# Drobo or OWC?



## dmd (May 26, 2010)

RE a post of about a year ago:  I've been looking at the Drobo since I've lost photos to bad planning. The OWC RAIDed enclosures look good for price and function [the Drobo's "Beyond RAID" looks a lot like RAID 5 to me so, maybe no difference there]. Any thoughts about this before I drop my dime? Thanks.


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## billg71 (Jun 9, 2010)

Wow, no replies? To a very good question? 

Well, I'll take a shot....

First of all, I'm not a big DROBO fan: they're expensive and slow(unless you want to spend even more money). The faster you want to connect the more you'll spend, and if you want reasonable access speeds for your photos and(presumably your LR catalog) it'll cost you a premium for the eSATA version.

On the other hand, the DROBO is extremely tolerant when it comes to drive size and type/manufacturer. You can mix drives of different sizes from different manufacturers and different series among the manufacturers, while a RAID array is much more particular. Unless you're willing to populate your RAID array with identical drives and buy a couple of spares in the process, the DROBO comes out on top here.

Another area the DROBO comes out ahead is in fault tolerance. Let's say you're running a RAID 5 and a drive goes bad... So you install a new drive and the setup goes about rebuilding the volume. But then another drive fails. Now you're screwed, everything's gone. From what I've read, multiple failures aren't a problem with the DROBO.

In spite of what I've said, I'd only recommend a DROBO or other multiple-drive setup if your current active storage needs exceeds the capacity of the number of 2TB drives your case and/or power supply will accommodate. Multiple-drive storage systems are for capacity and convenience, not redundance. They ARE NOT a substitute for a good backup strategy, they provide no safety in the event of a major catastrophe(your house burns down, God forbid, or a lightning bolt strikes your transformer and fries everything electronic in your house, or the power supply for your external enclosure goes wonky and fries the drives and/or controller circuit board(do I need to go on?)). If your files don't exist in two separate physical locations, your files aren't safe. Period. End of story.

Drobos and the like are great if you need the capacity and are willing to shell out the bucks for a reasonable connect speed, but they don't do squat for ensuring you keep your data in the event of a catastrophe. So don't waste time and money on one thinking your files will be safe no matter what.

Just MHO,
Bill


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## CrashCraig (Sep 12, 2010)

A little late on posting but it may be of interest.
I believe Bill is right on key with his opinion (HOO). I purchased the DROBO a year ago and upgraded drives several times to end up with 8TB (video from my Canon 5D MK2) and like the convenience of the DROBO. It is too slow for editing in FCP and have since turned it into the ultimate backup drive, and use G-Drive's eSATA 4TB drives for my main drives and backup to the DROBO. I say ultimate because it really feels good to have both the G-Drive and the DROBO keeping my files safe. Its almost like having 3 copies since the DROBO is so disk failure safe....
IMHO,
Craig


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## ukbrown (Sep 12, 2010)

Is the DROBO in the same location as your other files (in your house) if it is it's not really a backup.

At least one backup should always be kept off site.


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