i have about 4 or 5 external hard drives that i am constantly using for work, (Recording/Mixing Music) and my hobby (Shooting / Editing Video).
i was wondering if there was a cheaper alternative to a Drobo.
For tho's who don't know, a Drobo is kinda like a RAID HD Setup.
With a Mac Mini as a HTPC, I am going to add external storage that can be expanded to about 8TB. I don't see myself maxing out 4TB in the near future.
I have looked into Drobo, despite all of the mixed reviews. Some say they love it, some say it is slow and have had problems, and some have said their Drobo died no more than a year in. However, the ease of use and ease of expandability is very tempting. So, if I do not find an alternative I will purchase a Drobo soon.
I would ask this in the Software section but they don't seem to help me out. Whatever, I just want to import/ lightly edit some videos but iLife '08 is the only version I have which means that iMovie doesn't support my G4.
View 3 Replies View RelatedDo any of you know of a good photoshop alternative for Mac? I use GIMP on Windows, but on Mac it still uses the Windows shortcut keys, so it's confusing.
View 8 Replies View RelatedFor two days I've been unable to download music. It keeps asking me to Sign in to view billing information even though I'm already signed in. Then it does it again. And again, and again...
I'm in charge of finding music for a special occasion and this will create big problems for me if I can't get it in time.
Info:iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
I have a Drobo for data backup and storage. Anyway I am looking to connect the Drobo to my Airport Express as an AirDisk. However the Drobo keeps going into 'sleep' mode and I can't access it anymore.
View 5 Replies View RelatedI am 4 months into my Mac experience and loving it. I work in a large IT company that used to make PC's but now doesn't and so using Apple is gaining momentum. Being in Marketing and doing lots of presentations, one tool my team and I use extensively is called SnagIt.While it is called a screen capture tool, its real strength is the image manipulation tools are really simple and good. Many times we don't need to use Photoshop so the team uses SnagIt to capture the image, manipulate it like 3d, borders, twisting etc.
View 7 Replies View RelatedI have a PowerMac G5 and need to purchase an internal RAID card to create a RAID 1 mirror of the system drive... one that will allow me create a Hardware RAID 1 mirror, not software RAID through OS X.
View 2 Replies View RelatedI just bought a Guardian Maximus RAID1 kit and I have two 1TB drives in it. I'm using it over Airport Extreme as an airdisk (mac osx 10.6.2)
My question is simply: am I running a risk by partitioning it into two partitions? Should I ever have to rebuild the failed disk (which I understand is really simple with the Guardian Maximus) - will it have trouble doing two partitions? I'm using one 500gb partition for time machine and one 500gb partition as redundant itunes/media.
I have a Lacie ext hard drive with 2 x 250gb HD that were one RAIDed into a single 500gb HD. I ran this update Lacie firmware update: http://www.lacie.com/support/drivers...r.htm?id=10053 And now my HD will only show up as two separate HDs of 250gb instead of a single RAID HD of 500gb.
View 6 Replies View RelatedI have a macpro with 4 x 1tb drives
Is it possible to get a highpoint raid controller and put those 4 drives in a raid 5 array (and then create partitions inside that array) - or do you need to have 1 drive by itself for the operating system, and then create a raid array using the remaining 3 drives?
Lastly, are the highpoint 3500 series a decent card? and fully compatible?
I have a new Mac Pro Quad 2.93 with the Mac RAID card installed with four 1TB drives setup in a RAID 5 array. When creating the volumes in the RAID utility, you can not edit them, resize, etc. If one large volume is created in the RAID utility, you can then partition that one volume using the Apple Disk Utility, which then allows you to resize if needed.
View 1 Replies View RelatedI'm using the software RAID right now. Everything is set as RAID 10. I want to move to a RAID card� if I keep it as RAID 10 will I still need to redo everything?
View 1 Replies View RelatedI recently moved from a Power Mac G5 to a Mac Pro and in general it has been a smooth transition. One frustration recently however has been using it with my Drobo.
I had two 1.5TB drives in my Drobo with some data. I connected it using FW800 as usual and created a sparse image for my Time machine drive. The Drobo was soon getting full so I added another 1.5TB disk. At first I couldn't get this to be recognised in either bay 3 or 4 - it span up but the green light never came on. I tested the drive in a separate enclosure and found it worked fine. As a last resort I unplugged the Drobo from the power and when it started up the drive was recognised!
The only problem now is I sleep my Mac Pro when not in use and although the Drobo will sleep fine whenever I wake my Mac the drives in the Drobo spin up - the green lights come on and then all the lights go out and it reboots itself. OS X then gives the device removal message as if I had pulled a cable.
