Anyone using a DROBO hard drive set up?

D

DVX100Shooter

Veteran
After the HD I use to edit with crashed for the third time, I have decided to replace it. I have been thinking about getting a RAID set up for a while now to protect over crashes so I will stop losing my master project files. A friend of mine told me about this thing called a DROBO where you install your own hard drives (any size) in this box and its like a raid. I was surprised to see it listed on Apple's website.

This is what I am talking about:

http://www.drobo.com/products/drobopro/index.php


If you have one of these, let me know how you like it or what you don't like about it and could I use something like this as my scratch disc when editing with FCP?

Thanks!
 
I have a Drobo S. Works very well and is simple to setup / operate. It has decent speed over FW800 - enough to edit a couple of streams of DVCPROHD. It is even faster over eSata. Overall I am very happy with it.

Cost wise, it is not the cheapest solution out there, but once I added up the cost of HDDs and the pain of use with other systems, I found that the Drobo was very competitive.

Down sides:
1) when connected in eSata on a MBP with Express34 eSata card, the Drobo software does not recognize the Drobo. I found that this will allow a user to potentially copy data beyond what it can protect (that is, more data than its beyond raid system can safely protect).
2) when the unit becomes 90% full (and the drobo software recognizes it when using FW800), it slows down considerably. So slow that it really becomes useless until another drive is inserted.
3) I had a problem where a single drive bay went offline out of nowhere a couple of times. No data was lost, but definitely freaked me out a bit.


Generally, I would recommend the Drobo S for data redundancy, but not necessarily for a video editing system scratch drive. I think it would work for that as well, but don't know if its the best use of its features. In my case, I use G-tech G-Raid drives for scratch and the Drobo as backup.


Jason
 
Okay thanks for the tips. I am gonna research it some more. I hear the CalDigit line of raid's work very well with FCP so I might consider them too but they are pretty pricey!
 
I use a drobo. it's great for data backup. I try not to edit off of it, but rather edit off of local/external high speed drives. When I'm done editing, I throw any new/changed files over the drobo. I find it very easy and convenient to use.
 
Arges03,

Any particular reason why you don't recommend using it to edit with? A friend of mine has something similar but he has the HDOne by Caldigit and uses it for everything he edits with FCP and other editing apps he has. Are you just saying the Drobo is good for data backup? My problem is that I keep having hard drives fail and I am losing projects or masters. My thinking is if I had a raid set up then if one of the drives fails, I wouldn't lose any of my work because I would have other drives within the casing.
 
Drobo says themselves that the Drobo (the basic 4 bay one that I'm using) is primarily for backup/storage. You CAN edit off of it, I have, but I try not to. Drobo suggested that you don't with that particular model– I use it to back files before, during, and after I work, which is fine for my workflow.

FW800 it is fast enough for my needs (mostly DVCPROHD and Prores422 stuff from my 7D) when I have edited off of it, but I did notice that it would take a moment to get going sometimes.

Drobo does sell a drive set that is more for videographers, as you can see here:
http://www.drobo.com/products/index.php
 
I have the DroboS that Arges03 is referring to. It can be edited from, and I have. But as a workflow, I use external G-Raids for editing. Do I need to use G-Raids instead of the DroboS? Not necessarily. I just have half a dozen lying around and they are very fast.


Jason
 
I have the CalDigit HDPro and as expensive as it is, it's some of the best money I've ever spent. The RAID performance and redundancy gives me both speed and peace of mind, and I've never dealt with a hardware company more dedicated to providing great service than CalDigit.

Most of my projects involve large amounts of footage, so my workflow is to field offload to the Nexto NVS2500 and a backup G-Mini, then transcode to the HDPro in my edit suite, and when all is said and done, backup to mirrored G-Safe drives for storage.

--SM
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top