RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

[Bob Hartung]

I don't believe your assumptions are correct. If you go to Drobo.com and use 
one of their capacity calculators (each model has a different one), your first 
example yields 5.91 TB of usable storage with single disk redundancy, not 2.5 
TB.

If you replace or add a disk, the Drobo will caution you that your data is not 
fully protected while it regenerates the Beyond RAID but the change in capacity 
is immediately available. Pretty cool.

I read an article on Beyond RAID that conjectures how it works.


http://etherealmind.com/drobo-how-beyond-raid-works/

Interesting reading but the author readily admits he's making an educated guess 
about a proprietary technology. 

--

Bob Hartung
Wisco Industries, Inc.
736 Janesville St.
Oregon, WI 53575
Tel: (608) 835-3106 x215
Fax: (608) 835-7399
e-mail: bhartung(at)wiscoind.com
  _  

From: Hilderbrand, Doug [mailto:doug.hilderbr...@craneaerospace.com]
To: NT System Admin Issues [mailto:ntsysad...@lyris.sunbelt-software.com]
Sent: Mon, 04 Oct 2010 20:16:23 -0500
Subject: RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)




As I understand it, a Drobo will intelligently use a combination of raid5 and 
mirroring. If you have one 500 GB, one 2 TB and two 1 TB drives, You’ll wind up 
with a 3 disk raid 5 across the two 1 TB and half of the 2 TB, plus a mirror of 
the 500 GB with half space the remaining on the 2 TB drive. 2 TB usable on raid 
5 and 500 GB usable on mirror. 2.5 TB total.

 

Pull the 500 GB and put in a 2 TB and it will do a 4 disk raid 5 and a mirror 
of the remaining 1 GB on each of the large drives. 3 TB usable on raid 5 and 1 
TB usable on mirror. 4 TB total.

 


I have no idea how it manages to push the bits around to accomplish that. Or 
how raid 6 fits into the picture.

 

 



From: N Parr [mailto:npar...@mortonind.com] 
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 8:44 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

 

Pretty sure raid on the Drobo defined by the smallest drive in the array.  So 
if you have 3 2TB drive and 1 1TB drive you will only get around 3TB of 
storage.  

 
  _  



From: Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com] 
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 10:36 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

Ok, so it SEEMS like a really cool device, but I honestly haven’t looked at it 
seriously since the device first came out a couple of years ago. When I first 
looked at it, I was like, ok, now THAT’s COOL.

 

However, after thinking about it some, it just seemed like some black magic 
under the covers to get their “BeyondRAID” to work. When I originally looked at 
it, I couldn’t find any technical detail on how the product *really* worked, as 
that was “proprietary” (understandably so, but still, how am I going to get 
comfortable with it as a sysadmin, especially at the price if I’m on a budget – 
it would be an expensive toy. Traditional RAID is just much more comforting to 
me. If you have a big issue with multiple drives of different sizes on a drobo 
unit, how is data recovery going to go for you? If the controller fails, and 
you don’t have a support agreement, you can’t just go on serversuply.com and 
get parts…

 

Does anyone here have any experience with data recovery on a failed drobo, or 
for that matter, simply a failed drive within a drobo where you had drives of 
different sizes in the configuration?

 

I know “backup, backup, backup”, but what if the backup doesn’t work (or the 
customer/end user didn’t heed your advice)?


Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
Technology Coordinator
Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA
jra...@eaglemds.com
www.eaglemds.com 

  _  



From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:16 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Re: SAN question

 


+1


Going back to a previous comment of mine in another thread you started.  Have 
you messed with OpenFiler, yet?  You'll learn a lot.


Also, based on your pretty low requirements, have you looked at the DroboElite? 
If it had been available when I started looking, I very well could've gone in 
this direction.  As it is, I'm seriously considering it for backup duty.  
Storage for a backup server, and the ability to use it in a pinch if my 
EqualLogic goes down.


On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 10:59 AM, Raper, Jonathan - Eagle  
wrote:

John - I do not believe that we can help you significantly with this question. 
In the end, it really doesn't matter what any of us think, because our 
environments are all different and unique. What works well and may be 
appropriate for any of us, may be a horrible fit for you and cause you nothing 
but heartburn and stress.

However, I would tend to agree with Niles. If you're not ready for a SAN, don't 
spend the money on it now.

You really need to have a serious sit-down with the vendors/sales engineers 
(notic

RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

[Hilderbrand, Doug]

As I understand it, a Drobo will intelligently use a combination of
raid5 and mirroring. If you have one 500 GB, one 2 TB and two 1 TB
drives, You'll wind up with a 3 disk raid 5 across the two 1 TB and half
of the 2 TB, plus a mirror of the 500 GB with half space the remaining
on the 2 TB drive. 2 TB usable on raid 5 and 500 GB usable on mirror.
2.5 TB total.

 

Pull the 500 GB and put in a 2 TB and it will do a 4 disk raid 5 and a
mirror of the remaining 1 GB on each of the large drives. 3 TB usable on
raid 5 and 1 TB usable on mirror. 4 TB total.

 

I have no idea how it manages to push the bits around to accomplish
that. Or how raid 6 fits into the picture.

 

 

From: N Parr [mailto:npar...@mortonind.com] 
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 8:44 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

 

Pretty sure raid on the Drobo defined by the smallest drive in the
array.  So if you have 3 2TB drive and 1 1TB drive you will only get
around 3TB of storage.  

 



From: Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com] 
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 10:36 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

Ok, so it SEEMS like a really cool device, but I honestly haven't looked
at it seriously since the device first came out a couple of years ago.
When I first looked at it, I was like, ok, now THAT's COOL.

 

However, after thinking about it some, it just seemed like some black
magic under the covers to get their "BeyondRAID" to work. When I
originally looked at it, I couldn't find any technical detail on how the
product *really* worked, as that was "proprietary" (understandably so,
but still, how am I going to get comfortable with it as a sysadmin,
especially at the price if I'm on a budget - it would be an expensive
toy. Traditional RAID is just much more comforting to me. If you have a
big issue with multiple drives of different sizes on a drobo unit, how
is data recovery going to go for you? If the controller fails, and you
don't have a support agreement, you can't just go on serversuply.com and
get parts...

 

Does anyone here have any experience with data recovery on a failed
drobo, or for that matter, simply a failed drive within a drobo where
you had drives of different sizes in the configuration?

 

I know "backup, backup, backup", but what if the backup doesn't work (or
the customer/end user didn't heed your advice)?

Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
Technology Coordinator
Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA
jra...@eaglemds.com mailto:%20jra...@eaglemds.com> 
www.eaglemds.com http://www.eaglemds.com/>  



From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:16 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Re: SAN question

 

+1

Going back to a previous comment of mine in another thread you started.
Have you messed with OpenFiler, yet?  You'll learn a lot.

Also, based on your pretty low requirements, have you looked at the
DroboElite? If it had been available when I started looking, I very well
could've gone in this direction.  As it is, I'm seriously considering it
for backup duty.  Storage for a backup server, and the ability to use it
in a pinch if my EqualLogic goes down.

On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 10:59 AM, Raper, Jonathan - Eagle
 wrote:

John - I do not believe that we can help you significantly with this
question. In the end, it really doesn't matter what any of us think,
because our environments are all different and unique. What works well
and may be appropriate for any of us, may be a horrible fit for you and
cause you nothing but heartburn and stress.

However, I would tend to agree with Niles. If you're not ready for a
SAN, don't spend the money on it now.

You really need to have a serious sit-down with the vendors/sales
engineers (notice I said ENGINEER, not REP) of the different hardware,
learn as much as you can from THEM, and ask LOTS of questions. Then ask
them why you should choose their product over x, y, or z product. Take
lots of notes, and then do the same thing all over again, no more than a
few days apart so everything is still fresh in your head.

Many times, some of the best education I've gotten has been from the
manufacturers themselves. I've actually been to the EMC manufacturing
facility in North Carolina - I spent two days there, on THEIR DIME to
learn about their products (I had to get there & back, but after that,
everything was on them). If you say to them, "I'd like an education on
how your product works and whether or not it would be suitable for my
needs and my applications.", you'll generally get plenty of intelligent
people that will be happy to answer your questions. If they don't ask
lots of questions about your environment

Re: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

[Bob Hartung]

I use Servers Alive to monitor volume size on the Elite. I use it on any server 
volume that is likely to fill up. Once it passes a set threshold, I get an 
e-mail.

--

Bob Hartung
Wisco Industries, Inc.
736 Janesville St.
Oregon, WI 53575
Tel: (608) 835-3106 x215
Fax: (608) 835-7399
e-mail: bhartung(at)wiscoind.com
  _  

From: Andrew S. Baker [mailto:asbz...@gmail.com]
To: NT System Admin Issues [mailto:ntsysad...@lyris.sunbelt-software.com]
Sent: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 12:58:37 -0500
Subject: Re: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

Thin provisioning is very cool, but requires a great deal of monitoring to make 
it really effective (or to avoid self-inflicted injury)



  



ASB


On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 1:30 PM, Jonathan Link  wrote:
  
Just to be clear, what you're describing is thin provisioning, not RAID or even 
BeyondRaid.  You've created volumes that report to the susbcribing OS to be 16 
TB in size, so you are at risk of oversubscribing your disk space.  You're 
using the features of BeyondRAID to handle providing additional capacity to 
thin provisioned volumes when you add additional physical disks, or replace 
disks with larger ones.  
   

