I’ve been using Drobo for quite some time, now. In fact, I can barely remember the “old days” when I used a standard hard-drive and didn’t have the advantage of drive-swapping, redundant backup, and more. So, as a fan of their products, I thought I would share my top-five reasons why you should use a Drobo, too!
1. Setup is simple
When looking at the tech specs and information about Drobo devices, it might appear like a complicated piece of hardware. Sure, it does some amazing, high-tech, super-savvy things behind the scenes, but don’t let all of that fool you! Setting up a Drobo is easy. Seriously! In fact, each Drobo includes a super easy-to-follow “Quick Start Guide” right inside the box. If you are transferring over a large amount of data after you have it set up then sure, that will take some time. But there’s nothing complicated about setting up the Drobo itself.
2. Redundant backup
If you’re a photographer or any type of content creator, you probably have things on your computer that you would never want to lose. For many of us, our photographs are our livelihood! And even if it is not your profession, you probably have photographs with sentimental value, whether it’s of family, travels, or other adventures. The bottom line is if your house is on fire and you had time to grab one item out of your house, what would it be? I know for me it would be my hard-drives.
Thankfully, the majority of us will never have to make that choice. But we do face other dangers on a daily basis, such as the possibility of a hard-drive failure. You could be working on your computer and everything seems fine, but then, all of a sudden, things start slowing down. You can’t access (or even find) certain files, your computer freezes, and you start hearing strange noises coming from your computer. And then, bam! Your hard-drive failed, and your data is gone. If you were prepared, then you had a backup. But what if you didn’t? What if all of your data was in one place?
With a Drobo, it’s much less likely that you will run into that type of scenario. Drobos allow you to put several hard-drives in one Drobo device, and then the data on the device is stored using their BeyondRAID technology. Basically, your data is not stored on just one drive, or even two drives. If you have three 1TB drives in the Drobo, then the information is stored between all of the drives. Also, in that same scenario, three 1TB drives does not mean that you have 3TB of space, but rather you have 2TB of space and the third terabyte is saved for the redundancy aspect.
I know it might sound a little complicated at first, but it’s really quite simple: If your photographs are stored on a Drobo, they are protected! One hard-drive failure will not result in a loss of your data. Instead, you just have to swap out the failing hard-drive for a new one, and then you’re back up and running again.
Note: On larger Drobos with 5 or more bays you can even set it so two drives can fail without data loss if you’d like an extra level of security.
3. Easy to increase and expand your hard-drive space
One of the reasons I love Drobo is because it is so simple to increase hard-drive space. In the past, if my main hard-drive was running out of room, I had to purchase a new, larger drive and transfer ALL of my files from one drove to the other before I could continue on with my day. It was time-consuming and annoying (to say the least).
With a Drobo, however, when space starts to run out, adding more is so easy. If you have an empty slot, then you can just add a brand-new hard-drive. Or, you can just swap out a smaller drive for a larger one. It’s a lot less expensive and way less hassle than swapping out entire hard-drive units.
If you would like to see the possibilities on drive storage in a Drobo, click here.
4. Alerts you when hard-drives start to fail
In the case of a hard-drive failure inside of a Drobo, there’s a pretty good chance that you will know it’s happening. The Drobo software on your desktop will alert you if a hard-drive is failing, giving you enough time to purchase a new one and replace the failing drive. Even if the hard-drive fully fails, your data is still there. You will need to replace the drive in order for your data to be protected (just in case another drive fails), but you don’t have to worry about losing your precious photos and documents.
Note: The Drobo can also send you an email to warn you if you are traveling or away and problems are happening. The green lights on the front also turn red or yellow to give you an extra layer of feedback.
5. Multiple options for multiple needs
Whether you need a small Drobo for your personal needs, or a larger setup for a business, they have you covered. For my uses (a small-business owner and professional photographer with over 200k photographs in my Lightroom catalog), I use a Drobo 5D as my main Drobo, and a standard Drobo as a backup. I’d recommend that you take a look over on the Drobo website to see if there’s a system that fits for your needs.