I had seen this once or twice on my G5 but figured out it was when the Drobo hadn't been accessed and the drives were spun down - when putting the G5 to sleep the Drobo would start spinning up the drives just as the computer went to sleep. I got around this problem by making sure I accessed the Drobo before choosing sleep so the drives were spinning.
ive put 4 of the hitachi 1tbs in my new mac pro.. and i really want to do Raid on them eventually.. and buy the pricey apple raid card.. i'll do it.. but speed wise:
How fast is a Sata connection straight from HD>Motherboard... ~75mb/s?
Is the Raid 5 config with all those drives much faster... around ~110mb/s?
Do you know if there is anyway to get a 5th drive into the raid 5 array? using the ODD space.. or some externals too... i need as much as space as possible...
And boot camp wont work with raid card anymore? I was thinking to have the startup disc be a raptor to increase speed on the apps, how would it integrate with the raid card, etc
I have a RAID 0 set up with two 1.5TB HDs. I am doing some reorganizing and want to take all the data on the RAID 0 and move it to one of the hard drives in the RAID 0 and create to single drives. Is there any way of moving all the data from a RAID 0 onto one of the HDs?
View 4 Replies View RelatedI am planning on getting a 2010 MP when they come and have a question about it. I am 90% sure that with my budget, I will not be able to after a RAID card. I am wondering if software RAID would be alright or if it's so bad it's not worth doing. Also, there is small chance that I could buy a RAID card later on, how would I install it? I will be using it for 3D animation with Maya and some zbrush modeling. Also I will be doing some Photoshop and illustrator and maybe some gaming on win 7 boot camp. Feel free to list any other pros and cons about either a software RAID or hardware RAID, I wana make sure I have all the details before making a final decision on it.
View 24 Replies View Relateddo you know if drobo fs works with 10.4.11?
when it first came out it stated it worked with 10.4... now their site has changed to say 10.5 +
I need to update my MBP to 10.5/.6+, but it's still on 10.4.11...
Has anyone had any luck with not using an Internal Hard Drive and using either a Drobo or external drive to run OSX? I was thinking of getting a new HD that runs FW800 or using my Drobo to creat a partition to load Mac OSX on and run the OS from an external HD.
The Reason I am even trying this, is because the Mini uses Laptop drives with less specs then my External Seagate 500GB 7200RPM with 16 MB of Cache, also 3.5" drives seem to run quicker then even the fastest 2.5" drives.
First I thought on buying the 4 bay one, but then I found its 2nd generation, so I guess it would be better to buy the newest one, which would be the 5 bay, not the FS one. I've never used a NAS, so I dont know how it works.
Now I'm looking at the Drobo with 8 bay, and I really like it. With that one I wouldnt have storage problems for years, and I download many many things every day: tv shows, movies,, pictures, music, etc
I have used my first generation USB Drobo for a few years with relative success with my G5. I've now upgraded to a Mac Pro with OSX 10.6.4. I have 3 volumes on my desktop drobo 1 is for time machine, drobo 2 and 3 are backup files. I have 7.5 TBs total. Ever since the computer upgrade the Drobo (all 3 volumes) unmount and the warning window opens saying a devise was disconnected improperly. I called Drobo, they say run disc utility to repair any time that happens. So I run repair , 2 and 3 volume repair quickly, Volume 1 can take 16 or 20 hours.
I have went over this many times with Drobo, I ran a diagnostic test and sent to them, they say my drives are fine, they sent me a new power adaptor. I took Drobo home to my G5 and it ran fine for a week, I take it to work and attach it to the Mac Pro and poof, disconnects in less than an hour. Drobo wants me to reformat the machine now (I do have everything backed up on G Techs). Should I bother erasing and starting over with this or use it as an $800 paperweight?
I will be shopping for an ethernet-based NAS for my new house in a few months. While I have some knowledge of the Drobo, I was wondering how a Drobo compared to a Synology or comparable brand NAS.
I am looking to use this primarily for Time Machine backups and iTunes storage.
I want to upgrade my current NAS (Synology 109j) to something that is expandable and redundant. Last weekend I thought a Drobo with DroboShare would be great! Then I remembered that HP makes a MediaSmart server that runs Windows HomeServer [URL]. Now I'm stuck. I'm not sure which one I should get. What are your thoughts?