   



On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 12:28 PM, Bob Hartung  wrote:
  



  
We've been using a Drobo Elite for about 6 months. It has seven 2 TB WD drives 
in it with dual redundant disks yielding 8.36 TB of available storage. I use it 
for Acronis backup images.

One of the drives failed about a week after we installed them. The Drobo 
alerted me which drive had failed and I got a replacement and stuffed it in and 
it automatically rebuilt the array without any interruptions.

Someone mentioned that the smallest drive somehow define capacity. That not 
true. If you go to the Data Robotics website, they have a space calculator app 
that tells you the usable storage space with any combination of drive sizes and 
redundancy settings.

One of the biggest benefits I see with the Beyond RAID is volume size 
flexibility. On a typical RAID, if you specify a 500 MB volume and you reach 
that limit and need more you have to backup the data, destroy the volume and 
recreate it with a larger size and restore the data.

With Beyond RAID, you can either specify a 500 MB volume and have the same 
situation as a conventional RAID. But you can also elect to make the Volume 
size 16 TB. Then you can let the volume grow as large as there is free space 
available on the installed drives. I make all my volumes 16 TB. If I start 
running out of room, I'll add another 2 TB drive. When that's full, I'll pull 
one of the 2 TB drives out and stick in a 4 TB drive (or whatever the current 
big drive available is).

Other benefits...
  
  
* No trays. You just stick the bare drive in.  
* Drive order is unimportant. If you shutdown the Drobo, pulled all the drives 
and stuck them back in randomly and fired it up, there'd be no problem.
It's more expensive than a NAS but it's worth it for the Beyond RAID. It's also 
a lot less expensive than a typical SAN.

I think it great technology.

--

Bob Hartung
Wisco Industries, Inc.
736 Janesville St.
Oregon, WI 53575
Tel: (608) 835-3106 x215
Fax: (608) 835-7399
e-mail: bhartung(at)wiscoind.com
  


  
_  

  From: Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com]
To: NT System Admin Issues [mailto:ntsysad...@lyris.sunbelt-software.com]
Sent: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:47:39 -0500
Subject: RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

  



  
  

Ok, so lemme get this straight – you put in 7 TB of disk and only get 3 TB 
usable? Lovely.  

   

With traditional RAID, if you pulled the 1 TB drive out of that same equation, 
you’d have, u 4 TB…  

   
  




Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE   

Technology Coordinator
Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA  

jra...@eaglemds.com
www.eaglemds.com   



  
  
_  



From: N Parr [mailto:npar...@mortonind.com] 
  
  Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:44 AM   

To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)   



  
  
  

  

   

Pretty sure raid on the Drobo defined by the smallest drive in the array.  So 
if you have 3 2TB drive and 1 1TB drive you will only get around 3TB of 
storage.

   
_  



From: Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com] 
  
  Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 10:36 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)  




Ok, so it SEEMS like a really cool device, but I honestly haven’t looked at it 
seriously since the device first came out a couple of years ago. When I first 
looked at it, I was like, ok, now THAT’s COOL.  

   

However, after thinking about it some, it just seemed like some black magic 
under the covers to get their “BeyondRAID” to work. When I originally looked at 

Re: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

[Bob Hartung]

That's correct. Thanks for clarifying that.

--

Bob Hartung
Wisco Industries, Inc.
736 Janesville St.
Oregon, WI 53575
Tel: (608) 835-3106 x215
Fax: (608) 835-7399
e-mail: bhartung(at)wiscoind.com
  _  

From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com]
To: NT System Admin Issues [mailto:ntsysad...@lyris.sunbelt-software.com]
Sent: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 12:30:58 -0500
Subject: Re: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)


Just to be clear, what you're describing is thin provisioning, not RAID or even 
BeyondRaid.  You've created volumes that report to the susbcribing OS to be 16 
TB in size, so you are at risk of oversubscribing your disk space.  You're 
using the features of BeyondRAID to handle providing additional capacity to 
thin provisioned volumes when you add additional physical disks, or replace 
disks with larger ones.
   

   
On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 12:28 PM, Bob Hartung  wrote:

  
We've been using a Drobo Elite for about 6 months. It has seven 2 TB WD drives 
in it with dual redundant disks yielding 8.36 TB of available storage. I use it 
for Acronis backup images.
  
One of the drives failed about a week after we installed them. The Drobo 
alerted me which drive had failed and I got a replacement and stuffed it in and 
it automatically rebuilt the array without any interruptions.
  
Someone mentioned that the smallest drive somehow define capacity. That not 
true. If you go to the Data Robotics website, they have a space calculator app 
that tells you the usable storage space with any combination of drive sizes and 
redundancy settings.
  
One of the biggest benefits I see with the Beyond RAID is volume size 
flexibility. On a typical RAID, if you specify a 500 MB volume and you reach 
that limit and need more you have to backup the data, destroy the volume and 
recreate it with a larger size and restore the data.
  
With Beyond RAID, you can either specify a 500 MB volume and have the same 
situation as a conventional RAID. But you can also elect to make the Volume 
size 16 TB. Then you can let the volume grow as large as there is free space 
available on the installed drives. I make all my volumes 16 TB. If I start 
running out of room, I'll add another 2 TB drive. When that's full, I'll pull 
one of the 2 TB drives out and stick in a 4 TB drive (or whatever the current 
big drive available is).
  
Other benefits...
  
  
* No trays. You just stick the bare drive in.  
* Drive order is unimportant. If you shutdown the Drobo, pulled all the drives 
and stuck them back in randomly and fired it up, there'd be no problem.
It's more expensive than a NAS but it's worth it for the Beyond RAID. It's also 
a lot less expensive than a typical SAN.
  
I think it great technology.

--

Bob Hartung
Wisco Industries, Inc.
736 Janesville St.
Oregon, WI 53575
Tel: (608) 835-3106 x215
Fax: (608) 835-7399
e-mail: bhartung(at)wiscoind.com
  
_  

  From: Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com]
To: NT System Admin Issues [mailto:ntsysad...@lyris.sunbelt-software.com]
  Sent: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:47:39 -0500
Subject: RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

  
  
  

Ok, so lemme get this straight – you put in 7 TB of disk and only get 3 TB 
usable? Lovely.

   

With traditional RAID, if you pulled the 1 TB drive out of that same equation, 
you’d have, u 4 TB…

   
  

Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE   

Technology Coordinator
Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA  

jra...@eaglemds.com
  www.eaglemds.com 



  
  
_  



From: N Parr [mailto:npar...@mortonind.com] 
  Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:44 AM   

To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)   



  
  
  
  

   

Pretty sure raid on the Drobo defined by the smallest drive in the array.  So 
if you have 3 2TB drive and 1 1TB drive you will only get around 3TB of 
storage.  

   
_  



From: Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com] 
  Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 10:36 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

Ok, so it SEEMS like a really cool device, but I honestly haven’t looked at it 
seriously since the device first came out a couple of years ago. When I first 
looked at it, I was like, ok, now THAT’s COOL.

   

However, after thinking about it some, it just seemed like some black magic 
under the covers to get their “BeyondRAID” to work. When I originally looked at 
it, I couldn’t find any technical detail on how the product *really* worked, as 
that was “proprietary” (understandably so, but still, how am I going to get 
comfortable with it as a sysadmin, especially at the price if I’m on a budget – 
it would be an expensive toy. Traditional RAID is just much more comforting to 
me. If you have a big issue with multiple drives of different size

RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

[Crawford, Scott]

The difference is that memory is consumed and released over time but for the 
most part, storage just grows. This is the same as CPU overcommit which is one 
of the basis of the virtualization revolution.

From: Michael B. Smith [mailto:mich...@smithcons.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 1:43 PM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

Same thing is true for memory overcommit in VMs. I think it's a feature that 
shouldn't ever be used.

Regards,

Michael B. Smith
Consultant and Exchange MVP
http://TheEssentialExchange.com

From: Andrew S. Baker [mailto:asbz...@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 1:59 PM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Re: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

Thin provisioning is very cool, but requires a great deal of monitoring to make 
it really effective (or to avoid self-inflicted injury)



ASB

On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 1:30 PM, Jonathan Link 
mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Just to be clear, what you're describing is thin provisioning, not RAID or even 
BeyondRaid.  You've created volumes that report to the susbcribing OS to be 16 
TB in size, so you are at risk of oversubscribing your disk space.  You're 
using the features of BeyondRAID to handle providing additional capacity to 
thin provisioned volumes when you add additional physical disks, or replace 
disks with larger ones.



On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 12:28 PM, Bob Hartung 
mailto:bhart...@wiscoind.com>> wrote:
We've been using a Drobo Elite for about 6 months. It has seven 2 TB WD drives 
in it with dual redundant disks yielding 8.36 TB of available storage. I use it 
for Acronis backup images.

One of the drives failed about a week after we installed them. The Drobo 
alerted me which drive had failed and I got a replacement and stuffed it in and 
it automatically rebuilt the array without any interruptions.

Someone mentioned that the smallest drive somehow define capacity. That not 
true. If you go to the Data Robotics website, they have a space calculator app 
that tells you the usable storage space with any combination of drive sizes and 
redundancy settings.

