Can a Windows Home Server user find happiness with a Drobo?
By Ed Bott | May 17, 2011, 3:35pm PDT
Summary
When Microsoft killed its Drive Extender terchnology in Windows Home Server, loyal users howled. But one company saw the move as an opportunity. I’ve been testing a pair of sleek black Drobo boxes for several months now to see how they measure up. Here’s my report.
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Ed Bott
Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications. He's served as editor of the U.S. edition of PC Computing and managing editor of PC World; both publications had monthly paid circulation in excess of 1 million during his tenure. He is the author of more than 25 books on Microsoft Windows and Office, including the recently released Windows 7 Inside Out.
When Microsoft unexpectedly announced that it was dropping support for its Drive Extender technology in Windows Home Server 2011, it inspired a collective scream from enthusiasts who had stuck with the platform for more than three years, through some decidedly bumpy times.
But at least one company saw Microsoft’s misstep as an opportunity. Data Robotics, Inc. marked the occasion by introducing its Drobo product line to the Windows Home Server community, complete with a special discount aimed directly at them.
It was a smart move. Drobo CEO Tom Buiocchi describes the company’s mission as “trying to bring elegant ease of use to people who never dreamed they would have terabytes of storage.” That’s very close to the original vision for Windows Home Server.
So, can a Drobo really earn a place in a small office? That’s what I set out to learn for myself with some hands-on testing over the past few months. Here’s my report.
Drobo’s sleek black boxes are specifically designed to do everything that Drive Extender did. You can mix and match hard drives of varying sizes, old and new, to turn four or five drives into a single pool of storage. Data on that virtual volume is protected by a technology called BeyondRAID, whose fundamental premise is that hard drives will fail.
When (not if) that drive failure happens, the pool of storage rebuilds itself on the fly. To increase the amount of available storage, all you have to do is add a new drive or replace an existing one, without having to shut down the entire unit.
I tried one of the first-generation Drobo units four years ago, when they were brand new. That hardware showed tremendous promise in fulfilling the company’s vision, but its performance was marred by painfully high noise levels that made the device unusable in an ordinary office environment. (I wasn’t the only one who thought so, either.)
A lot has changed in the past four years, and when I heard the news about Drive Extender I decided to take a fresh look at Drobo’s offerings. Can Drobo’s technology replace Windows Home Server completely? Or is there room in the home (and home office) for both products?
The folks at Drobo were kind enough to send me one of their current Drobo FS units for review, and I purchased a Drobo S using my own funds. The two products look nearly identical, except for the connectors on the back (more about that in a bit). The elegant design is the same as I remember, as is the jet black finish.
Neither unit was whisper-quiet, but they’re nearly so. The noise level on each of the two units was well within acceptable limits, even when I stuffed each one with five drives of varying sizes and put them to work.
The Drobo FS ($699) is one of four products in the current Drobo Storage for Professionals product lineup. Connect it to a wired network using the Gigabit Ethernet on the back, and then subdivide its pooled storage into shares, with access rights for each share assigned to user accounts on the device. As a server, it can also host apps that handle some of the tasks that people use a Windows Home Server for.
The Drobo S, which costs $100 more, shares a similar chassis but is designed to connect to a PC using USB 3.0, FireWire 800, or eSATA connections. It doesn’t allow you to run any external apps.
Up next, a closer look at how Drobo works.
Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications.
Disclosure
Ed Bott
Ed Bott is a freelance technical journalist and book author. All work that Ed does is on a contractual basis.
Since 1994, Ed has written more than 25 books about Microsoft Windows and Office. Along with various co-authors, Ed is completely responsible for the content of the books he writes. As a key part of his contractual relationship with publishers, he gives them permission to print and distribute the content he writes and to pay him a royalty based on the actual sales of those books. Ed's books are currently distributed by Que Publishing (a division of Pearson Education) and by Microsoft Press.
On occasion, Ed accepts consulting assignments. In recent years, he has worked as an expert witness in cases where his experience and knowledge of Microsoft and Microsoft Windows have been useful. In each such case, his compensation is on an hourly basis, and he is hired as a witness, not an advocate.
Ed does not own stock or have any other financial interest in Microsoft or any other software company. He owns 500 shares of stock in EMC Corporation, which was purchased before the company's acquisition of VMWare. In addition, he owns 350 shares of stock in Intel Corporation, purchased more than two years ago. All stocks are held in retirement accounts for long-term growth.
Ed does not accept gifts from companies he covers. All hardware products he writes about are purchased with his own funds or are review units covered under formal loan agreements and are returned after the review is complete.
Biography
Ed Bott
Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications. He's served as editor of the U.S. edition of PC Computing and managing editor of PC World; both publications had monthly paid circulation in excess of 1 million during his tenure. He is the author of more than 25 books on Microsoft Windows and Office, including the recently released Windows 7 Inside Out.
