Drobo vs Synology? (or DAS vs NAS)

[Sean Montgomery]

I'm a relative newbie when it comes to RAIDs and similar kinds of storage configurations. I've mostly just worked off 1-2 WD Black drives installed permanently inside my tower running Windows 10. So about 10TB of storage. And uh... a lot of portable 1-2TB drives.

Looking to expand that a bit and perhaps get another 10TB of storage, and I really like the ease of plug-and-play enclosures like Drobo. But I've been on the fence about buying one because reviews seem very mixed. There are people who love them and people who hate them. From my limited research, I see more positive reviews for Synology devices.

What are fellow RED editors liking these days for DAS solutions? Or is NAS the way to go? I'm just concerned about performance speed when working with large .r3d files that aren't locally attached to my computer. Maybe that's an irrational line of thinking so I'm all ears for anyone who does this without issue.

Just looking to get my feet wet with something simple that can be expanded later with more drives, if necessary -- and will allow me to edit without slowdowns in Premiere.

 

[Chad Lancaster]

run as far away from a drobo as you possibly can.

if you want something that you can grow into i'd check out 45drives.com

 

[Brendan H. Banks]

+1 on avoiding Drobo altogether.

I built my own machine so any advice I give probably wont be helpful. But really, just avoid Drobo for professional use.

 

[Tom Dowler]

FWIW I've had no problems at all with Drobo.

 

[Jarek Zabczynski]

Drobo is still a thing?

 

[Christian Mushenko]

I've had many drab's from a FS to ProFS, 2 Pro 8bay units, and 2 5D's. OF these my FS and a 5D won't reliably mount drives, so are basically door stops. I love the concept but I would steer clear. I have a Synology Disktstation 5 bay and have just added a 5 bay expansion slot to it. It is network attached, but you can add I think 4 ethernet lines to it. Not sure about editing off it, I haven't tried. But have had it for a few years and happy so far.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Friends don't let friends buy Drobo...

 

[Sean Montgomery]

So far, this thread has reinforced my concerns. So I'm likely going to continue avoiding that purchase. But still very interested in knowing what other options are out there for a small enclosure that would give me a similar experience as, shall we say, Drobo's intended concept.

The price is appealing -- as in, around $1000 for a unit slotted with 10-12TB worth of drives. And it seems people generally WANT to like Drobo's vision, but frequent failures keep them from liking it.

 

[M.Halsell]

run as far away from a drobo as you possibly can......

Run, don't walk. The Drobo specs look good on paper, but IMO are not industrial strength products. If you are servicing clients, the expectation is that your work and best practices are professional in front and behind the camera related to data integrity.

 

[Alex Kiritz]

It's not the easiest solution, but I think having your own dedicated server is the best option if you work with red footage. You can get a powerful used server with 24 hard drive bays for well under $1000. I got mine from this company. I'd recommend calling them up.

10 gigabit network cards with SFP+ connectors go for around $15 and you can get a new network switch with two 10 gigabit SFP+ ports and 24 gigabit ports for $120.

I've been using FreeNAS OS which works fine.

 

[Tucker Harrington]

I recommend DAS unless you need NAS for sharing between multiple users or accessing from multiple systems. I like Promise Pegasus RAIDs myself. I have a few and they are fast and reliable. Echoing others above, I invested in a few Drobos a few years ago and they all failed within a year. Luckily I had good backups elsewhere because I needed them.

 

[Sean Montgomery]

Anyone have thoughts about G-Technology? This seems like it would be a unit that would be in line with what I'm after:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...ogy_0g04097_g_raid_thunderbolt_2_usb_3_0.html

 

[Anthony Berenato Jr]

I have a Synology NAS for the sole purpose of holding most of my filmmaking materials (film grains, LUTs, etc.) and exports for clients, but I cannot recommend that sort of solution for editing. I can't say I've had much luck with editing off of a network-located R3D server, even at some of the agencies I've stepped foot in.

I do believe you're definitely looking into a Thunderbolt 1/2/3 or USB3 connectable RAID array, which also allows you to switch out the disks on your own accord. (With the G-Drive, you're kind of stuck.)

The Pegasus3 R4 is fairly new with 2x Thunderbolt 3 ports (if you're a Mac User):

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod..._p3r4hd12us_12tb_pegasus3_r4_thunderbolt.html

There are also countless other options with different components. I wish it was easier to find a bare drive RAID array, as I typically like to stock up with my favorite drives. The HGST 4TB drives have a 1% failure rate (compared to ~7% for other companies), and are the drive G-Tech primarily uses in their products. Sadly, the drives have been going through some changes recently - as they just bumped the cache up to 128MB and B&H hasn't bent much on the new price yet. They're usually around $150 a piece:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1322879-REG/hgst_0s04005_4tb_7200_deskstar_nas_internal.html

Also, quick note about the G-Drive... I'd rather see you get the Pegasus and have it be a central part of your system for the next 8 years than watch one of those G-Drive RAID machines get filled up and put off to the side. The Pegasus offers expandability, with the swapping of disks. (I wish I could joke about having a Pelican case of 20 4TB drives next to me, from all my projects in the last 2 years.)

 

[Ben McCarthy]

Areca have released their Thunderbolt 3 enclosures, they are also releasing smaller 4 drive configs that aren't on the page.

The Thunderbolt 2 enclosures were great devices, so looking forward to these:

http://www.areca.com.tw/products/thunderbolt3.htm

RAID Features
RAID level 0, 1, 1E, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60, Single
Disk or JBOD
Multiple RAID selection
Support up to 1MB stripe size
Online array roaming
Online RAID level/stripe size migration
SED (self-encrypting drives) function support
Support global hot spare and local hot spare
Instant availability and background initialization
Advanced configuration for smooth data streaming
Disk scrubbing/ array verify scheduling support
Multiple pairs SSD/HDD disk clone function
SSD automatic monitor clone (AMC) support
Support HDD firmware update
Complete configuration management suite
- McRAID manager – browser-based management
tool (LAN or Thunderbolt)
- Push Buttons and LCD Display panel for setup and
status
- Command Line Interface (CLI) – scriptable
configuration tool
- API libraries support – combine GUI with user
management utility
- SNMP support for remote monitoring
- SMTP support for email notification

 

[Orion Madsen]

The main thing to keep in mind is the a RAID is NOT a backup. Ideally you want to use a 3-2-1 strategy, 3 copies, two local on different platforms and one copy off-site. I have my Freenas server, and then manual backup onto bare drives every 6 months or so that I keep off-site.

+1 for avoiding Drobo, I had a 5n I was using for offline files and it died right as I was migrating to my new server.

Drobo support is awful outside of the first warranty, you have to pay in order to get email support. Not even phone support!


I found that I could build a 24 bay supermicro server and start with 6 drives for only slightly more than a 6-8 bay out of the box NAS. Now I'm up to 12 drives and about 45 TB of media, this box should take me to at least around 100 TB with only buying additional drives.