One of the biggest benefits I see with the Beyond RAID is volume size 
flexibility. On a typical RAID, if you specify a 500 MB volume and you reach 
that limit and need more you have to backup the data, destroy the volume and 
recreate it with a larger size and restore the data.

With Beyond RAID, you can either specify a 500 MB volume and have the same 
situation as a conventional RAID. But you can also elect to make the Volume 
size 16 TB. Then you can let the volume grow as large as there is free space 
available on the installed drives. I make all my volumes 16 TB. If I start 
running out of room, I'll add another 2 TB drive. When that's full, I'll pull 
one of the 2 TB drives out and stick in a 4 TB drive (or whatever the current 
big drive available is).

Other benefits...

  *   No trays. You just stick the bare drive in.
  *   Drive order is unimportant. If you shutdown the Drobo, pulled all the 
drives and stuck them back in randomly and fired it up, there'd be no problem.
It's more expensive than a NAS but it's worth it for the Beyond RAID. It's also 
a lot less expensive than a typical SAN.

I think it great technology.

--

Bob Hartung
Wisco Industries, Inc.
736 Janesville St.
Oregon, WI 53575
Tel: (608) 835-3106 x215
Fax: (608) 835-7399
e-mail: bhartung(at)wiscoind.com<http://wiscoind.com/>

From: Raper, Jonathan - Eagle 
[mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com<mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com>]
To: NT System Admin Issues 
[mailto:ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com<mailto:ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com>]
Sent: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:47:39 -0500
Subject: RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
Ok, so lemme get this straight - you put in 7 TB of disk and only get 3 TB 
usable? Lovely.

With traditional RAID, if you pulled the 1 TB drive out of that same equation, 
you'd have, u 4 TB...

Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE

Technology Coordinator
Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA

jra...@eaglemds.com<mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com>
www.eaglemds.com<http://www.eaglemds.com>

From: N Parr [mailto:npar...@mortonind.com<mailto:npar...@mortonind.com>]
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:44 AM

To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

Pretty sure raid on the Drobo defined by the smallest drive in the array.  So 
if you have 3 2TB drive and 1 1TB drive you will only get around 3TB of storage.


From: Raper, Jonathan - Eagle 
[mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com<mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com>]
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 10:36 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
Ok, so it S

RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

[Webster]

I agree 100% but you will never convince the VMware fanboys (and girls) out
there who claim it is the best thing since ASB came back to this list! J

 

 

Webster

 

From: Michael B. Smith [mailto:mich...@smithcons.com] 
Subject: RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

 

Same thing is true for memory overcommit in VMs. I think it's a feature that
shouldn't ever be used.


~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~
~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/>  ~

---
To manage subscriptions click here: 
http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/
or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com
with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin

Re: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

[Raper, Jonathan - Eagle]

L2

self inflicted injury = RGE? [1]

Jonathan L. Raper, MCSE

Thumb-typed from my HTC Incredible (and yes, it really is) Droid. Please excuse 
brevity & any misspellings.

[1] Resume Generating Event

- Reply message -
From: "Andrew S. Baker" 
Date: Thu, Sep 23, 2010 2:07 pm
Subject: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
To: "NT System Admin Issues" 

Thin provisioning is very cool, but requires a great deal of monitoring to make 
it really effective (or to avoid self-inflicted injury)


ASB


On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 1:30 PM, Jonathan Link 
mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Just to be clear, what you're describing is thin provisioning, not RAID or even 
BeyondRaid.  You've created volumes that report to the susbcribing OS to be 16 
TB in size, so you are at risk of oversubscribing your disk space.  You're 
using the features of BeyondRAID to handle providing additional capacity to 
thin provisioned volumes when you add additional physical disks, or replace 
disks with larger ones.



On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 12:28 PM, Bob Hartung 
mailto:bhart...@wiscoind.com>> wrote:
We've been using a Drobo Elite for about 6 months. It has seven 2 TB WD drives 
in it with dual redundant disks yielding 8.36 TB of available storage. I use it 
for Acronis backup images.

One of the drives failed about a week after we installed them. The Drobo 
alerted me which drive had failed and I got a replacement and stuffed it in and 
it automatically rebuilt the array without any interruptions.

Someone mentioned that the smallest drive somehow define capacity. That not 
true. If you go to the Data Robotics website, they have a space calculator app 
that tells you the usable storage space with any combination of drive sizes and 
redundancy settings.

One of the biggest benefits I see with the Beyond RAID is volume size 
flexibility. On a typical RAID, if you specify a 500 MB volume and you reach 
that limit and need more you have to backup the data, destroy the volume and 
recreate it with a larger size and restore the data.

With Beyond RAID, you can either specify a 500 MB volume and have the same 
situation as a conventional RAID. But you can also elect to make the Volume 
size 16 TB. Then you can let the volume grow as large as there is free space 
available on the installed drives. I make all my volumes 16 TB. If I start 
running out of room, I'll add another 2 TB drive. When that's full, I'll pull 
one of the 2 TB drives out and stick in a 4 TB drive (or whatever the current 
big drive available is).

Other benefits...

 *   No trays. You just stick the bare drive in.
 *   Drive order is unimportant. If you shutdown the Drobo, pulled all the 
drives and stuck them back in randomly and fired it up, there'd be no problem.

It's more expensive than a NAS but it's worth it for the Beyond RAID. It's also 
a lot less expensive than a typical SAN.

I think it great technology.

--

Bob Hartung
Wisco Industries, Inc.
736 Janesville St.
Oregon, WI 53575
Tel: (608) 835-3106 x215
Fax: (608) 835-7399
e-mail: bhartung(at)wiscoind.com<http://wiscoind.com/>

From: Raper, Jonathan - Eagle 
[mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com<mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com>]
To: NT System Admin Issues 
[mailto:ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com<mailto:ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com>]
Sent: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:47:39 -0500
Subject: RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

Ok, so lemme get this straight – you put in 7 TB of disk and only get 3 TB 
usable? Lovely.

With traditional RAID, if you pulled the 1 TB drive out of that same equation, 
you’d have, u 4 TB…


Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE

Technology Coordinator
Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA

jra...@eaglemds.com
www.eaglemds.com


From: N Parr [mailto:npar...@mortonind.com<mailto:npar...@mortonind.com>]
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:44 AM

To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

Pretty sure raid on the Drobo defined by the smallest drive in the array.  So 
if you have 3 2TB drive and 1 1TB drive you will only get around 3TB of storage.


From: Raper, Jonathan - Eagle 
[mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com<mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com>]
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 10:36 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
Ok, so it SEEMS like a really cool device, but I honestly haven’t looked at it 
seriously since the device first came out a couple of years ago. When I first 
looked at it, I was like, ok, now THAT’s COOL.

However, after thinking about it some, it just seemed like some black magic 
under the covers to get their “BeyondRAID” to work. When I originally looked at 
it, I couldn’t find any technical detail on how the product *really* worked, as 
that

Re: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

[Kurt Buff]

It is great technology.

However, it lacks one thing for me - I can't buy two units, and make
them redundant. That would be such a huge win. My Lefthands do that,
but they're way more expensive than the Drobo stuff.

If Drobo could make entire units redundant, I'd be on them like white on rice.

(Actually, current LH software lets you replicate across more than
just two units, achieving something like network RAID. It's pretty
darn cool - but I'd settle for just two-way replication for the
Drobos.)

Kurt

On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 09:28, Bob Hartung  wrote:
> We've been using a Drobo Elite for about 6 months. It has seven 2 TB WD
> drives in it with dual redundant disks yielding 8.36 TB of available
> storage. I use it for Acronis backup images.
>
> One of the drives failed about a week after we installed them. The Drobo
> alerted me which drive had failed and I got a replacement and stuffed it in
> and it automatically rebuilt the array without any interruptions.
>
> Someone mentioned that the smallest drive somehow define capacity. That not
> true. If you go to the Data Robotics website, they have a space calculator
> app that tells you the usable storage space with any combination of drive
> sizes and redundancy settings.
>
> One of the biggest benefits I see with the Beyond RAID is volume size
> flexibility. On a typical RAID, if you specify a 500 MB volume and you reach
> that limit and need more you have to backup the data, destroy the volume and
> recreate it with a larger size and restore the data.
>
> With Beyond RAID, you can either specify a 500 MB volume and have the same
> situation as a conventional RAID. But you can also elect to make the Volume
> size 16 TB. Then you can let the volume grow as large as there is free space
> available on the installed drives. I make all my volumes 16 TB. If I start
> running out of room, I'll add another 2 TB drive. When that's full, I'll
> pull one of the 2 TB drives out and stick in a 4 TB drive (or whatever the
> current big drive available is).
>
> Other benefits...
>
> No trays. You just stick the bare drive in.
> Drive order is unimportant. If you shutdown the Drobo, pulled all the drives
> and stuck them back in randomly and fired it up, there'd be no problem.
>
> It's more expensive than a NAS but it's worth it for the Beyond RAID. It's
> also a lot less expensive than a typical SAN.
>
> I think it great technology.
>
> --
>
> Bob Hartung
> Wisco Industries, Inc.
> 736 Janesville St.
> Oregon, WI 53575
> Tel: (608) 835-3106 x215
> Fax: (608) 835-7399
> e-mail: bhartung(at)wiscoind.com
>
> ________
> From: Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com]
> To: NT System Admin Issues [mailto:ntsysad...@lyris.sunbelt-software.com]
> Sent: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:47:39 -0500
> Subject: RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
>
> Ok, so lemme get this straight – you put in 7 TB of disk and only get 3 TB
> usable? Lovely.
>
>
>
> With traditional RAID, if you pulled the 1 TB drive out of that same
> equation, you’d have, u 4 TB…
>
>
>
> Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
> Technology Coordinator
> Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA
>
> jra...@eaglemds.com
> www.eaglemds.com
> 
>
> From: N Parr [mailto:npar...@mortonind.com]
> Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:44 AM
> To: NT System Admin Issues
> Subject: RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
>
>
>
> Pretty sure raid on the Drobo defined by the smallest drive in the array.
> So if you have 3 2TB drive and 1 1TB drive you will only get around 3TB of
> storage.
>
>
>
> 
>
> From: Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com]
> Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 10:36 AM
> To: NT System Admin Issues
> Subject: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
>
> Ok, so it SEEMS like a really cool device, but I honestly haven’t looked at
> it seriously since the device first came out a couple of years ago. When I
> first looked at it, I was like, ok, now THAT’s COOL.
>
>
>
> However, after thinking about it some, it just seemed like some black magic
> under the covers to get their “BeyondRAID” to work. When I originally looked
> at it, I couldn’t find any technical detail on how the product *really*
> worked, as that was “proprietary” (understandably so, but still, how am I
> going to get comfortable with it as a sysadmin, especially at the price if
> I’m on a budget – it would be an expensive toy. Traditional RAID is just
> much more comforting to me. If you have a big issue with multiple drives of
> di

