michaelhong.com

Before my Media drive went poop, my previous system setup was like this:

250GB WD Raptor X (Boot drive)
1 TB Seagate 7200.11 (Media drive)
1.5 TB Seagate 7200.11 (Extra drive)
750GB Seagate 7200.11 (Extra drive)
1.5 TB Seagate 7200.11 (Purchased but not installed)

500GB WD MyBook External (Time Machine backup)
1 TB WD MyBook Studio (Purchased but not really used)

Due to the size limitations, my Time Machine drive only backed up my Boot drive, leaving my Media drive vulnerable. I was planning on moving the files from my 1TB to my 1.5TB. Before I could do this, disaster struck. I came  home one day to see that Mac OS could not read my drive. The horror! In shock, I tried many things to recover my data (DiskWarrior, Data Rescue II, heck even Disk Utility.) Finally, I tried throwing the drive into the freezer to see if that would solve anything. Unfortunately, it did not.

I lost my documents, photos, music, movies, etc. Fortunately, I have a backup of everything before March 2008. And since my iTunes Music Library XML file was stored on my boot drive, I can still see what music I have and recover accordingly.  Also, I was feeling pretty obese after March so I didn’t take (or lose) too many pictures. I use Dropbox for my documents so I should be OK there.

I’ve been eyeing a Drobo for a while but felt the price was a bit high ($500 MSRP) considering it didn’t include any drives. Why Drobo? I was intrigued by the simplicity of the Drobo to provide both speed and redundancy without requiring matched drives. I also liked the ability to just insert drives on the fly and expand my Drobo as HD prices drop. The recent data loss proved to be the catalyst I needed to make the jump. I decided to move all of my drives (except my boot drive) into the Drobo to save some cash. The 2nd generation Drobo that I purchased includes FireWire 800 ports which is a plus considering the amount f data I want to transfer.

Drobo arrived in a huge box (relative to its size). It comes with a nice long FW800 cable, so I was able to have the Drobo sit on my desk and still connect to my computer. Setting it up was a breeze. After installing the Drobo dashboard, I threw in my extra drives (the 1.5TB and 750GB) and Drobo formatted accordingly. There is a known issue with the Seagate 1.5TB drives that has caused Data Robotics to temporarily disqualify the use of the drives. However, the Drobo still accepts them without a problem. I would probably advise against using these drives until the issue is resolved. Hey! Do as I say, not as I do…

At any rate, once the Drobo formatted my drives, I was ready to go. I transferred about 60 GBs of music from my last backup from a USB 2.0-connected Passport to my FW800 Drobo. I remember transfer time taking about 5 hours, but this is anecdotal and obviously limited by the USB 2.0 speed. I’ll try running more rigorous speed tests later. FYI: The green lights on the side indicate the health of that particular drive while the lights on the bottom give you a quick gauge of how much space is being used.

My setup currently looks like this:

250GB WD Raptor X (Boot drive) backed up with 1TB MyBook Studio via Time Machine.

Drobo
1 TB Seagate 7200.11 - Out for replacement, will be Drobo Bay 4
1.5 TB Seagate 7200.11 (Drobo Bay 1)
750GB Seagate 7200.11 (Drobo Bay 2)
1.5 TB Seagate 7200.11 (Drobo Bay 3)

Basically, the Drobo will use an amount of space equivalent to your largest drive for protection. So I lose about 1.5 TB of space which is a small price to pay for peace of mind.

If you don’t need (or have) the speed of FireWire 800, then pick up the 1st gen Drobo. It’s a great buy at $350.