NAS vs. Drobo Storage for Mac Audio/Video Server

[The Monkey]

No preference.

[grawk]

Don't go nas unless you need network attached (for multiple computers etc). It will just add traffic to your network and make everything else work less well.

Now, how much space do you need?

[The Monkey]

I guess 2TB would be nice?

[grawk]

heh, ok, get a couple of 3tb external drives, use the 2nd for a time machine backup, and have a tb extra, for less than the cost of a drobo

[The Monkey]

That doesn't sound fancy enough.

[grawk]

bedazzle the drives?

[aardvark baguette]

One cheap alternative to drobo, which is not the same but still safer than a plain drive is online backup service.

I pay $5 a month for this and I no longer need to worry about data loss.

Easiest Online Backup Service - Backblaze

Plus its fun to be able to email myself zip files of albums at work occasionally.

[The Monkey]

hmmm...Hadn't considered online backup, but that's interesting.

[grawk]

Personally, I'd stick with local drives for backup. Stick stuff in your mobile me idisk if you want to share it, but the idea of restoring any quantity of data over the internet gives me the heebie geebies

[Salt Peanuts]

Stick stuff in your mobile me idisk if you want to share it, but the idea of restoring any quantity of data over the internet gives me the heebie geebies

x2. If you want to use an online backup service, I wouldn't make that your primary backup.

[n_maher]

Personally I'd opt for the NAS solution to avoid the potential issues of noisy drives in the listening environment as well as only being able to direct couple the device to the source that I wanted to use it with. My NAS currently supplies music to my slimserver (and may someday be the slimserver) as well as video content to the PS3 and serves as the local hard copy backup for multiple machines.

[grawk]

Seagate 3TB USB External HDD - dealmac.com

[tyrion]

I gave up on online back up when I tried to back up some data from Carbonite and it eas a huge fail. I use Time Machine to back up to an external. My important stuff which are my photos are also backed up on another external drive and dvd's.

[The Monkey]

Yeah, I can see the probs with online backup. Certainly not a first resource. The NAS and Drobo solutions are still pretty expensive. Since I have 2 enclosures already, I guess I can just get 2 new 2TB drives and jam them in those. I can't find any naked 3TB drives.

[Salt Peanuts]

Internal 3TB drives haven't come out yet, supposedly by end of the year.

They may also be waiting for the software side to catch up, since 3TB partition probably would cause issues with some of the OS out there.

Edited October 10, 2010 by Salt Peanuts

[tyrion]

Dinny, I have 4 Seagate SATA 1 TB drives I was going to use for a drobo set up. Let me know if you are interested. They are sealed in the box.

[manaox2]

UEFI is expected to start commonly replacing the thirty year old standard of BIOS this year which is expected to help with boot times and managing drives over 2Tb much better natively. You'll probably see more 3tb or higher internal drives then.

sent via Droid X

[Eric5676]

I gave up on online back up when I tried to back up some data from Carbonite and it eas a huge fail. I use Time Machine to back up to an external. My important stuff which are my photos are also backed up on another external drive and dvd's.

No kidding. I've been using Carbonite for about 6 months now and twice now it's saved my ass. What happened to you?

[The Monkey]

Bumping this thread to see if anyone has recently set up a NAS or equivalent that they're happy with.

[The Monkey]

and on that note...

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Synology-DS411-Slim-Network-Attached-Storage-NAS-Review

edit: Ah, 2.5" drives are more expensive.

[HeadphoneAddict]

I recently bought a LaCie Network Space MAX with two 1Tb drives in it. It can act as a 1Tb NAS with mirror, or a 2Tb drive; but I left it as a 2Tb since it only contains backups of music and video, and not my primary copy. I keep it plugged into my Airport Extreme most of the time, only connecting directly to the computer if I need to load a few hundred Gb of data at one time because my whole network is wireless.

It serves the music to iTunes as a shared library, and to my PS Audio Perfectwave DAC Bridge as a uPNP/DLNA server. My main complaint is that it sometimes reports the wrong play duration or bit rate on most of my lossless music or some VBR music, until I load the song and listen and then it gets updated properly in the list. LaCie is aware of this and they did an update that fixed it for some, but not for me.

I planned to pick up a pair of 2Tb drives to install, so I can mirror them and lower my MTBF. But my second complaint is that even connected to my ethernet port it takes forever to re-load it with the music and video that I have stored on an external USB drive. My Seagate FreeAgent 2Tb USB drive seems limited to about 55-60Gb per hour, even with both drives connected to the same iMac. So, putting 1400Gb of data back on it after the upgrade will take forever.

[jeffreyj900]

I recently purchased a Synology DS411+, LINK. It's compatible with all OS including Mac. I have a Macbook Pro. Very easy to setup. Very cool interface, LINK. It'll do everything but bake a cake. Might be more than you need. It comes in 1,2,4,5, etc. bay configurations. All have the same user interface and features. The DS411+ has 4 bays that I filled with 2TB drives. The system has RAID Management built in. I went with Raid 5. I chose the DS411+ because: Duo Core 1ghz processor, 512 mb ram, allows third party applications to run on it including Squeezebox Server, gigabit port, iTunes server, SMB/CIFS, IP Camera support with surveillance software built in, can host websites, e-mail server, host pictures with software to share with friends/family, and is DNLA compatible. I have two PS3's and plan to store all my movies and music on it for streaming. Was in the market for a Modwright Tranporter to replace my Denon Exmplar 3910 (it's for sale now). However, I bought a PS Audio Perfectwave. Got a great deal on it from Underwood Hifi. I have not bought the bridge yet, but plan on doing so soon I believe you get what you pay for here. I didn't compare to QNAP or others.... Lastly, it's built like a tank. Two big fans in the back and it runs cool. Kinda loud with the 4 7,200 RPM drives in it. Plan on putting it in a back bedroom in the near future. Not super loud, but worth mentioning. The Synology forums are really good and supportive as well. The company seems to be committed to continual enhancements.

Setup: PS Audio Perfectwave Dac -> Manley Jumbo Shrimp -> Manley Lab Series 100 Mono Blocks -> Harbeth HL-P3ES-2

Edited February 20, 2011 by jeffreyj900

[jvlgato]

Synology DS211j, the cheapskate model. About a month ago. Happy.

[Knuckledragger]

Putting this here as I don't think it's worthy of its own thread. Reddit thread purportedly from an ex-Data Robotics employee, including a dump of internal DR documents. Decompressed mirror of the contents of the archive. Redditors in the thread thusfar seem to think there isn't much scandalous in it. In fact, if one digs deep enough in the thread, there appears to be fair number of happy Drobo users. The whole thing seems more than a bit suspect to me, but I have not gone through the documents.

For whatever reason, the docs include this:

[manaox2]

From the same thread, perhaps a way to reset any Drobo password:

Please follow this procedure EXACTLY in order to reset your password:

Enter Username = reset

Enter Password = F4Iv2RdpyKt7HY2p

NOTE:

Windows: Ctrl+C to copy and Ctrl+V to paste

OS X: Cmd+C to copy and Cmd+V to paste

** Remember that both the username and password are case-sensitive.

Hold the CTRL key down on your keyboard and click one time on the Login button

Change your user name and password

Click OK

Go into Advanced Controls – Tools and Shutdown your Drobo FS

When all of the lights on your Drobo FS go out, toggle ON the power.

When the Drobo FS reboots and connects to the Drobo Dashboard, click on Logout.

Log back into the Drobo Dashboard with your new Username and Password