Re: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

[Andrew S. Baker]

Thin provisioning is very cool, but requires a great deal of monitoring to
make it really effective (or to avoid self-inflicted injury)


*ASB*


On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 1:30 PM, Jonathan Link wrote:

> Just to be clear, what you're describing is thin provisioning, not RAID or
> even BeyondRaid.  You've created volumes that report to the susbcribing OS
> to be 16 TB in size, so you are at risk of oversubscribing your disk space.
> You're using the features of BeyondRAID to handle providing additional
> capacity to thin provisioned volumes when you add additional physical disks,
> or replace disks with larger ones.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 12:28 PM, Bob Hartung wrote:
>
>>  We've been using a Drobo Elite for about 6 months. It has seven 2 TB WD
>> drives in it with dual redundant disks yielding 8.36 TB of available
>> storage. I use it for Acronis backup images.
>>
>> One of the drives failed about a week after we installed them. The Drobo
>> alerted me which drive had failed and I got a replacement and stuffed it in
>> and it automatically rebuilt the array without any interruptions.
>>
>> Someone mentioned that the smallest drive somehow define capacity. That
>> not true. If you go to the Data Robotics website, they have a space
>> calculator app that tells you the usable storage space with any combination
>> of drive sizes and redundancy settings.
>>
>> One of the biggest benefits I see with the Beyond RAID is volume size
>> flexibility. On a typical RAID, if you specify a 500 MB volume and you reach
>> that limit and need more you have to backup the data, destroy the volume and
>> recreate it with a larger size and restore the data.
>>
>> With Beyond RAID, you can either specify a 500 MB volume and have the same
>> situation as a conventional RAID. But you can also elect to make the Volume
>> size 16 TB. Then you can let the volume grow as large as there is free space
>> available on the installed drives. I make all my volumes 16 TB. If I start
>> running out of room, I'll add another 2 TB drive. When that's full, I'll
>> pull one of the 2 TB drives out and stick in a 4 TB drive (or whatever the
>> current big drive available is).
>>
>> Other benefits...
>>
>>- No trays. You just stick the bare drive in.
>>- Drive order is unimportant. If you shutdown the Drobo, pulled all
>>the drives and stuck them back in randomly and fired it up, there'd be no
>>problem.
>>
>> It's more expensive than a NAS but it's worth it for the Beyond RAID. It's
>> also a lot less expensive than a typical SAN.
>>
>> I think it great technology.
>>
>> --
>>
>> Bob Hartung
>> Wisco Industries, Inc.
>> 736 Janesville St.
>> Oregon, WI 53575
>> Tel: (608) 835-3106 x215
>> Fax: (608) 835-7399
>> e-mail: bhartung(at)wiscoind.com
>>
>>  --
>> *From:* Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com]
>> *To:* NT System Admin Issues [mailto:
>> ntsysad...@lyris.sunbelt-software.com]
>> *Sent:* Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:47:39 -0500
>> *Subject:* RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
>>
>>  Ok, so lemme get this straight – you put in 7 TB of disk and only get 3
>> TB usable? Lovely.
>>
>>
>>
>> With traditional RAID, if you pulled the 1 TB drive out of that same
>> equation, you’d have, u 4 TB…
>>
>>
>>
>> Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
>>
>> Technology Coordinator
>> Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA
>> *
>> *jra...@eaglemds.com*
>> *www.eaglemds.com
>>
>>  --
>>
>> *From:* N Parr [mailto:npar...@mortonind.com]
>> *Sent:* Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:44 AM
>>
>> *To:* NT System Admin Issues
>> *Subject:* RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
>>
>>
>>
>> Pretty sure raid on the Drobo defined by the smallest drive in the array.
>> So if you have 3 2TB drive and 1 1TB drive you will only get around 3TB of
>> storage.
>>
>>
>>  --
>>
>> *From:* Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com]
>> *Sent:* Thursday, September 23, 2010 10:36 AM
>> *To:* NT System Admin Issues
>> *Subject:* Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
>>
>> Ok, so it SEEMS like a really cool device, but I honestly haven’t looked
>> at it seriously since the device first came out a couple of years ago. When
>> I first looked at it, I was like, 

Re: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

[Andrew S. Baker]

Nice overview, Bob.

Thanks


*ASB *(My XeeSM Profile) <http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker>
*Exploiting Technology for Business Advantage...*
* *

On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 12:28 PM, Bob Hartung  wrote:

>  We've been using a Drobo Elite for about 6 months. It has seven 2 TB WD
> drives in it with dual redundant disks yielding 8.36 TB of available
> storage. I use it for Acronis backup images.
>
> One of the drives failed about a week after we installed them. The Drobo
> alerted me which drive had failed and I got a replacement and stuffed it in
> and it automatically rebuilt the array without any interruptions.
>
> Someone mentioned that the smallest drive somehow define capacity. That not
> true. If you go to the Data Robotics website, they have a space calculator
> app that tells you the usable storage space with any combination of drive
> sizes and redundancy settings.
>
> One of the biggest benefits I see with the Beyond RAID is volume size
> flexibility. On a typical RAID, if you specify a 500 MB volume and you reach
> that limit and need more you have to backup the data, destroy the volume and
> recreate it with a larger size and restore the data.
>
> With Beyond RAID, you can either specify a 500 MB volume and have the same
> situation as a conventional RAID. But you can also elect to make the Volume
> size 16 TB. Then you can let the volume grow as large as there is free space
> available on the installed drives. I make all my volumes 16 TB. If I start
> running out of room, I'll add another 2 TB drive. When that's full, I'll
> pull one of the 2 TB drives out and stick in a 4 TB drive (or whatever the
> current big drive available is).
>
> Other benefits...
>
>- No trays. You just stick the bare drive in.
>- Drive order is unimportant. If you shutdown the Drobo, pulled all the
>drives and stuck them back in randomly and fired it up, there'd be no
>problem.
>
> It's more expensive than a NAS but it's worth it for the Beyond RAID. It's
> also a lot less expensive than a typical SAN.
>
> I think it great technology.
>
> --
>
> Bob Hartung
> Wisco Industries, Inc.
> 736 Janesville St.
> Oregon, WI 53575
> Tel: (608) 835-3106 x215
> Fax: (608) 835-7399
> e-mail: bhartung(at)wiscoind.com
>
> --
> *From:* Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com]
> *To:* NT System Admin Issues [mailto:ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com
> ]
> *Sent:* Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:47:39 -0500
> *Subject:* RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
>
>  Ok, so lemme get this straight – you put in 7 TB of disk and only get 3
> TB usable? Lovely.
>
>
>
> With traditional RAID, if you pulled the 1 TB drive out of that same
> equation, you’d have, u 4 TB…
>
>
>
> Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
>
> Technology Coordinator
> Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA
> *
> *jra...@eaglemds.com*
> *www.eaglemds.com
>
>   --
>
> *From:* N Parr [mailto:npar...@mortonind.com]
> *Sent:* Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:44 AM
>
> *To:* NT System Admin Issues
> *Subject:* RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
>
>
>
> Pretty sure raid on the Drobo defined by the smallest drive in the array.
> So if you have 3 2TB drive and 1 1TB drive you will only get around 3TB of
> storage.
>
>
>  --
>
> *From:* Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com]
> *Sent:* Thursday, September 23, 2010 10:36 AM
> *To:* NT System Admin Issues
> *Subject:* Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
>
> Ok, so it SEEMS like a really cool device, but I honestly haven’t looked at
> it seriously since the device first came out a couple of years ago. When I
> first looked at it, I was like, ok, now THAT’s COOL.
>
>
>
> However, after thinking about it some, it just seemed like some black magic
> under the covers to get their “BeyondRAID” to work. When I originally
> looked at it, I couldn’t find any technical detail on how the product **
> really** worked, as that was “proprietary” (understandably so, but still,
> how am I going to get comfortable with it as a sysadmin, especially at the
> price if I’m on a budget – it would be an expensive toy. Traditional RAID is
> just much more comforting to me. If you have a big issue with multiple
> drives of different sizes on a drobo unit, how is data recovery going to go
> for you? If the controller fails, and you don’t have a support agreement,
> you can’t just go on serversuply.com and get parts…
>
>
>
> Does anyone here have any experience with data recovery on a failed drobo,
&g

Re: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

[Jonathan Link]

Just to be clear, what you're describing is thin provisioning, not RAID or
even BeyondRaid.  You've created volumes that report to the susbcribing OS
to be 16 TB in size, so you are at risk of oversubscribing your disk space.
You're using the features of BeyondRAID to handle providing additional
capacity to thin provisioned volumes when you add additional physical disks,
or replace disks with larger ones.



