Mac Mini :: Drobo Ext. HDD FW800 To Run OS X
May 21, 2009
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.
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Aug 13, 2010
My new 27" i7 is supposed to be delivered next week, got the SATA cables for installing my own SSD, but am a bit doubtful as to where placing my Scratch space. So, I will end up with an iMac with two internal drives (SSD + HDD).OS, System Library and Applications go to the internal SSD (120GB).
As I will be using FCS (besides CS package and other smaller programms) I would like to set up a dedicated Scratch drive for it.
Which of the following options would you go for, and why?:
1: install scratch space on the internal HDD together with all the other data (pics, music, videos - space is not the issue with a 2TB drive). Would a partition be advisable in this case, since I heard that partitioning slows a disc down considerably.
2: install scratch space on the internal HDD (scratch only), and all other files (pics/music/video) on an external FW800 HDD.
3: install scratch space on the external FW800 HDD (all other files on the internal HDD like usual).
4: use an external RAID backup as scratch space as well (something like the Drobo) with a FW800 connection.
I was looking for feedback on using the Drobo not only as a backup, but also as a scratch - some people found it great working, others not so much...I'd like to find out, if that has to do with the FW800 bottleneck, or if a Drobo scratch is even slower than an external FW800 HDD would be. I know that eSata would be faster, but that is currently out of reach (besides the OWC mod.).
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Jun 26, 2010
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
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Feb 2, 2010
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.
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Oct 15, 2009
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.
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Jun 21, 2009
1. Can I connect an external HD to both my AEBS (via usb) and my Mac Mini via FW800?
2. If I can't do the below - lets say I connect my external HD to my Mac Mini via FW800 - with the drive be accessible on the network if my Mac Mini is sleeping?
I'm just trying to figure out what is the most efficient/produce the best speed - way to connect an external HD to my network.
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Aug 11, 2010
First I wanted to upgrade my new mac mini with a Momentus XT but now I'm thinking about getting a "real" ssd + a FW800 drive for storage to have the huge speed boost of the ssd drive. Does anybody have this combination in his mini? What I want to know: How is the performance like of the external drive connected to FW800? Is it comparable to a standard internal hard drive?
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Nov 12, 2010
This is in regards to the 2010 mini. I have been reading up on SSD, Hybrids and FW800 with a 7200. What is the easiest AND most effective/cost effective solution? If I went he FW800 route, can I use the same drive as my data storage drive? Will there be enough headroom to run the OS over FW and use the drive to stream movies playing in another room on Apple TV2 simultaneously? Will this give me a performance increase over the internal 5400 if I use the external 7200 for everything over FW800?
That is where my thoughts about the hybrid come into play. I know I can stream the iTunes content over USB2, which I have at the moment for the big drive. I would need to go buy an enclosure with FW800 to run it as a boot drive. I could use that same money and go get a 500GB Hybrid drive and install myself and leave the USB2 as data only. If the install is painless but tedious, I might just do that. If the FW800 route would be robust enough to run the OS and stream data to other devices simultaneously (ie use it as I would the regular internal drive), I might just do that and wait for SSD prices to come tumbling down and do a bigger internal SSD in the future.
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May 26, 2009
I 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.
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Oct 1, 2010
do 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...
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Nov 4, 2010
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?
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Sep 11, 2010
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.
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Aug 29, 2009
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?
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Oct 29, 2009
I 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?
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Feb 7, 2010
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?
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Sep 30, 2009
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?
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Oct 2, 2009
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.
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Jul 31, 2010
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.
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Sep 14, 2010
I 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?
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Jan 2, 2011
Anyone have experience hooking up a Drobo to a Time Capsule or Airport Extreme and how it compares to the Drobo networking device? Don't really want to plunk down $200 for duplicate functionality.
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Feb 13, 2009
my wireless routers network ports are all used up, and i need more ports, is there a hub of some sort that i can get?
the reason is, im thinking of getting a second time capsule.
my first time capsule is being used mainly to transfer files from my macbook to my pc.
and i would like to get a second time capsule to use it mainly for data storage.
is it a good idea to get a second time capsule or just get something that is faster like drobo?