I think with the recent announcements from both Microsoft (OneDrive) and Amazon (Prime Photos) both offering unlimited storage for backups – the Drobo no longer is the most obvious choice for this. With these tools, you get the multiple copies of your files without having to check the health of hard drives, or switch out disks as they go bad. It’s a much easier and cheaper solution.
Not really… have you tried backing up a full photo library of Raw images to the cloud? I have business class Internet and the last time I did it took 8 weeks to fully sync. Then each new shoot would take almost a week to back up. Local storage is always an option. Plus the Drobo isn’t just a backup device. Lightroom and Photoshop need those images locally in order to work with them. I use one Drobo to edit off of and one for backup with a third cloud backup running to Crashplan as a failsafe.
Ah, you mention CrashPlan – I’d imagine you are using that and similar service intended exclusively as backup only services – you are indeed correct, they are abysmally slow (CrashPlan was the one I ended up picking as well). I haven’t tested the Amazon service yet, but the Microsoft offering is extremely quick – these are not designed to be backup services, they are designed to provide access to your files in the cloud – so fast access is a must (but since they offer so much space, they easily fill that need as well). My collection of photos likely… Read more »
While I’m all for Cloud backup, I have never found that editing photos from a Cloud drive to be practical. I am right now processing 5000 images that are part of a 6 time-lapse sequences. I’ll take Thunderbolt any day. My collection of photos is 7 TB…. a single drive isn’t going to cut it. I feel MUCH better having One Drobo that’s more than big enough to hold it on one volume. Then toss is a second for mirroring. I couldn’t disagree more about it being more work. The Drobo sends me an email if drives have any issues.… Read more »
Good grief, 7TB is enormous – you all are quite prolific! So I agree, the DROBO is an awesome option, and for years, I felt was clearly the best option. Before the DROBO, you could accomplish the same thing with a computer hooked up to a bunch of hard drives (typically using RAID). DROBO, feature wise, is essentially the same thing, but with super easy setup, especially when compared to installing an OS, configuring the RAID array, setting permissions, mirroring files (when not using RAID) etc etc that the server required. DROBO immensely improved the setup and maintenance of storing… Read more »
I’ve got no problem with OneDrive… but I know for a fact that my processing and batch operation would be seriously constrained. Plus since I work with DSLR video files, cloud is a no go. Backup is fine.. but you should really test working local vs cloud. A lightroom catalog won’t function at reasonable speeds that way.
Using these services, you are not actually editing the files FROM the cloud but from your local machine (they are essentially just synced to the cloud). Therefore, its faster than working from a DROBO as the hard drives on your machine are way faster the a network connection – so Lightroom is faster, and working with videos is immensely faster. Where the DROBO is faster is when you need to go back to an old set of files that you no longer keep locally on your computer. In this case the DROBO can get them for you more quickly. This… Read more »
Daniel… you can keep making this argument all you want, but the wheels fell off the bus. Only the Drobo 5N is a network machine… which is great for local and offsite backup. The other Drobos are direct attached storage. It is always faster to work off a local drive than the Cloud. In many photogs cases, filling up their laptop or internal drive is not desirable. Having that data spanned across multiple drives with a 1 or 2 drive failure backup is desired. Mirroring to a second unit and offsite is ideal. Seems like no matter what I say,… Read more »
I don’t know if this is a paid promotion. I say that because Drobo is one product in the category of redundant NAS drives.. and the Synology products are considered by many to be superior. In any case Nicole, that Drobo 5 can fail, I had one which did and as it is having problems you will get no info via their encrypted error logs (an industry first AFAIK) unless you pay for a support call.. In any case my point is that you need have a backup for your Drobo. I stopped using the entire catagory when Apple (in… Read more »
Drobo is a partner of the site and sponsors it. Nicole’s article is written from first hand use. I’ve also been a user for going on 7 years. All drives can fail… that’s the point. They are spinning and just like tires they wear out. The Drobo lets you set up multiple drives so that one fails its not catastrophic. Mine are set so two can fail. I get perfectly clear error message from mine. I’ve had a drive fail (in fact over the years several drive have failed). A simple swap out of the affected drive and it rebuilds.… Read more »
Yes, Drobo is one of our partners, and we do our best to make that clear on the site. However I have been using a Drobo for more than 5 years and I would never write anything I did not believe in.
