I run two drives (160GB for now) in RAID1 (simple mirroring) in my computer, and recently got a 500GB Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo NAS that likewise runs two drives in RAID1. This just has it's own drive letter in Windows. I just periodically copy from my computer photo partition onto the Buffalo using Windows Explorer, and periodically delete off the computer to make space. So, stone simple, nothing automatic, I have to perform the copy when I feel it's time, and there's always two copies of each file, each on its own hard drive. I think uploading to an offsite secure facility would be my next level.
I looked at Drobo but the USB only is lame. When they come out with an NAS it'll be the bizness, though really only a subtle improvement over RAID5, imho.
Peace,
Sanaka
WooHooo! New dSLR!:barb : Canon XSi / 450D
Kit lens for now: 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 IS
I looked at Drobo but the USB only is lame. When they come out with an NAS it'll be the bizness, though really only a subtle improvement over RAID5, imho.
Drobo already has a NAS attachment for their enclosure... it's I think $200 more and you plug the Drobo into it. The really nice thing is that the file system is the same... you can direct plug the Drobo to a computer, or you can plug the Drobo into the NAS front-end; no reformatting or anything necessary.
USB only is somewhat lame... but from what I've heard, another interface (Firewire or eSATA) would make it no faster. The unit is internally limited to 20-25 MB/sec, so that being the case, a bus speed that's faster than that won't make a difference. USB2 is "fast enough" for the unit.
I'd like them to optimize their internal interface and then come up with a faster bus speed... I'd be in the Firewire camp.
Drobo already has a NAS attachment for their enclosure... it's I think $200 more and you plug the Drobo into it. The really nice thing is that the file system is the same... you can direct plug the Drobo to a computer, or you can plug the Drobo into the NAS front-end; no reformatting or anything necessary.
USB only is somewhat lame... but from what I've heard, another interface (Firewire or eSATA) would make it no faster. The unit is internally limited to 20-25 MB/sec, so that being the case, a bus speed that's faster than that won't make a difference. USB2 is "fast enough" for the unit.
I'd like them to optimize their internal interface and then come up with a faster bus speed... I'd be in the Firewire camp.
Good knowledge on the bus speed. It's a shame that they haven't considered higher speed needs as being considered standard.
But as you said, USB is only partially lame. I could be off base, but once anyone has all their documents on a DROBO. How many times are they really going to need really lighting fast data transfer?
I'm definately holding out until they re-vamp their architecture or find another JBOD solution.
The lameness of USB-only to me is not speed but that I want my big storage bank directly networked. I hadn't heard of the NAS attachment, so that's cool! Still worth weighing against RAID5 NAS though.
Peace,
Sanaka
WooHooo! New dSLR!:barb : Canon XSi / 450D
Kit lens for now: 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 IS
The lameness of USB-only to me is not speed but that I want my big storage bank directly networked. I hadn't heard of the NAS attachment, so that's cool! Still worth weighing against RAID5 NAS though.
Peace,
Sanaka
Yeah, personally I have an Infrant (now Netgear?) ReadyNAS and it's awesome. Gigabit Ethernet, which I get ~30 MB/sec reads/writes to, I have 2 TB of usable space with 4x750 GB drives... overall it's quite nice. And it supports AFP, SMB, NFS, DAV, HTTPS, etc. Personally I use AFP from my Macs and it's been great in my year of usage so far.
Comments
I looked at Drobo but the USB only is lame. When they come out with an NAS it'll be the bizness, though really only a subtle improvement over RAID5, imho.
Peace,
Sanaka
Kit lens for now: 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 IS
Drobo already has a NAS attachment for their enclosure... it's I think $200 more and you plug the Drobo into it. The really nice thing is that the file system is the same... you can direct plug the Drobo to a computer, or you can plug the Drobo into the NAS front-end; no reformatting or anything necessary.
USB only is somewhat lame... but from what I've heard, another interface (Firewire or eSATA) would make it no faster. The unit is internally limited to 20-25 MB/sec, so that being the case, a bus speed that's faster than that won't make a difference. USB2 is "fast enough" for the unit.
I'd like them to optimize their internal interface and then come up with a faster bus speed... I'd be in the Firewire camp.
But as you said, USB is only partially lame. I could be off base, but once anyone has all their documents on a DROBO. How many times are they really going to need really lighting fast data transfer?
I'm definately holding out until they re-vamp their architecture or find another JBOD solution.
Peace,
Sanaka
Kit lens for now: 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 IS
Yeah, personally I have an Infrant (now Netgear?) ReadyNAS and it's awesome. Gigabit Ethernet, which I get ~30 MB/sec reads/writes to, I have 2 TB of usable space with 4x750 GB drives... overall it's quite nice. And it supports AFP, SMB, NFS, DAV, HTTPS, etc. Personally I use AFP from my Macs and it's been great in my year of usage so far.