On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 12:28 PM, Bob Hartung  wrote:

>  We've been using a Drobo Elite for about 6 months. It has seven 2 TB WD
> drives in it with dual redundant disks yielding 8.36 TB of available
> storage. I use it for Acronis backup images.
>
> One of the drives failed about a week after we installed them. The Drobo
> alerted me which drive had failed and I got a replacement and stuffed it in
> and it automatically rebuilt the array without any interruptions.
>
> Someone mentioned that the smallest drive somehow define capacity. That not
> true. If you go to the Data Robotics website, they have a space calculator
> app that tells you the usable storage space with any combination of drive
> sizes and redundancy settings.
>
> One of the biggest benefits I see with the Beyond RAID is volume size
> flexibility. On a typical RAID, if you specify a 500 MB volume and you reach
> that limit and need more you have to backup the data, destroy the volume and
> recreate it with a larger size and restore the data.
>
> With Beyond RAID, you can either specify a 500 MB volume and have the same
> situation as a conventional RAID. But you can also elect to make the Volume
> size 16 TB. Then you can let the volume grow as large as there is free space
> available on the installed drives. I make all my volumes 16 TB. If I start
> running out of room, I'll add another 2 TB drive. When that's full, I'll
> pull one of the 2 TB drives out and stick in a 4 TB drive (or whatever the
> current big drive available is).
>
> Other benefits...
>
>- No trays. You just stick the bare drive in.
>- Drive order is unimportant. If you shutdown the Drobo, pulled all the
>drives and stuck them back in randomly and fired it up, there'd be no
>problem.
>
> It's more expensive than a NAS but it's worth it for the Beyond RAID. It's
> also a lot less expensive than a typical SAN.
>
> I think it great technology.
>
> --
>
> Bob Hartung
> Wisco Industries, Inc.
> 736 Janesville St.
> Oregon, WI 53575
> Tel: (608) 835-3106 x215
> Fax: (608) 835-7399
> e-mail: bhartung(at)wiscoind.com
>
>  --
> *From:* Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com]
> *To:* NT System Admin Issues [mailto:ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com
> ]
> *Sent:* Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:47:39 -0500
> *Subject:* RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
>
>  Ok, so lemme get this straight – you put in 7 TB of disk and only get 3
> TB usable? Lovely.
>
>
>
> With traditional RAID, if you pulled the 1 TB drive out of that same
> equation, you’d have, u 4 TB…
>
>
>
> Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
>
> Technology Coordinator
> Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA
> *
> *jra...@eaglemds.com*
> *www.eaglemds.com
>
>  --
>
> *From:* N Parr [mailto:npar...@mortonind.com]
> *Sent:* Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:44 AM
>
> *To:* NT System Admin Issues
> *Subject:* RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
>
>
>
> Pretty sure raid on the Drobo defined by the smallest drive in the array.
> So if you have 3 2TB drive and 1 1TB drive you will only get around 3TB of
> storage.
>
>
>  --
>
> *From:* Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com]
> *Sent:* Thursday, September 23, 2010 10:36 AM
> *To:* NT System Admin Issues
> *Subject:* Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
>
> Ok, so it SEEMS like a really cool device, but I honestly haven’t looked at
> it seriously since the device first came out a couple of years ago. When I
> first looked at it, I was like, ok, now THAT’s COOL.
>
>
>
> However, after thinking about it some, it just seemed like some black magic
> under the covers to get their “BeyondRAID” to work. When I originally
> looked at it, I couldn’t find any technical detail on how the product **
> really** worked, as that was “proprietary” (understandably so, but still,
> how am I going to get comfortable with it as a sysadmin, especially at the
> price if I’m on a budget – it would be an expensive toy. Traditional RAID is
> just much more comforting to me. If you have a big issue with multiple
> drives of different sizes on a drobo unit, how i

Re: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

[Raper, Jonathan - Eagle]

Good info. Thanks for the response, Bob.

So, I take it you feel the technology is suitable for prime time in a 
commercial production environment, obviously depending on what the application 
might be.  In your example, primarily for static files that pretty much only 
you & your department use. Fair statement?

Based on your experience..

Are there areas/applications where you would consider it not a good idea to use 
a drobo and go with a more traditional approach?

Jonathan L. Raper, MCSE

Thumb-typed from my HTC Incredible (and yes, it really is) Droid. Please excuse 
brevity & any misspellings.

- Reply message -
From: "Bob Hartung" 
Date: Thu, Sep 23, 2010 12:28 pm
Subject: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
To: "NT System Admin Issues" 

We've been using a Drobo Elite for about 6 months. It has seven 2 TB WD drives 
in it with dual redundant disks yielding 8.36 TB of available storage. I use it 
for Acronis backup images.

One of the drives failed about a week after we installed them. The Drobo 
alerted me which drive had failed and I got a replacement and stuffed it in and 
it automatically rebuilt the array without any interruptions.

Someone mentioned that the smallest drive somehow define capacity. That not 
true. If you go to the Data Robotics website, they have a space calculator app 
that tells you the usable storage space with any combination of drive sizes and 
redundancy settings.

One of the biggest benefits I see with the Beyond RAID is volume size 
flexibility. On a typical RAID, if you specify a 500 MB volume and you reach 
that limit and need more you have to backup the data, destroy the volume and 
recreate it with a larger size and restore the data.

With Beyond RAID, you can either specify a 500 MB volume and have the same 
situation as a conventional RAID. But you can also elect to make the Volume 
size 16 TB. Then you can let the volume grow as large as there is free space 
available on the installed drives. I make all my volumes 16 TB. If I start 
running out of room, I'll add another 2 TB drive. When that's full, I'll pull 
one of the 2 TB drives out and stick in a 4 TB drive (or whatever the current 
big drive available is).

Other benefits...

 *   No trays. You just stick the bare drive in.
 *   Drive order is unimportant. If you shutdown the Drobo, pulled all the 
drives and stuck them back in randomly and fired it up, there'd be no problem.

It's more expensive than a NAS but it's worth it for the Beyond RAID. It's also 
a lot less expensive than a typical SAN.

I think it great technology.

--

Bob Hartung
Wisco Industries, Inc.
736 Janesville St.
Oregon, WI 53575
Tel: (608) 835-3106 x215
Fax: (608) 835-7399
e-mail: bhartung(at)wiscoind.com

From: Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com]
To: NT System Admin Issues [mailto:ntsysad...@lyris.sunbelt-software.com]
Sent: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:47:39 -0500
Subject: RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

Ok, so lemme get this straight – you put in 7 TB of disk and only get 3 TB 
usable? Lovely.

With traditional RAID, if you pulled the 1 TB drive out of that same equation, 
you’d have, u 4 TB…


Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
Technology Coordinator
Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA
jra...@eaglemds.commailto:%20jra...@eaglemds.com>
www.eaglemds.comhttp://www.eaglemds.com/>


From: N Parr [mailto:npar...@mortonind.com<mailto:npar...@mortonind.com>]
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:44 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

Pretty sure raid on the Drobo defined by the smallest drive in the array.  So 
if you have 3 2TB drive and 1 1TB drive you will only get around 3TB of storage.


From: Raper, Jonathan - Eagle 
[mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com<mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com>]
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 10:36 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
Ok, so it SEEMS like a really cool device, but I honestly haven’t looked at it 
seriously since the device first came out a couple of years ago. When I first 
looked at it, I was like, ok, now THAT’s COOL.

However, after thinking about it some, it just seemed like some black magic 
under the covers to get their “BeyondRAID” to work. When I originally looked at 
it, I couldn’t find any technical detail on how the product *really* worked, as 
that was “proprietary” (understandably so, but still, how am I going to get 
comfortable with it as a sysadmin, especially at the price if I’m on a budget – 
it would be an expensive toy. Traditional RAID is just much more comforting to 
me. If you have a big issue with multiple drives of different sizes on a drobo 
unit, how is data recovery going to go for you? If the controller fails, and 
you don’t have a supp

RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

[Bob Hartung]

We've been using a Drobo Elite for about 6 months. It has seven 2 TB WD drives 
in it with dual redundant disks yielding 8.36 TB of available storage. I use it 
for Acronis backup images.

One of the drives failed about a week after we installed them. The Drobo 
alerted me which drive had failed and I got a replacement and stuffed it in and 
it automatically rebuilt the array without any interruptions.

Someone mentioned that the smallest drive somehow define capacity. That not 
true. If you go to the Data Robotics website, they have a space calculator app 
that tells you the usable storage space with any combination of drive sizes and 
redundancy settings.