This looks like a great system, how noisy is the system? My original drobo was very loud in the desktop studio environment.
They’ve gotten quieter… 5 drives are 5 drives… but the fan was the main culprit. That’s much more efficient.
Thanks Richard, it was definitely the main fan at the back that was causing the noise. I will definitely check it out.
What makes Drobo so much better than any other leading direct attached storage (DAS) solution? Could it be the higher cost? Or the fact that should your Drobo (the box, not the disks) die, you are SOL trying to recover data off the disks since they use a non-standard proprietary RAID-type algorithm? Each of the “selling points” listed applies equally well to a number of competing consumer products on the market, and none are unique to Drobo. Why are these other solutions not mentioned? I cannot stress this enough: a DAS/NAS box alone is not “redundant backup”. You do everyone… Read more »
Joseph… let me address your points as I see them 1. With ANY Raid, if a disk dies you’ve lost data. And every RAID uses proprietary software. Show me one that doesn’t. Drobo’s RAID is more flexible and makes it easier to mix and match disks as well as expand in future. I’ve never used or seen another RAID that makes it so easy to upgrade storage by simply popping a disk and swapping one out. 2. The author uses the product as do many. If Nicole were to write why she loves her Canon camera would you say the… Read more »
Wow – whenever you talk hardware all the pedants come out in full force looking for any syllable that they might be able to counter – so they can look good? So they can prove they are tech giants? So they can be snarky? If I felt these comments were intended to actually be helpful I’d react differently but I don’t see that in most cases. It’s laughable to me that someone would rather use “The Cloud” than something like a Drobo. Ask Jennifer Lawrence how that worked out for her. And cloud services go out of business, suffer outages,… Read more »
I don’t know if it is too late to comment on this article but I will give it a try..I am a hobbyist Photographer and use LR and CC. I currently have over 67000 images in my LR catalog plus some in Elements on an older PC. I do use CrashPlan and have multiple external Hard Drives on my desk ranging from 1-3 TB of space with all almost full, however none of them match completely with the same images/work. I am currently using a LaCie mini 3tb drive connected that I use for travel and all my image for… Read more »
Wow – whenever you talk hardware all the pedants come out in full force looking for any syllable that they might be able to counter – so they can look good? So they can prove they are tech giants? So they can be snarky? If I felt these comments were intended to actually be helpful I’d react differently but I don’t see that in most cases. It’s laughable to me that someone would rather use “The Cloud” than something like a Drobo. Ask Jennifer Lawrence how that worked out for her. And cloud services go out of business, suffer outages,… Read more »
I think with the recent announcements from both Microsoft (OneDrive) and Amazon (Prime Photos) both offering unlimited storage for backups – the Drobo no longer is the most obvious choice for this. With these tools, you get the multiple copies of your files without having to check the health of hard drives, or switch out disks as they go bad. It’s a much easier and cheaper solution.
Not really… have you tried backing up a full photo library of Raw images to the cloud? I have business class Internet and the last time I did it took 8 weeks to fully sync. Then each new shoot would take almost a week to back up. Local storage is always an option. Plus the Drobo isn’t just a backup device. Lightroom and Photoshop need those images locally in order to work with them. I use one Drobo to edit off of and one for backup with a third cloud backup running to Crashplan as a failsafe.
