Drobo Storage Solution
23rd Jun 08I have just acquired from the Outdoorphoto Shop a Drobo from Data Robotics.
The Drobo is simply a storage robot that handles the complexity of a multiple drive storage solution and makes that combined space available as a contiguous area. Data Robotics have really made the device as simple to use as possible in so far as you can add and remove drives to the device at any stage and they can even be of different capacities to allow you to grow your solution as your needs and budget allow.
There's no configuration or admin required for the device. Simply plug the hard drives in, and install into an available USB port and you're good to go. After a once off initialisation you can add additional hard drives or remove one if it fails or the data becomes corrupted and the Drobo will reconfigure itself accordingly.
This is not a RAID device, so the robot manages in a proprietary format the mechanisms necessary to redundantly "stripe" data across the other drives. With fancy lights and an admin tool if necessary the Drobo advises you constantly on the available capacity and performance of your drives.
The one down-side of this device is you require an additional purchase of a DroboShare unit in order to share the device on the network and the initial outlay isn't that cheap.
Needless to say I have bought four (4) 1TB Seagate SATA II drives to go with this unit which will result in an available capacity of 2.7TB (with the remainder of the space being used for redundant storage).
It will be comforting to know that my images are safely backed up in the event of disaster and may even help clean up my image archive and get some order back into the chaos. Or it will simply add to the chaos of already overflowing existing storage devices. Time and due diligence will tell.
The important thing to remember is that hard drive devices are mechanical and they WILL fail. It's not a matter of when; it will happen at some point and it's up to you to be prepared for that eventuality.
The intention here is to use Allways Sync software to ensure that my original RAW files (which get converted to .DNG by the way during import - but that's another story), my derivatives (post-processed files), my catalogs and my output files (for print, album, web etc) are all safely backed up off my current working drives in the event of failure.
Allways Synch is great software in that it's free and allows you to setup syncrhonisation jobs of varying complexity to ensure that the contents of folders are...well kept in synch. It has a really easy to use interface and just runs; and runs well; in the background doing what you need it to do.
So as I say, hopefully my backup concerns are now put to rest. For me this is especially important as I'm about to be put in charge of someones very special memories - their wedding photo's.
The Drobo is simply a storage robot that handles the complexity of a multiple drive storage solution and makes that combined space available as a contiguous area. Data Robotics have really made the device as simple to use as possible in so far as you can add and remove drives to the device at any stage and they can even be of different capacities to allow you to grow your solution as your needs and budget allow.
There's no configuration or admin required for the device. Simply plug the hard drives in, and install into an available USB port and you're good to go. After a once off initialisation you can add additional hard drives or remove one if it fails or the data becomes corrupted and the Drobo will reconfigure itself accordingly.
This is not a RAID device, so the robot manages in a proprietary format the mechanisms necessary to redundantly "stripe" data across the other drives. With fancy lights and an admin tool if necessary the Drobo advises you constantly on the available capacity and performance of your drives.
The one down-side of this device is you require an additional purchase of a DroboShare unit in order to share the device on the network and the initial outlay isn't that cheap.
Needless to say I have bought four (4) 1TB Seagate SATA II drives to go with this unit which will result in an available capacity of 2.7TB (with the remainder of the space being used for redundant storage).
It will be comforting to know that my images are safely backed up in the event of disaster and may even help clean up my image archive and get some order back into the chaos. Or it will simply add to the chaos of already overflowing existing storage devices. Time and due diligence will tell.
The important thing to remember is that hard drive devices are mechanical and they WILL fail. It's not a matter of when; it will happen at some point and it's up to you to be prepared for that eventuality.
The intention here is to use Allways Sync software to ensure that my original RAW files (which get converted to .DNG by the way during import - but that's another story), my derivatives (post-processed files), my catalogs and my output files (for print, album, web etc) are all safely backed up off my current working drives in the event of failure.
Allways Synch is great software in that it's free and allows you to setup syncrhonisation jobs of varying complexity to ensure that the contents of folders are...well kept in synch. It has a really easy to use interface and just runs; and runs well; in the background doing what you need it to do.
So as I say, hopefully my backup concerns are now put to rest. For me this is especially important as I'm about to be put in charge of someones very special memories - their wedding photo's.