One of the biggest benefits I see with the Beyond RAID is volume size 
flexibility. On a typical RAID, if you specify a 500 MB volume and you reach 
that limit and need more you have to backup the data, destroy the volume and 
recreate it with a larger size and restore the data.

With Beyond RAID, you can either specify a 500 MB volume and have the same 
situation as a conventional RAID. But you can also elect to make the Volume 
size 16 TB. Then you can let the volume grow as large as there is free space 
available on the installed drives. I make all my volumes 16 TB. If I start 
running out of room, I'll add another 2 TB drive. When that's full, I'll pull 
one of the 2 TB drives out and stick in a 4 TB drive (or whatever the current 
big drive available is).

Other benefits...


* No trays. You just stick the bare drive in.
* Drive order is unimportant. If you shutdown the Drobo, pulled all the drives 
and stuck them back in randomly and fired it up, there'd be no problem.
It's more expensive than a NAS but it's worth it for the Beyond RAID. It's also 
a lot less expensive than a typical SAN.

I think it great technology.

--

Bob Hartung
Wisco Industries, Inc.
736 Janesville St.
Oregon, WI 53575
Tel: (608) 835-3106 x215
Fax: (608) 835-7399
e-mail: bhartung(at)wiscoind.com
  _  

From: Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com]
To: NT System Admin Issues [mailto:ntsysad...@lyris.sunbelt-software.com]
Sent: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:47:39 -0500
Subject: RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

  


Ok, so lemme get this straight – you put  in 7 TB of disk and only get 3 TB 
usable? Lovely.

 

With traditional RAID, if you pulled the 1  TB drive out of that same equation, 
you’d have, u 4 TB…

 


Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
  Technology Coordinator
  Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA
  jra...@eaglemds.com
  www.eaglemds.com  

  _  



From: N Parr  [mailto:npar...@mortonind.com] 
  Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010  11:44 AM
  To: NT System Admin Issues
  Subject: RE: Speaking of Drobo ...  (was: SAN question)

 

Pretty sure raid on the Drobo defined by  the smallest drive in the array.  So 
if you have 3 2TB drive and 1 1TB  drive you will only get around 3TB of 
storage.  

 
  _  



From: Raper,  Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com] 
  Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010  10:36 AM
  To: NT System Admin Issues
  Subject: Speaking of Drobo ...  (was: SAN question)

Ok, so it SEEMS like a really cool device,  but I honestly haven’t looked at it 
seriously since the device first came out a  couple of years ago. When I first 
looked at it, I was like, ok, now THAT’s  COOL.

 

However, after thinking about it some, it  just seemed like some black magic 
under the covers to get their “BeyondRAID” to  work. When I originally looked 
at it, I couldn’t find any technical detail on  how the product *really* 
worked,  as that was “proprietary” (understandably so, but still, how am I 
going to get  comfortable with it as a sysadmin, especially at the price if I’m 
on a budget –  it would be an expensive toy. Traditional RAID is just much more 
comforting to  me. If you have a big issue with multiple drives of different 
sizes on a drobo  unit, how is data recovery going to go for you? If the 
controller fails, and  you don’t have a support agreement, you can’t just go on 
serversuply.com and  get parts…

 

Does anyone here have any experience with  data recovery on a failed drobo, or 
for that matter, simply a failed drive  within a drobo where you had drives of 
different sizes in the configuration?

 

I know “backup, backup, backup”, but what  if the backup doesn’t work (or the 
customer/end user didn’t heed your advice)?


Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
  Technology Coordinator
  Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA
  jra...@eaglemds.com
  www.eaglemds.com  

  _  



From: Jonathan Link  [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] 
  Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010  11:16 AM
  To: NT System Admin Issues
  Subject: Re: SAN question

 


+1


Going back

Re: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

[Erik Goldoff]

then why bother putting in the 1TB drive 

On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 11:44 AM, N Parr  wrote:

>  Pretty sure raid on the Drobo defined by the smallest drive in the
> array.  So if you have 3 2TB drive and 1 1TB drive you will only get around
> 3TB of storage.
>
>  --
> *From:* Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com]
> *Sent:* Thursday, September 23, 2010 10:36 AM
>
> *To:* NT System Admin Issues
> *Subject:* Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
>
>Ok, so it SEEMS like a really cool device, but I honestly haven’t
> looked at it seriously since the device first came out a couple of years
> ago. When I first looked at it, I was like, ok, now THAT’s COOL.
>
>
>
> However, after thinking about it some, it just seemed like some black magic
> under the covers to get their “BeyondRAID” to work. When I originally
> looked at it, I couldn’t find any technical detail on how the product **
> really** worked, as that was “proprietary” (understandably so, but still,
> how am I going to get comfortable with it as a sysadmin, especially at the
> price if I’m on a budget – it would be an expensive toy. Traditional RAID is
> just much more comforting to me. If you have a big issue with multiple
> drives of different sizes on a drobo unit, how is data recovery going to go
> for you? If the controller fails, and you don’t have a support agreement,
> you can’t just go on serversuply.com and get parts…
>
>
>
> Does anyone here have any experience with data recovery on a failed drobo,
> or for that matter, simply a failed drive within a drobo where you had
> drives of different sizes in the configuration?
>
>
>
> I know “backup, backup, backup”, but what if the backup doesn’t work (or
> the customer/end user didn’t heed your advice)?
>
> Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
> Technology Coordinator
> Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA*
> *jra...@eaglemds.com*
> *www.eaglemds.com
>  --
>
> *From:* Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:16 AM
> *To:* NT System Admin Issues
> *Subject:* Re: SAN question
>
>
>
> +1
>
> Going back to a previous comment of mine in another thread you started.
> Have you messed with OpenFiler, yet?  You'll learn a lot.
>
> Also, based on your pretty low requirements, have you looked at the
> DroboElite? If it had been available when I started looking, I very well
> could've gone in this direction.  As it is, I'm seriously considering it for
> backup duty.  Storage for a backup server, and the ability to use it in a
> pinch if my EqualLogic goes down.
>
> On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 10:59 AM, Raper, Jonathan - Eagle <
> jra...@eaglemds.com> wrote:
>
> John - I do not believe that we can help you significantly with this
> question. In the end, it really doesn't matter what any of us think, because
> our environments are all different and unique. What works well and may be
> appropriate for any of us, may be a horrible fit for you and cause you
> nothing but heartburn and stress.
>
> However, I would tend to agree with Niles. If you're not ready for a SAN,
> don't spend the money on it now.
>
> You really need to have a serious sit-down with the vendors/sales engineers
> (notice I said ENGINEER, not REP) of the different hardware, learn as much
> as you can from THEM, and ask LOTS of questions. Then ask them why you
> should choose their product over x, y, or z product. Take lots of notes, and
> then do the same thing all over again, no more than a few days apart so
> everything is still fresh in your head.
>
> Many times, some of the best education I've gotten has been from the
> manufacturers themselves. I've actually been to the EMC manufacturing
> facility in North Carolina - I spent two days there, on THEIR DIME to learn
> about their products (I had to get there & back, but after that, everything
> was on them). If you say to them, "I'd like an education on how your product
> works and whether or not it would be suitable for my needs and my
> applications.", you'll generally get plenty of intelligent people that will
> be happy to answer your questions. If they don't ask lots of questions about
> your environment and what your needs are, you're talking to the wrong
> people.
>
> I believe that the purpose of this list is really a, "I'm having trouble
> with x, has anyone seen this before?" or "why do you guys think x
> specification/technology is better than y", or "I'm having trouble getting
> this ADSIedit script working, what am I doing wrong?".
>
> I believe that if you sit down with the various manufacturers/reps, even if
> only on a webex session where they can whiteboard for you one on one, will
> answer many of your questions and make your original question about
> intelligence/disks seem trivial.
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
> Technology Coordinator
> Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA
> jra...@eaglemds.com
> www.eaglemds.com
>
>  -Original

Re: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

[Richard Stovall]

It depends on the level of disk failure protection you choose.
http://www.drobo.com/calculator/droboelite/index.php

On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 11:47 AM, Raper, Jonathan - Eagle <
jra...@eaglemds.com> wrote:

