I have mixed feelings about that unit.
It does seem to have a certain magic however at a price.
When you swap drives around it has to shuffle a lot of data around. While it's doing that performance slows to a crawl, understandably. It does seem pretty popular with the stills guys and for them it'd probably work well. I'm not convinced about how well it'd perform handling smaller numbers of much larger files.
I do believe since that video on COW was done the capabilities of the unit has been enhanced, particularly network access.
As for being "Grazie-Proof". Well, any of these things potentially can have a glitch, as with anything it can pay dividends in the long run to have a rudimentary understanding of what's going on under the hood, just so you can avoid things most likely to make the wheels fall off.
For example, they tout the ability to just unplug a drive and replace it with a larger capacity one. What's not so apparent is that while the unit is shuffling the data around you've lost redundancy so your data is at risk. Admittedly that's way more convenient than my NAS box. To increase storage in that I've got to backup all the data and replace all the drives, rebuild the RAID and then load all the data back. A bit of a PIA for sure but it does force me to think about what I'm doing and how safe the data is.
The risks involved increase with drive capacity. How valuable is what you'll be storing on the drives, would your business suffer a major loss if it was all lost.
This is an issue I need to think though too and I don't have all the answers but I'm fast coming to grips with the questions.

Bob.

Thanks Guys!

Yes:

* Price - Seen this £350 inc TAXES - ppphooraghhh and that's without drives

* Yes I read and listened to the swappies options. The ease and usage seems very appealing. No need for me to be RAID savvy.

* I like the mixed size options.

OK, the Presenter lithely swapped out and plug-in a "naked" drive. Seems neat. Now, Boyz, where and HOW do I store those naked HDs? Hmmm?

I think the price is 3x too much for what it is.

Grazie

We had a long drobo debate in here a while back. You seem to have nailed the salient points. Most of us thought it was way more expensive than it was worth. The ease of swapping seems rather moot considering that you might be swapping a drive a couple of times or less during the lifetime of the unit.

I'll also point out that the 'naked drive' thing seems ridiculously overblown as anyone who has ever installed or swapped a drive in *any* pc or external storage unit has handled a naked drive, so i can't imagine why it's so much more frighteningly worse doing so with the drobo.

"I'll also point out that the 'naked drive' thing seems ridiculously overblown . . . i can't imagine why it's so much more frighteningly worse doing so with the drobo."

Actually, Kelly me lad, what I asked was "Now, Boyz, where and HOW do I store those naked HDs? Hmmm?" Plus is there any residual "charge" on these puppies I need to aware of?

If this "thing" was like £89.99 I'd buy one. But for 350 quid?!? I can buy another slave pc PLUS a screen PLUS a keyboard PLUS a mouse PLUS etc etc etc - My opinion? Someone is having a real larf!! Actually, a box some lights and a power supply? Make that £59.99

Grazie

Keep the anti-static bags that the drives came in and immediately slide them in the bag. Always touch some part of the metal case with your fingertip before removing the drive to neutralize any charge you may have. The drives themselves are pretty sturdy and withstand a *lot* of rough handling, as long as you don't dent or scratch the circuit board underneath. Once you've got them in their antistatic bags, toss 'em in a drawer.

Heck, we have a pile of old drives at work pulled out of servers that have been upgraded. We keep them around mostly out of the boss' paranoia that we might have forgotten to copy something off the old drive (we never have, because we always mirror the *entire* drive before removing it), and partly because we occasionally have to fix client's ancient workstations that sometimes can't handle larger newer drives so it's handy to have a stack of old clunkers. We toss them on shelves in a cupboard without even using the bags. The get banged around, stacked, dropped, flipped, tossed, mangled, spindled, folded ... well, you get the idea ... with no protection whatsoever. Never had a one go bad yet.

The reason the thing is so expensive is because it is pretty much a PC plus you're paying for the development cost of the software running in it.
I suspect you're not quite understanding the difference between running drives in RAID and running Just a Bunch Of Ordinary Disks (JBOD). The latter is way cheaper as it involves less software but you get no redundancy i.e. if any of the drives fails you loose the data on that drive. RAID attempts to solve that problem and / or provide faster access and transfer rates.

If you pulled a disk out of the Drobo and put it on a shelf that doesn't pull the files off the device, that's the whole point of the RAID technolgy they're using. All the files are striped accross all the drives such that if one fails or is removed all the files are still intact. You pay a price for this. Put 4x 1TB drives into the Drobo or any redundant RAID box and you get less than 4TB of storage space, probably closer to 3TB.

