New Four Bay Drobo for $350

scottalanmiller

I opened this thread excited, until I saw the USB part of your post. I need a 4 bay NAS device for slow storage of medical images. I could get away with a two drive RAID 1 setup, but I like the idea of the expansion.

Drobo really focuses on DAS. Their only small-ish NAS device is the 5N. Out of their entire lineup, they only have two NAS at all... the 5N and the B800fs. And I think that they are abandoning the later.

DenisKelley

@Dashrender
I'm currently using the ReadyNAS 316 (I know 6 bays), but they do make 4 bay models. It has worked sufficiently so far for my backups. I also did recently test the HP MicroServer that wasn't too shabby either. I can link my review here if you like.

scottalanmiller

@DenisKelley said:

@Dashrender
I'm currently using the ReadyNAS 316 (I know 6 bays), but they do make 4 bay models. It has worked sufficiently so far for my backups. I also did recently test the HP MicroServer that wasn't too shabby either. I can link the review here if you like.

I use a two bay ReadyNAS. I like it a lot.

Dashrender

I'm not looking to spend a lot on it (i have no idea how much those ReadyNASs are. I could always take one of the machines I'm killing off here (think old XP), load up linux on the drive it came with, and install 4 drives into the box.

Options, options, so many options.

DenisKelley

@Dashrender
The MicroServer can take 4 SATA drives, will run in RAID 10 mode, had two Gigabit NICs plus an iLO port and costs about $500.

scottalanmiller

@Dashrender said:

I'm not looking to spend a lot on it (i have no idea how much those ReadyNASs are.

Mine was $279.

Chamele0n

Not bad. I am in need of a new NAS for home. With RAID 10. But I need it super cheap.

scottalanmiller

@Chamele0n said:

Not bad. I am in need of a new NAS for home. With RAID 10. But I need it super cheap.

Drobo is sadly RAID 6 only and this one isn't a NAS.

Their 5N product is nice. RAID 6 on five bays with an SSD tiering option.

Chamele0n

I could probably get away with RAID 6. Wouldn't be so expensive. Meaning I wouldn't need a 1-1 mirror.

scottalanmiller

@Chamele0n said:

I could probably get away with RAID 6. Wouldn't be so expensive. Meaning I wouldn't need a 1-1 mirror.

Same price. At four bays RAID 6 and RAID 10 are identical in price and capacity. Only RAID 10 is faster and safer. RAID 6, in theory, should not exist until you have five or more spindles.

Chamele0n

@scottalanmiller said:

@Chamele0n said:

I could probably get away with RAID 6. Wouldn't be so expensive. Meaning I wouldn't need a 1-1 mirror.

Same price. At four bays RAID 6 and RAID 10 are identical in price and capacity. Only RAID 10 is faster and safer. RAID 6, in theory, should not exist until you have five or more spindles.

Agreed, with that statement. I would only consider RAID 6 with 5 or more drives to save money and not have to by so many drives.

Dashrender

@scottalanmiller said:

@Chamele0n said:

I could probably get away with RAID 6. Wouldn't be so expensive. Meaning I wouldn't need a 1-1 mirror.

Same price. At four bays RAID 6 and RAID 10 are identical in price and capacity. Only RAID 10 is faster and safer. RAID 6, in theory, should not exist until you have five or more spindles.

Agreed... RAID 6 definitely does not make since. It guess Drobo does this because they want their code to be all the same?

scottalanmiller

Yes. Their BeyondRAID is always the same.