Ah, you mention CrashPlan – I’d imagine you are using that and similar service intended exclusively as backup only services – you are indeed correct, they are abysmally slow (CrashPlan was the one I ended up picking as well). I haven’t tested the Amazon service yet, but the Microsoft offering is extremely quick – these are not designed to be backup services, they are designed to provide access to your files in the cloud – so fast access is a must (but since they offer so much space, they easily fill that need as well). My collection of photos likely… Read more »
While I’m all for Cloud backup, I have never found that editing photos from a Cloud drive to be practical. I am right now processing 5000 images that are part of a 6 time-lapse sequences. I’ll take Thunderbolt any day. My collection of photos is 7 TB…. a single drive isn’t going to cut it. I feel MUCH better having One Drobo that’s more than big enough to hold it on one volume. Then toss is a second for mirroring. I couldn’t disagree more about it being more work. The Drobo sends me an email if drives have any issues.… Read more »
Good grief, 7TB is enormous – you all are quite prolific! So I agree, the DROBO is an awesome option, and for years, I felt was clearly the best option. Before the DROBO, you could accomplish the same thing with a computer hooked up to a bunch of hard drives (typically using RAID). DROBO, feature wise, is essentially the same thing, but with super easy setup, especially when compared to installing an OS, configuring the RAID array, setting permissions, mirroring files (when not using RAID) etc etc that the server required. DROBO immensely improved the setup and maintenance of storing… Read more »
I’ve got no problem with OneDrive… but I know for a fact that my processing and batch operation would be seriously constrained. Plus since I work with DSLR video files, cloud is a no go. Backup is fine.. but you should really test working local vs cloud. A lightroom catalog won’t function at reasonable speeds that way.
I don’t know if it is too late to comment on this article but I will give it a try..I am a hobbyist Photographer and use LR and CC. I currently have over 67000 images in my LR catalog plus some in Elements on an older PC. I do use CrashPlan and have multiple external Hard Drives on my desk ranging from 1-3 TB of space with all almost full, however none of them match completely with the same images/work. I am currently using a LaCie mini 3tb drive connected that I use for travel and all my image for… Read more »
This looks like a great system, how noisy is the system? My original drobo was very loud in the desktop studio environment.
They’ve gotten quieter… 5 drives are 5 drives… but the fan was the main culprit. That’s much more efficient.
Thanks Richard, it was definitely the main fan at the back that was causing the noise. I will definitely check it out.
I don’t know if this is a paid promotion. I say that because Drobo is one product in the category of redundant NAS drives.. and the Synology products are considered by many to be superior. In any case Nicole, that Drobo 5 can fail, I had one which did and as it is having problems you will get no info via their encrypted error logs (an industry first AFAIK) unless you pay for a support call.. In any case my point is that you need have a backup for your Drobo. I stopped using the entire catagory when Apple (in… Read more »
Yes, Drobo is one of our partners, and we do our best to make that clear on the site. However I have been using a Drobo for more than 5 years and I would never write anything I did not believe in.
Drobo is a partner of the site and sponsors it. Nicole’s article is written from first hand use. I’ve also been a user for going on 7 years. All drives can fail… that’s the point. They are spinning and just like tires they wear out. The Drobo lets you set up multiple drives so that one fails its not catastrophic. Mine are set so two can fail. I get perfectly clear error message from mine. I’ve had a drive fail (in fact over the years several drive have failed). A simple swap out of the affected drive and it rebuilds.… Read more »
What makes Drobo so much better than any other leading direct attached storage (DAS) solution? Could it be the higher cost? Or the fact that should your Drobo (the box, not the disks) die, you are SOL trying to recover data off the disks since they use a non-standard proprietary RAID-type algorithm? Each of the “selling points” listed applies equally well to a number of competing consumer products on the market, and none are unique to Drobo. Why are these other solutions not mentioned? I cannot stress this enough: a DAS/NAS box alone is not “redundant backup”. You do everyone… Read more »
Joseph… let me address your points as I see them 1. With ANY Raid, if a disk dies you’ve lost data. And every RAID uses proprietary software. Show me one that doesn’t. Drobo’s RAID is more flexible and makes it easier to mix and match disks as well as expand in future. I’ve never used or seen another RAID that makes it so easy to upgrade storage by simply popping a disk and swapping one out. 2. The author uses the product as do many. If Nicole were to write why she loves her Canon camera would you say the… Read more »