Bob.

If you can find some of the old videocassette storage drawers that feature push-to-open functionality (the horizontal type, although I see no terrible problem if they're the vertical type) they're the absolute cat's meow for naked drive storage.

The reason the thing is so expensive is because it is pretty much a PC plus you're paying for the development cost of the software running in it. - Uh-huh.

I suspect you're not quite understanding . . . . - For sure!!

Grazie

Right on what Bob said. The drobo isn't intended for removable storage. The only way to do that would be to pull *ALL* the drives out, store them together, keeping track of which drive came from where, and then replace them *ALL* in the correct order when you wanted the data back. Really the only reason to pull a drive out and put another one in is due to drive failure. That's why i said you'd probably only be swapping drives a couple times over the unit's lifetime, or even your own lifetime for that matter.

What you might find more useful and interesting is a drive carosel, like the tape cart carosels used by radio stations. Load up a bunch of carts that you want to access now, play what you want from each or record new stuff into it. When you need something else, pop out the cart you don't need anymore and pop another one in. That would be a handy sort of hard drive unit to have! But, it wouldn't be RAID.

The drobo isn't intended for removable storage.

Oh really? I couldn't use them, the HDs like MASSIVE floppy discs? Uh-hah! Now THAT I am starting to understand. Thanks Gents.

I thought this would be a neat way to store various client's projects. And then archive and then move on? So would this device be for is a semi-permanent HD array?

Grazie

I had the same question a few time ago... maybe could provide a litlle more light on top of these answers? ;)

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=605362

Thermaltake, StarTech, VanTec and others make these little $35 docks now that I'm starting to use for project archiving.

While working on a project the files reside on my internal raid. After moving on, the files get copied to a naked SATA drive via a dock and then stored away.

The docks certainly are no speed demons, but you just run the copy overnight.

Why couldn't they be used for archiving?

Didn't the video say there was an indication light when each disk was nearly full? Couldn't use that to swap out the drives for storage?

If the drives are RAIDed, then you *CANNOT* swap individual drives. The drive you remove will be useless without the others. The drive you insert will immediately be filled with a copy of the same data that was on the drive you removed (and therefore end up just as full). Utterly pointless for removable storage, but perfectly understandable for RAID maintenance.

I was had the understanding that these weren't RAID drives.

edit: Went back to the site for more information. I guess it's a type of "new and improved" RAID, what they refer to as "Beyond RAID."

So if I do a bunch of projects, then store a couple of drives when they get full, how do I know where to find clip No. xxxx.xx from project yyyy.veg?

Walla.

Recordkeeping.

Not exactly the same, but anyone recommend one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817392022

The Vantec dock is their version of the original Thermaltake BlacX dock. I have the BlacX and it is GREAT for temporarily accessing any of the fifty or so SATA drives that I use for archiving projects.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153071

The Vantec does come with an eSATA bracket and cable.

Thanks 24Peter & John.

How about this puppy? http://www.storagedepot.co.uk/Enclosures-and-Cases/sc884/p263.aspxAh! This looks neat?[/link]

Keeps the drive out of sight, has USB & eSATA connection.

Grazie

I like it.
I have one of those 'toaster' units that works just fine except it really worries me having naked electronics exposed on the desk and the way the HDD sticks out of the top of the unit makes it a sucker for taking a swipe and a crash to the floor.
My only concern about the unit you've linked to is no forced air cooling. A 1TB drive being accessed for a few hours does get pretty warm, a little fan would be nice.
If you've got a spare 5.25" drive bay you can get a very similar unit that mounts inside the PC. Seems to me that's the ideal solution.

Bob.

Yes, Bob it WAS your previous "nod" to: " . . it really worries me having naked electronics exposed on the desk . . . a swipe and a crash to the floor." you've commented to me on SKYPE that made me think of you! Looks neat huh?

I think your wise counsel on the fan needs to be taken on-board - Hmmm....

Yes I DO have a 5.25" bay, but I think not a way to connect internally? I think? - Wanna pop-over to London and sort me out!!! - And yes this/that WOULD be ideal. So what do I need to look out for? I'm guessing that I'd also need to caddie-ise ALL the bare HDs too?

But yes, on the face of it, that enclosed option is a Plan-B option? Plan-A would be a 5.25" bay.

Grazie