSCSI and gig-E.

As with the previous drobo, I've regularly made these comments and they still apply here. Drobo is "RAID for dummies". It's tuned for convenience and user friendliness. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but there are plenty of other solutions out there that offer much more efficient use of storage and much higher performance. But drobo is good if you don't want to manage RAID systems and just want something that offers acceptable, but slow, performance for online file storage.
 
This looks like it could be a very cost effective and simple way to keep a mirror or periodic backup of our high-performance SAN server. Not as robust as LTO but still a backup none the less.

Why wouldn't they have put eSATA on it as well I wonder...
 
Just received mine (first in Canada I believe). I'll let you know how well it works...
 
Yeah it's fine for a home media torrent, video and music server but not suitable at all for an editorial environment in my opinion. Try CalDigit or G-Tech for these sorts of solutions.

-Noah
 
Just hooked up my new Drobo Pro with 4x Seagate 1.5TB drives and ran some file copies... impressive for the price. 70-80MB/s write and 80-90MB/s read over iSCSI. That was on my office network too, to a Macbook Pro no less.

CPU usage seemed high (a kernel task, which makes me think it's the iSCSI connector) which might be a problem in an editorial scenario. I'll hook it up to a new i7 Mac Pro next week and see what it does.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
It's tuned for convenience and user friendliness. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but there are plenty of other solutions out there that offer much more efficient use of storage and much higher performance. But drobo is good if you don't want to manage RAID systems and just want something that offers acceptable, but slow, performance for online file storage.
Click to expand...

what he said. PAINFULLY slow.
 
Looking forward to hearing your impressions when you hook it up to the i7 Mac Pro. I'm also curious... what sort of switches and networking cable are you using on your network?

Thank you.

Trevor Meier said:
Just hooked up my new Drobo Pro with 4x Seagate 1.5TB drives and ran some file copies... impressive for the price. 70-80MB/s write and 80-90MB/s read over iSCSI. That was on my office network too, to a Macbook Pro no less.

CPU usage seemed high (a kernel task, which makes me think it's the iSCSI connector) which might be a problem in an editorial scenario. I'll hook it up to a new i7 Mac Pro next week and see what it does.
Click to expand...
 
Mark L. Pederson said:
what he said. PAINFULLY slow.
Click to expand...

Ya, the original Drobo's were awful: 15-20MB/s was the best I could coax out of four, 1TB Seagate ES.2 drives in a gen-1 enclosure.

This new Drobo Pro is a nice product though, if what you're looking for is safe, cheap, and big... and all you need is 70-80MB/s.
 
Trevor Meier said:
and all you need is 70-80MB/s.
Click to expand...

That's the catch.... For editing / transcoding, this 70-80MB/s would be painfully slow for me. And I'm just a one-man-show with one or two part time helpers.

Keep in mind that the RED Drive offloads at about 75MB/s. And, IMO, it's way too slow and cumbersome to seriously work off of.

...Kinda fits with the old "reliable, fast, cheap. Pick any two"
 
Beyond the complaints of sloooooooow, the Drobo also uses a proprietary system for it's "magical" RAID, so if the system goes down, data recovery is EXTREMELY painful (if not impossible).
 
I don't care how fast or slow the damn thing is, what they really need to change is the name. Drobo, indeed, who wants to own a product named Drobo, it even sounds slow...
 
I've never understood why anyone in the professional community would even look at a Drobo. Might be nice to use as a storage device for your finished projects, but if you are storing anything high quality like 1080p uncompressed you can forget about playing back off of a Drobo.
 
Emery Wells said:
I've never understood why anyone in the professional community would even look at a Drobo. Might be nice to use as a storage device for your finished projects, but if you are storing anything high quality like 1080p uncompressed you can forget about playing back off of a Drobo.
Click to expand...

I agree with that. I have a DroboPro myself, but every tool for its own purpose. The DroboPro is a terrible editing RAID, you couldn't edit off this thing honestly, that'd be painful. But it's a great backup for finished projects. Honestly who cares how long it takes to transfer data to the thing? If I'm transferring a finished project for long-term backup (and it's great for that, dual redundancy, I have mine loaded with 8 x 2 TB drives), I don't care if it takes all night to transfer to the thing. Doesn't make any difference to me. I have my feature film backed up on the DroboPro, also in other sources, but that's one of the backups.

For editing, I use my much more professional and exceptional HDOne, which has great service from those guys, it's extremely fast and advisable to use for editing directly off it (much faster than one hard drive on your computer, which is unacceptably slow), and I have mine loaded with 8 x 1 TB drives with one redundant drive. One time, my HDOne was having issues connecting to the computer, it was apparently a problem with the unit itself and the power supply in it or something. In any case, the guy at CalDigit was awesome. He told me to remove my drives, send them back the HDOne unit, and they'd send me a new unit immediately. The unit arrived *the next day*, without them having even received my unit yet, and I was back up and running that fast! It was totally awesome and made me realize why you pay a premium for professional service and professional products. I can't say enough about what a great product they made and their fantastic service.
 
Martin Weiss said:
Just found out about the Drobo Pro (http://drobo.com/products/drobopro/index.php). We have a first gen Drobo from before (and use it to backup all R1 footage), and are very happy about its concept and ease of use - but it is slooooow, especially on a Mac.

Now, the Pro has not only 8 bays, but features a port I have never heard of before, called iSCSI (http://drobo.com/resources/iscsi.php), which works over ethernet.

Has anyone tried using the Pro with R3D files. Obviously not meant for heavy editing, but for longer-term storage with the ability to pull files off rather quickly?
Click to expand...

I have had the unfortunate nightmare of working with the DROBO. It was a horrible experience and I hope no one else has to work with DROBO. No one should ever CHOOSE to use the DROBO on purpose.

If you like cursing a lot, making sure stuff is always failing, having hard drives disapeer, having weird buggy software and horrible patches. If you want to feel like you are using a HASBRO PLAYSCHOOL BLOCKS to build a real HOUSE, then use the DROBO.
 
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