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Dec 20, 2009
Sometimes I like to eject the drobo from the mac pro, is there any to reconnect the drobo without reaching in the back to pull out and plug back in the firewire cable?
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Dec 4, 2010
I currently have external storage devices by DataRobotics - 2 DroboPro and 1 DroboElite. I bought the new MacPro 2 months ago and have been having problems with the Drobo devices disconnecting constantly. After a lot of diagnostics including Apple replacing the logic board in my MacPro, it was identified that the issue was with the iSCSI initiator that DataRobotics uses. It is not 64bit kernal compatible and as a result, the drives disconnect randomly especially when moving data from one external drive to the other. I am forced to boot the MacPro in 32bit kernel mode for the drives to work properly. DataRobotics is not committing to fixing the 64bit kernel issue so I'm now looking to replace this technology.
I found some interesting technology by Netgear and was considering buying their product, however, I had the worst experience ever with dealing with pre-sales & technical support department, after dealing with 4 different individuals, I concluded that they have no clue about their own products, the staff is so junior, it's as if I called a completely different company when talking about their own product. I am therefore going to stay away from that company.
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Sep 11, 2008
I've take home an unused, unloved Power Mac G4 FW800 from work and would love to hear any anyone may have to get it running @ its optimum without forking out for a new Processor. I wont be doing any gaming on it, plan using it for Media and Design like Final Cut Express4, Photoshop and Illustator and for music and movies.
Its has a Dual 1.25Ghz Processor, 167Mhz Bus, ive installed a new ATI 9600PRO Graphic Card and bumped the RAM up to its 2GB max and have an external 500GB 7200RPM Iomega FireWire HDD. I also got a Philips 19in Wide LCD 1440x900 for cheap.
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Jun 24, 2009
I don't want to waste hard drive space on my MBP's hard drive on games. I have a 16GB SSD ExpressCard as well as a FW800 external hard drive.
Which would be optimum for playing games off of (considering that a game will need a fairly high read/write speed to keep up)?
If the FW800 drive is better, how much better? Would I notice a difference if I used the ExpressCard instead?
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Mar 17, 2010
I'm looking for a mass storage option and I've got about $150 USD to spend on it... I really want to get FW800 for the speed. Anyone have a good drive to recommend? The highest I can find is a 500gb for 139.... that's just not good enough.
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Oct 26, 2010
I want to build Mac Mini media server connected to drobo s. I am wondering if I use the spyderhub (esata to fw800) will fw800 be fast enough to play 3d blu ray with an external blu ray player? The hub lets you connect esata to it and then use fw800 to connect to mac mini. This follows limitation of fw800 speeds though so will this bottleneck? Need to mention I am going to use bootcamp to boot windows 7 and play the 3d blu ray dvd's in windows.
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Mar 8, 2008
Are they running at full speed or do they default down to FW400 when in Windows?
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Feb 20, 2009
I have Western Digital Studio II (2x1TB, configured as 2TB). As I don't feel secure and wanted to make a backup of this HDD, I bought an identical HDD for backup.
Questions:
1) If I were to get a chance to start over, can I configure these two drives as a RAID cluster, so that whatever written on 1st disk, automatically mirrored to 2nd disk? Bear in mind, I'm using FW800 for both HDD in daisy-chained setup.
2) How reliable is RAID mirroring (software in leopard) using FW800 external drives, as it may subject to different 'connection/attachment' time to my iMac. Internal drives always on at the same time.
3) I tried to use CCC to clone the disk, the sustained speed is disappointingly at 30MB/sec read and write. If I did a copy from my internal HDD to external disk, I get easily 50-60 MB/sec.
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Sep 28, 2009
I have two new G-Drives attached via FW800. One drive keeps unmounting by itself. All of a sudden, I get a screen that says "The drive has been removed, you should always make sure to eject the drive properly from the etc etc.." First time I have ever had this problem. I have tried the eSATA connection and FW connection with the same result. Regardless on how I connect the drive, linked or direct. It's brand new. Could it be bad?
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