View 5 Replies View RelatedI don't have experience with setting up RAIDs though I've read a lot and don't think it would be too difficult. The Drobo doesn't do eSATA and I really want the fastest possible so OWC Mercury Elite beats it there. Still I've fallen victim to the Drobo gimmick where it seems really easy, does it all for you, but most importantly you can use any size drive and the Drobo does the dirty work. I'm not even sure what this "dirty" work would involve since I always thought when building an array you needed to have drives that are identical in model/make and size. Am I wrong? Can a cheaper OWC Mercury Elite like this be as user friendly as the Drobo? Are there other recommendations?
Barefeats recently reviewed the OWC Mercury Elite here but it doesn't compare it to other setups. In fact it say's in the article it won't provide blazing speeds without dedicated eSATA channels which isn't exactly a positive review. Still it would be faster than a Drobo. Am I missing any other options for the same price or less?
Im planning on getting a Drobo S. However, Im torn between getting 5 - 2TB 5400 drives or 5 - 1TB 7200 drives. I plan on using it strictly for data storage and as a capture scratch.
I'll be using it via ESATA but was wondering if I would notice a significant difference between the 5400 and the 7200 and if that difference is worth the loss of space?
Anyone have any idea what drives would be best for use in Drobo S?
I have never setup RAID before and this question may be totally stupid for that matter.
Can I setup RAID 1 (or call it mirroring) without the RAID card? I have two 1TB internal drives in my Mac Pro and I want to mirror them. I don't want to spend another 700 bucks just to setup a mirror.
Disk Utility shows some RAID options, but I am not sure how to use them, or if they will work at all without the RAID card.
On my 2009 Mac Pro, OS X's disk utility seems to allow the provision of making a mirror RAID or a stripe RAID.
Is it possible to shove in 2 drives, make a RAID 0 for two of them, and then add in 2 more drives to make a RAID 1 out of that RAID 0? (a RAID 0+1?)
Does anyone know if partitioning a Drobo is "necessary" if you're planning on using your Drobo as your Time Machine Volume. I called Data Robotics about this and they weren't even able to give me a straight answer. They did tell me that Apple recommends partitioning the Drobo if you're planning on using it as your Time Machine volume, but they weren't sure why this was recommended (strange that they wouldn't know, if you ask me).
Here is my current situation:
I recently purchased a Drobo (4-Bay; Firewire 800) and I plan on filling the Drobo with 4 1TB drives and using it exclusively for Time Machine backups. I have no need whatsoever for storing any additional data on my Drobo other than the data backed up by Time Machine (which would be one reason why someone might want to partition the Drobo... but this is not the case for me).
Here's the thing that makes me believe that it might be "necessary" to partition the Drobo. When I initially formatted the drives and setup my 4x 1TB drives as a single mounted volume (2.7TB of usable storage space), the Drobo Dashboard utility requires that you choose a specify a volume size by picking a size between 1-16TB, and they recommend choosing a volume size that will be large enough to store all of your files for the foreseeable future. See the image below (photo below was taken with my iPhone and uploaded to the web via the cool new DropBox app):
Seeing as how it's a 4-Bay Drive and thought I currently have 4 1TB drives in it, I can't imaging ever putting more than 4 2TB drives in it, and so I've specified a volume size of 8TB for my Drobo. Anyone who has ever used a Drobo knows that in the Finder, this volume is listed as having 8TB of usable storage space available, though in reality you actually have less than that (in my case as I stated earlier, my 4x 1TB drives provide for 2.7TB of usable storage space).
Perhaps the Drobo might need to be formatted so that once the Time Machine backups fill up the 2.7TB of space, that it doesn't inadvertently think that there are 8TB of space available and then it erroneously continues backing up (which would theoretically result in problems). This is just a theory as to why partitioning might be "necessary". Can anyone confirm or deny whether or not partitioning the Drobo volume is "required" if I plan on using the Drobo as my dedicated Time Machine volume?
I formatted my Drobo with NTFS and used to use Bootcamp. Now I got rid of Windows and only use my Mac running OSX 10.6. How do I transfer all my data from my Drobo and reformat to HFS? If I reformat to HFS I will lose all my data on the existing drives... I basically want to be able to access and write to the Drobo as I did with Windows before, with the data intact.
View 3 Replies View RelatedI originally formated my Drobo to 2TBs which I've now outgrown and need to reformat to avoid having two partitions. That requires that I xfer the data on a Drobo to another HD. Right now I have 1.2TB of data on the Drobo. I'm pretty a 1.5TB drive will be able to handle this, but not 100%. Will it once it's formatted? Next question: is migrating data from a Drobo to an ext. drive as easy as using Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper and cloning the Drobo and then using CCC/SD again to send the data back to the Drobo? Do these apps see the Drobo as one drive and Drobo does the rest, as it normally does?
View 5 Replies View Related