>  Ok, so lemme get this straight – you put in 7 TB of disk and only get 3
> TB usable? Lovely.
>
>
>
> With traditional RAID, if you pulled the 1 TB drive out of that same
> equation, you’d have, u 4 TB…
>
>
>
> Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
> Technology Coordinator
> Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA*
> *jra...@eaglemds.com*
> *www.eaglemds.com
>   --
>
> *From:* N Parr [mailto:npar...@mortonind.com]
> *Sent:* Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:44 AM
>
> *To:* NT System Admin Issues
> *Subject:* RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
>
>
>
> Pretty sure raid on the Drobo defined by the smallest drive in the array.
> So if you have 3 2TB drive and 1 1TB drive you will only get around 3TB of
> storage.
>
>
>  --
>
> *From:* Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com]
> *Sent:* Thursday, September 23, 2010 10:36 AM
>
> *To:* NT System Admin Issues
> *Subject:* Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
>
> Ok, so it SEEMS like a really cool device, but I honestly haven’t looked at
> it seriously since the device first came out a couple of years ago. When I
> first looked at it, I was like, ok, now THAT’s COOL.
>
>
>
> However, after thinking about it some, it just seemed like some black magic
> under the covers to get their “BeyondRAID” to work. When I originally
> looked at it, I couldn’t find any technical detail on how the product **
> really** worked, as that was “proprietary” (understandably so, but still,
> how am I going to get comfortable with it as a sysadmin, especially at the
> price if I’m on a budget – it would be an expensive toy. Traditional RAID is
> just much more comforting to me. If you have a big issue with multiple
> drives of different sizes on a drobo unit, how is data recovery going to go
> for you? If the controller fails, and you don’t have a support agreement,
> you can’t just go on serversuply.com and get parts…
>
>
>
> Does anyone here have any experience with data recovery on a failed drobo,
> or for that matter, simply a failed drive within a drobo where you had
> drives of different sizes in the configuration?
>
>
>
> I know “backup, backup, backup”, but what if the backup doesn’t work (or
> the customer/end user didn’t heed your advice)?
>
> Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
> Technology Coordinator
> Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA*
> *jra...@eaglemds.com*
> *www.eaglemds.com
>   --
>
> *From:* Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:16 AM
> *To:* NT System Admin Issues
> *Subject:* Re: SAN question
>
>
>
> +1
>
> Going back to a previous comment of mine in another thread you started.
> Have you messed with OpenFiler, yet?  You'll learn a lot.
>
> Also, based on your pretty low requirements, have you looked at the
> DroboElite? If it had been available when I started looking, I very well
> could've gone in this direction.  As it is, I'm seriously considering it for
> backup duty.  Storage for a backup server, and the ability to use it in a
> pinch if my EqualLogic goes down.
>
> On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 10:59 AM, Raper, Jonathan - Eagle <
> jra...@eaglemds.com> wrote:
>
> John - I do not believe that we can help you significantly with this
> question. In the end, it really doesn't matter what any of us think, because
> our environments are all different and unique. What works well and may be
> appropriate for any of us, may be a horrible fit for you and cause you
> nothing but heartburn and stress.
>
> However, I would tend to agree with Niles. If you're not ready for a SAN,
> don't spend the money on it now.
>
> You really need to have a serious sit-down with the vendors/sales engineers
> (notice I said ENGINEER, not REP) of the different hardware, learn as much
> as you can from THEM, and ask LOTS of questions. Then ask them why you
> should choose their product over x, y, or z product. Take lots of notes, and
> then do the same thing all over again, no more than a few days apart so
> everything is still fresh in your head.
>
> Many times, some of the best education I've gotten has been from the
> manufacturers themselves. I've actually been to the EMC manufacturing
> facility in North Carolina - I spent two days there, on THEIR DIME to learn
> about their products (I had to get there & back, but after that, everythin

Re: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

[S Powell]

http://www.drobo.com/resources/drobolator.php

will help you figure it out


Google.com  Learn it. Live it. Love it.



On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 08:44, N Parr  wrote:
> Pretty sure raid on the Drobo defined by the smallest drive in the array.
> So if you have 3 2TB drive and 1 1TB drive you will only get around 3TB of
> storage.
> 
> From: Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com]
> Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 10:36 AM
> To: NT System Admin Issues
> Subject: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
>
> Ok, so it SEEMS like a really cool device, but I honestly haven’t looked at
> it seriously since the device first came out a couple of years ago. When I
> first looked at it, I was like, ok, now THAT’s COOL.
>
>
>
> However, after thinking about it some, it just seemed like some black magic
> under the covers to get their “BeyondRAID” to work. When I originally looked
> at it, I couldn’t find any technical detail on how the product *really*
> worked, as that was “proprietary” (understandably so, but still, how am I
> going to get comfortable with it as a sysadmin, especially at the price if
> I’m on a budget – it would be an expensive toy. Traditional RAID is just
> much more comforting to me. If you have a big issue with multiple drives of
> different sizes on a drobo unit, how is data recovery going to go for you?
> If the controller fails, and you don’t have a support agreement, you can’t
> just go on serversuply.com and get parts…
>
>
>
> Does anyone here have any experience with data recovery on a failed drobo,
> or for that matter, simply a failed drive within a drobo where you had
> drives of different sizes in the configuration?
>
>
>
> I know “backup, backup, backup”, but what if the backup doesn’t work (or the
> customer/end user didn’t heed your advice)?
>
> Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
> Technology Coordinator
> Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA
> jra...@eaglemds.com
> www.eaglemds.com
>
> 
>
> From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com]
> Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:16 AM
> To: NT System Admin Issues
> Subject: Re: SAN question
>
>
>
> +1
>
> Going back to a previous comment of mine in another thread you started.
> Have you messed with OpenFiler, yet?  You'll learn a lot.
>
> Also, based on your pretty low requirements, have you looked at the
> DroboElite? If it had been available when I started looking, I very well
> could've gone in this direction.  As it is, I'm seriously considering it for
> backup duty.  Storage for a backup server, and the ability to use it in a
> pinch if my EqualLogic goes down.
>
> On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 10:59 AM, Raper, Jonathan - Eagle
>  wrote:
>
> John - I do not believe that we can help you significantly with this
> question. In the end, it really doesn't matter what any of us think, because
> our environments are all different and unique. What works well and may be
> appropriate for any of us, may be a horrible fit for you and cause you
> nothing but heartburn and stress.
>
> However, I would tend to agree with Niles. If you're not ready for a SAN,
> don't spend the money on it now.
>
> You really need to have a serious sit-down with the vendors/sales engineers
> (notice I said ENGINEER, not REP) of the different hardware, learn as much
> as you can from THEM, and ask LOTS of questions. Then ask them why you
> should choose their product over x, y, or z product. Take lots of notes, and
> then do the same thing all over again, no more than a few days apart so
> everything is still fresh in your head.
>
> Many times, some of the best education I've gotten has been from the
> manufacturers themselves. I've actually been to the EMC manufacturing
> facility in North Carolina - I spent two days there, on THEIR DIME to learn
> about their products (I had to get there & back, but after that, everything
> was on them). If you say to them, "I'd like an education on how your product
> works and whether or not it would be suitable for my needs and my
> applications.", you'll generally get plenty of intelligent people that will
> be happy to answer your questions. If they don't ask lots of questions about
> your environment and what your needs are, you're talking to the wrong
> people.
>
> I believe that the purpose of this list is really a, "I'm having trouble
> with x, has anyone seen this before?" or "why do you guys think x
> specification/technology is better than y", or "I'm having trouble getting
> this ADSIedit script working, what am I doing wrong?".
>
> I believe that if you sit down with the various manufacturers/reps, even if
> only on a webex session where they can whiteboard for you one on one, will
> answer many of your questions and make your original question about
> intelligence/disks seem trivial.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
> Technology Coordinator
> Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA
> jra...@eaglemds.com
> www.eaglemds.com
>

RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

[Raper, Jonathan - Eagle]

Ok, so lemme get this straight - you put in 7 TB of disk and only get 3 TB 
usable? Lovely.

With traditional RAID, if you pulled the 1 TB drive out of that same equation, 
you'd have, u 4 TB...


Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
Technology Coordinator
Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA
jra...@eaglemds.commailto:%20jra...@eaglemds.com>
www.eaglemds.comhttp://www.eaglemds.com/>


From: N Parr [mailto:npar...@mortonind.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:44 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

Pretty sure raid on the Drobo defined by the smallest drive in the array.  So 
if you have 3 2TB drive and 1 1TB drive you will only get around 3TB of storage.


From: Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 10:36 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)
Ok, so it SEEMS like a really cool device, but I honestly haven't looked at it 
seriously since the device first came out a couple of years ago. When I first 
looked at it, I was like, ok, now THAT's COOL.

However, after thinking about it some, it just seemed like some black magic 
under the covers to get their "BeyondRAID" to work. When I originally looked at 
it, I couldn't find any technical detail on how the product *really* worked, as 
that was "proprietary" (understandably so, but still, how am I going to get 
comfortable with it as a sysadmin, especially at the price if I'm on a budget - 
it would be an expensive toy. Traditional RAID is just much more comforting to 
me. If you have a big issue with multiple drives of different sizes on a drobo 
unit, how is data recovery going to go for you? If the controller fails, and 
you don't have a support agreement, you can't just go on serversuply.com and 
get parts...

Does anyone here have any experience with data recovery on a failed drobo, or 
for that matter, simply a failed drive within a drobo where you had drives of 
different sizes in the configuration?

I know "backup, backup, backup", but what if the backup doesn't work (or the 
customer/end user didn't heed your advice)?

Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
Technology Coordinator
Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA
jra...@eaglemds.commailto:%20jra...@eaglemds.com>
www.eaglemds.comhttp://www.eaglemds.com/>


From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:16 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Re: SAN question

+1
Going back to a previous comment of mine in another thread you started.  Have 
you messed with OpenFiler, yet?  You'll learn a lot.
Also, based on your pretty low requirements, have you looked at the DroboElite? 
If it had been available when I started looking, I very well could've gone in 
this direction.  As it is, I'm seriously considering it for backup duty.  
Storage for a backup server, and the ability to use it in a pinch if my 
EqualLogic goes down.
On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 10:59 AM, Raper, Jonathan - Eagle 
mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com>> wrote:
John - I do not believe that we can help you significantly with this question. 
In the end, it really doesn't matter what any of us think, because our 
environments are all different and unique. What works well and may be 
appropriate for any of us, may be a horrible fit for you and cause you nothing 
but heartburn and stress.