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I use my WHS for 3 things: backup, file storage and streaming videos/music to my Xbox 360. Thanks for testing the first 2 of those. Any tests using the FS for use on the 360? I've been very close in getting either the FS or a Synology box to replace my (aging) WHS box.Thanks again for the review.
ZDNet Blogger
Used with a 360, works great
@awindle@...The Xbox has no idea that it's anything other than a regular hard drive.
RE: Can a Windows Home Server user find happiness with a Drobo?
@awindle@...Get a Synology and you won't regret it.
Not sure about WHS happiness, but I don't like the look of this!
The big problem with any proprietory NAS box is this:You replace one single point of failure (hard disk) with another (the box itself).
If the Drobo box itself fails but the disks inside are still OK, can I just remove them and slave them to any handy Windows or Linux box to get at my data?
I bet you can't, but please prove me wrong if you can!
If I am worried enough about my data security to spend $699 on a Drobo, they must give me an easy solution to this problem. Do they?
What file system does it run? Something 'normal'.
Or must I fork out another $699, or wait a few weeks while they process my warranty claim?
The problem is made worse in the case of Drobo, as you report difficulty in creating backups.
I don't want to spend $300 on backup software. I just want to attach (USB or eSATA) another HDD and set up an RSYNC job. Will the Drobo OS allow me to do this?Probably not, as Drobo, like all proprietory NAS boxes, almost certainly runs some highly-crafted and undocumented Linux variant.
So that's a total of $999 (+ hard disk costs?) on a NAS box that runs some wierd Linux version and file system, and doesn't protect me from a box failure (as opposed to a hard disk failure). No thanks!
I'd be much better off building my own Ubuntu server using an old PC and LVM for disk expansion.
Point of information:
You say "The Drobo S, which costs $100 more, shares a similar chassis but is designed to connect to a PC using USB 3.0, FireWire 800, or eSATA connections."
Why would I want to do this? There's no ethernet connectivity?
ZDNet Blogger
If you click the link...
@MissouriMan...you will see that one of the DroboApps is an RSync client.
As for your other question, I attached the Drobo S to a Windows Server box. Its contents are shared via the server itself. You could do the same with a Linux server if you're allergic to Microsoft products.
The problem is the business model, not technical
"I really hope the Drobo and Windows Server teams can put their heads together. If they can figure out a way to incorporate Windows Home Server and Small Business Server directly into the Drobo hardware, the result would be much greater than the sum of the individual parts."
There is no real difficulty figuring out either the software or the hardware problems. DROBO have simply devised a clever implementation of RAID 5 following the invention of RAID in 1988 and are now monetising it via hardware. Microsoft engineers would have no trouble porting ZFS, or developing something better. However their management have proved inept at short term measures (VAIL) because a proper solution would cannibalise their enterprise storage market. Google had no problem: they designed an efficient architecture on commodity components ... because they were paying the bill.The problem for the vendors is how little can be released to keep apathetic consumers and corporate sheep happy while the gravy train continues to roll.
The ease with which Ed bolted a DROBO onto WHS ... producing a chimera of two competing technologies hamstrung by the vendors' business models ... shows how simple the task would be for any efficient (if poorer) world class organisation.No, this is a revenue problem, not a technology problem.
[I went for the new HP Microserver, foregoing usability for cost, but it is still only an intermediate option awaiting a proper solution.]
Of course. It comes down to management
@johnfenjackson@...
and not the fact that what you are talking about are two different technologies and implimentations.Having read your response, I disagree completely.
It appears your conclussions are incorrect.
I wonder if something like this WHS add-in would suffice
As opposed to spending an extra 699 dollars for this unit, as sufficient as it appears.
ZDNet Blogger
I'm skeptical
@Mister SpockI was burned by Drive Extender several times. Putting my faith in a third-party add-in would be very difficult for me.
RE: Can a Windows Home Server user find happiness with a Drobo?
@Ed BottIsin't the Drobo mostly a software solution anyway? What advantages does the Drobo Casing offer over just using onboard SATA for the drives. I mean besides the ease of swapping the drives in and out and stuff like that. Is there some sort of hardware advantage or is it just a board with a bunch of SATA ports with a light OS built in to control the Drive Management.
I only ask because I have seen earlier generations of the DROBO and that is all it appeared to be.
bobiroc(Edited: 05/17/2011 06:16 PM)Looks Interestint g
Wish I could afford it honestly. Maybe if I was a small business but at $695 just for the storage unit it is a bit out of my range.That being said I am looking forward to getting my hands on WHS 2011 and getting my own set up. I was thinking of going through the evaluation experience while await for the OEM/Retail release of the product.
WHS drive extender wasn't the best feature it was the client backup
I've had an HP WHS since it was released. I haven't lost data yet but the one we had at work which we use to store temp junk did. The thing I like the most about WHS isn't drive extender it's the automated backups of all of my computers running the connector. The ability to mount that backup to see if the backup is good or restore a few files from it is great. The full restore is just dead simple, boot from CD, automatically connects to the home server on the network and presents you a list of backups to restore when you want to replace the drive on one of your client machines is fantastic.
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