Rare Drobo Appreciation Post
Back in 2018, I realized I was starting to invest more and more of my time in my Plex media library. At the time, I was running it from a single drive, but I wanted to add some resiliency. You can replace data, slowly but surely, but you can't replace time and I did not want to start over in the event of a drive failure.
I knew very little about RAID, how to manage it, the various types of RAID levels and so forth. I also was just getting my toes wet, so I wasn't ready to go full in on a NAS. After doing my research, I was led to a Drobo 5C. This device checked nearly every box I wanted to solve at the time; simple, could have different drive sizes, could add drives when needed, provided drive resiliency, alerted me when a drive failed, all without breaking the bank because it was only $350 at the time. I used my 5C since then until about 2 months ago where I finally upgraded to a Synology 1821+ NAS, which I love. I'm thankful for Drobo making a simple product for beginners like myself at the time and she is still running strong today. I've literally had 0 issues since I originally set it up. I actually use it to backup my Plex media now and it works flawlessly for that.
Drobo devices aren't perfect by any means, but it was perfect for me at the time and I'm hoping they can recover from this global chip shortage and become a viable option in the storage space again.
I know this story isn't the same for everyone, but does anyone else have any similar or positive stories to share?
Posted Apr 7, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC · edited
I'll say this for Drobo: when they work, they work. The problem is that when they don't work, it's literally and figuratively a black box with absolutely nothing you can do (without some serious hacking) to fix it without contacting support. A design decision that is most definitely intentional.
There’s software out there that can recognize BeyondRAID and help you retrieve data from it. I was actually going to test it but never got around to it but here’s one: https://www.ufsexplorer.com/articles/how-to/recover-data-drobo.php
I’m sure it’s a PITA but is something to be considered.
That's great until Drobo decides to change BeyondRAID in such a way that it doesn't work any more, something totally within their power to do.
Don't get me wrong, I had a couple of Drobo devices and for the most part they were very reliable (albeit slow and limited in functionality) -- my beef is less with the product and more with the company. Some of their practices are distinctly anti-consumer, such as encrypting the logs and requiring expensive extended support contracts.