However, I would tend to agree with Niles. If you're not ready for a SAN, don't 
spend the money on it now.

You really need to have a serious sit-down with the vendors/sales engineers 
(notice I said ENGINEER, not REP) of the different hardware, learn as much as 
you can from THEM, and ask LOTS of questions. Then ask them why you should 
choose their product over x, y, or z product. Take lots of notes, and then do 
the same thing all over again, no more than a few days apart so everything is 
still fresh in your head.

Many times, some of the best education I've gotten has been from the 
manufacturers themselves. I've actually been to the EMC manufacturing facility 
in North Carolina - I spent two days there, on THEIR DIME to learn about their 
products (I had to get there & back, but after that, everything was on them). 
If you say to them, "I'd like an education on how your product works and 
whether or not it would be suitable for my needs and my applications.", you'll 
generally get plenty of intelligent people that will be happy to answer your 
questions. If they don't ask lots of questions about your environment and what 
your needs are, you're talking to the wrong people.

I believe that the purpose of this list is really a, "I'm having trouble with 
x, has anyone seen this before?" or "why do yo

Re: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

[S Powell]

I use a drobo at home and we use one here at work, with plans on
getting 2 DroboElites.

love it.

recovery... touch wood have not needed to yet.  (please note the
yet... everything fails)

DROBO says that if the _unit_ dies, you can just take the disks from
the failed unit, put them in a new working unit and everything will
still work.  I've never tried it, but i'm sure someday I may.

i've never had a failed drive in my unit, but i've upgraded drives
from 500Gb --> 1Tb and yes it is as easy as eject and replace, and
wait for the array to rebuild and then add the next disk.

the upside as far as the drobo is the ability to just add disks.  it
does the rebuilding of the array.  I trust my drobo as far as I can
spit my offsite backup.

YMMV, and I don't work for or have ties to drobo other than being
satisfied with the product.

HTH

./s
Google.com  Learn it. Live it. Love it.



On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 08:36, Raper, Jonathan - Eagle
 wrote:
> Ok, so it SEEMS like a really cool device, but I honestly haven’t looked at
> it seriously since the device first came out a couple of years ago. When I
> first looked at it, I was like, ok, now THAT’s COOL.
>
>
>
> However, after thinking about it some, it just seemed like some black magic
> under the covers to get their “BeyondRAID” to work. When I originally looked
> at it, I couldn’t find any technical detail on how the product *really*
> worked, as that was “proprietary” (understandably so, but still, how am I
> going to get comfortable with it as a sysadmin, especially at the price if
> I’m on a budget – it would be an expensive toy. Traditional RAID is just
> much more comforting to me. If you have a big issue with multiple drives of
> different sizes on a drobo unit, how is data recovery going to go for you?
> If the controller fails, and you don’t have a support agreement, you can’t
> just go on serversuply.com and get parts…
>
>
>
> Does anyone here have any experience with data recovery on a failed drobo,
> or for that matter, simply a failed drive within a drobo where you had
> drives of different sizes in the configuration?
>
>
>
> I know “backup, backup, backup”, but what if the backup doesn’t work (or the
> customer/end user didn’t heed your advice)?
>
> Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
> Technology Coordinator
> Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA
> jra...@eaglemds.com
> www.eaglemds.com
>
> 
>
> From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com]
> Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:16 AM
> To: NT System Admin Issues
> Subject: Re: SAN question
>
>
>
> +1
>
> Going back to a previous comment of mine in another thread you started.
> Have you messed with OpenFiler, yet?  You'll learn a lot.
>
> Also, based on your pretty low requirements, have you looked at the
> DroboElite? If it had been available when I started looking, I very well
> could've gone in this direction.  As it is, I'm seriously considering it for
> backup duty.  Storage for a backup server, and the ability to use it in a
> pinch if my EqualLogic goes down.
>
> On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 10:59 AM, Raper, Jonathan - Eagle
>  wrote:
>
> John - I do not believe that we can help you significantly with this
> question. In the end, it really doesn't matter what any of us think, because
> our environments are all different and unique. What works well and may be
> appropriate for any of us, may be a horrible fit for you and cause you
> nothing but heartburn and stress.
>
> However, I would tend to agree with Niles. If you're not ready for a SAN,
> don't spend the money on it now.
>
> You really need to have a serious sit-down with the vendors/sales engineers
> (notice I said ENGINEER, not REP) of the different hardware, learn as much
> as you can from THEM, and ask LOTS of questions. Then ask them why you
> should choose their product over x, y, or z product. Take lots of notes, and
> then do the same thing all over again, no more than a few days apart so
> everything is still fresh in your head.
>
> Many times, some of the best education I've gotten has been from the
> manufacturers themselves. I've actually been to the EMC manufacturing
> facility in North Carolina - I spent two days there, on THEIR DIME to learn
> about their products (I had to get there & back, but after that, everything
> was on them). If you say to them, "I'd like an education on how your product
> works and whether or not it would be suitable for my needs and my
> applications.", you'll generally get plenty of intelligent people that will
> be happy to answer your questions. If they don't ask lots of questions about
> your environment and what your needs are, you're talking to the wrong
> people.
>
> I believe that the purpose of this list is really a, "I'm having trouble
> with x, has anyone seen this before?" or "why do you guys think x
> specification/technology is better than y", or "I'm having trouble getting
> this ADSIedit script working, what am I doing wrong?".
>
> I believe that if

RE: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)

[N Parr]

Pretty sure raid on the Drobo defined by the smallest drive in the
array.  So if you have 3 2TB drive and 1 1TB drive you will only get
around 3TB of storage.  



From: Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com] 
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 10:36 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Speaking of Drobo ... (was: SAN question)



Ok, so it SEEMS like a really cool device, but I honestly haven't looked
at it seriously since the device first came out a couple of years ago.
When I first looked at it, I was like, ok, now THAT's COOL.

 

However, after thinking about it some, it just seemed like some black
magic under the covers to get their "BeyondRAID" to work. When I
originally looked at it, I couldn't find any technical detail on how the
product *really* worked, as that was "proprietary" (understandably so,
but still, how am I going to get comfortable with it as a sysadmin,
especially at the price if I'm on a budget - it would be an expensive
toy. Traditional RAID is just much more comforting to me. If you have a
big issue with multiple drives of different sizes on a drobo unit, how
is data recovery going to go for you? If the controller fails, and you
don't have a support agreement, you can't just go on serversuply.com and
get parts...

 

Does anyone here have any experience with data recovery on a failed
drobo, or for that matter, simply a failed drive within a drobo where
you had drives of different sizes in the configuration?

 

I know "backup, backup, backup", but what if the backup doesn't work (or
the customer/end user didn't heed your advice)?

Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
Technology Coordinator
Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA
jra...@eaglemds.com mailto:%20jra...@eaglemds.com> 
www.eaglemds.com http://www.eaglemds.com/>  



From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:16 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Re: SAN question

 

+1

Going back to a previous comment of mine in another thread you started.
Have you messed with OpenFiler, yet?  You'll learn a lot.

Also, based on your pretty low requirements, have you looked at the
DroboElite? If it had been available when I started looking, I very well
could've gone in this direction.  As it is, I'm seriously considering it
for backup duty.  Storage for a backup server, and the ability to use it
in a pinch if my EqualLogic goes down.

On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 10:59 AM, Raper, Jonathan - Eagle
 wrote:

John - I do not believe that we can help you significantly with this
question. In the end, it really doesn't matter what any of us think,
because our environments are all different and unique. What works well
and may be appropriate for any of us, may be a horrible fit for you and
cause you nothing but heartburn and stress.

However, I would tend to agree with Niles. If you're not ready for a
SAN, don't spend the money on it now.

You really need to have a serious sit-down with the vendors/sales
engineers (notice I said ENGINEER, not REP) of the different hardware,
learn as much as you can from THEM, and ask LOTS of questions. Then ask
them why you should choose their product over x, y, or z product. Take
lots of notes, and then do the same thing all over again, no more than a
few days apart so everything is still fresh in your head.

Many times, some of the best education I've gotten has been from the
manufacturers themselves. I've actually been to the EMC manufacturing
facility in North Carolina - I spent two days there, on THEIR DIME to
learn about their products (I had to get there & back, but after that,
everything was on them). If you say to them, "I'd like an education on
how your product works and whether or not it would be suitable for my
needs and my applications.", you'll generally get plenty of intelligent
people that will be happy to answer your questions. If they don't ask
lots of questions about your environment and what your needs are, you're
talking to the wrong people.

I believe that the purpose of this list is really a, "I'm having trouble
with x, has anyone seen this before?" or "why do you guys think x
specification/technology is better than y", or "I'm having trouble
getting this ADSIedit script working, what am I doing wrong?".

I believe that if you sit down with the various manufacturers/reps, even
if only on a webex session where they can whiteboard for you one on one,
will answer many of your questions and make your original question about
intelligence/disks seem trivial.

Regards,


Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
Technology Coordinator
Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA
jra...@eaglemds.com
www.eaglemds.com  



-Original Message-
From: N Parr [mailto:npar...@mortonind.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 10:26 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues

Subject: RE: SAN question

I think you just need to give up on your SAN dreams and go buy a decent
NAS for a coupl