I WANT ONE!!

[glennda]

Just had a phone call about Drobo - not seen them before but for 6k for 16tbs it looks like a great solution!

 

DroboStore - Drobo 8-Bay iSCSI SAN Storage for Business (B800i)

 

and it looks quite cool

 

http://drh2.img.digitalriver.com/DRHM/Storefront/Company/drobo/images/B1200_hero_right_220x220.png

This image is a 12 bay version

[GAS]

Hi,

We have 2 Drobo 4 Disk version (Total 6TB) backing up our Apple server and 8 disk version (Total 16TB) backing up windows servers.

I must say backing and restoring much easy.

Thumb up for Drobo.

 

GAS

[CyberNerd]

just bought a 16TB Qnap for £1500

[glennda]

just bought a 16TB Qnap for £1500

 

with disks?

[CyberNerd]

with disks?

 

yes. 8X 2TB disks

[plexer]

Yeah 8 bay qnap can get it with 1TB or 2TB drives.

 

@CyberNerd Where did you buy that from?

 

Ben

[glennda]

yes. 8X 2TB disks

 

Not bad - have you got a link to it

 

I've looked into it a bit more - you don't have to buy the disks with it - its cheaper if you don't and just get from elsewhere - it then comes in at £1900 for the unit then 10 x £56 for Hard Disks - also the person i spoke to on the phone thinks they will take the 3tb disk out at the mo -

 

EDIT: it will take 3TB hdd's with a firmware upgrade http://support.datarobotics.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/506 so 24TBs!

Edited April 27, 2011 by glennda

[CyberNerd]

from Misco and disks from BT IIRC.

 

Western Digital 2TB 3.5" SATA Internal Hard Drive == £53

 

QNAP TS-809 Pro was around £1093

[CyberNerd]

Not bad - have you got a link to it

 

I've looked into it a bit more - you don't have to buy the disks with it - its cheaper if you don't and just get from elsewhere - it then comes in at £1900 for the unit then 10 x £56 for Hard Disks - also the person i spoke to on the phone thinks they will take the 3tb disk out at the mo -

 

phone your supplier - don't go on the internet prices.

 

they can definitely get the QNAP TS-809 Pro for less than £1100

[glennda]

I'm not thats just a rough guide - although 24tbs of storage is tempting - will the qnap do that?

[gshaw]

Hmm sounds very cheap for pushing disk backups out to, what's the catch, does it use desktop drives or something like that to get the price down?

 

I've currently got an HP DL180 specced up for Veeam which comes in around 2k with 5 x 2TB SATA disks, plenty for the space we need but interested to see exactly what the £1500 box can do... is it just a storage target?

[glennda]

Hmm sounds very cheap for pushing disk backups out to, what's the catch, does it use desktop drives or something like that to get the price down?

 

I've currently got an HP DL180 specced up for Veeam which comes in around 2k with 5 x 2TB SATA disks, plenty for the space we need but interested to see exactly what the £1500 box can do... is it just a storage target?

 

it uses any drives you put in it!

 

Also for the ability for 5k to have 2 units that replicate data to one another - not bad really.

[CyberNerd]

Hmm sounds very cheap for pushing disk backups out to, what's the catch, does it use desktop drives or something like that to get the price down?

 

 

yes. thats the catch. with a 16TB on Raid 6 with 1 hot spare I see 9TB - but I can loose 3 disks before it fails.

you could set it up in a less bulleproof way and see more space.

 

Max Qnap is 8 disk unit - not sure what the maximum capacity drives it will take

[glennda]

The Drobo system uses something called Beyond Raid Which appears to be able to use the full amount (i.e 16tbs) if i have read the info correctly.

[plexer]

Yeah drobo have their own system tbh I'd be happy sticking with known raid.

 

Ben

[localzuk]

I'm waiting for the 12 bay model to come out, as it has SAS support as well as SATA.

[glennda]

I'm waiting for the 12 bay model to come out, as it has SAS support as well as SATA.

 

Yep i was thinking that but have requested a demo unit. It says the 2nd quarter of this year so hopefully about now!

[localzuk]

Yep i was thinking that but have requested a demo unit. It says the 2nd quarter of this year so hopefully about now!

 

Yeah, hopefully. I'm pondering it as a potential host for my planned virtualisation project.

[pantscat]

@localzuk - I'd be interested to hear how that would work as backend storage for a virtualisation setup.

[localzuk]

@localzuk - I'd be interested to hear how that would work as backend storage for a virtualisation setup.

 

Its an iSCSI storage device, so you'd just use it like any other iSCSI device.

[pantscat]

Yeah - I didn't phrase that quite right. I meant in terms of performance.

[glennda]

Its an iSCSI storage device, so you'd just use it like any other iSCSI device.

 

Having just spoken with a friend at another school apparently the iSCSI bit can be flakey - and you can't configure it through the ethernet ports while its enabled you have to take it offline and do it via usb!

[mac_shinobi]

Because Drobo use there own filing system how would you do data recovery or is it just a case of fling a new hdd in and the rest is good assuming the controllers on it are ok.

 

I was looking into this some time ago and found a raid card that supported 24 SATA 2 HDD's , a cheap case that will hold all of the drives and was looking at buying a sea sonic PSU ( at least one ) and then just a case of all the sata and power cables, motherboard, cpu , ram and using something along the lines of free nas, open filer or the likes

 

At the time I was looking at the 2tb Samsung spin point F4 drives which have a good price

[mac_shinobi]

Having just spoken with a friend at another school apparently the iSCSI bit can be flakey - and you can't configure it through the ethernet ports while its enabled you have to take it offline and do it via usb!

 

That's true and you can't have the Ethernet and USB ports connected at the same time , you have to configure it via USB and then disconnect USB and re connect via ethernet etc etc. From reading around on forums etc

[plexer]

Yuck.

 

Ben