I’m the one usually giving advise around technology – not this time.

I’ve succumbed to the an evil hard drive failure. Most of the folks that read this and know me by now would be saying “you do have a backup right?” The answer to the question is ashamedly, No.

Well, let me take you back a little as the answer to that several weeks ago was Yes. So what happened between now and then? Answer, my switch from Apple Aperture to Adobe Lightroom. Not that they effected the backups per say. However I never instigated my backup strategy after the move to Lightroom.

As a passionate digital photographer, I had pledged to figure out my storage solution in 2008. Prior to the Drobo, I had purchased an enclosure that had 2×500 GB hard drives. I was storing big Raw files and my Time Machine. I decided that I wanted to separate my photography data from the rest of my stuff. And if I could find a good photo storage solution, that it would take pressure off the rest of my backup needs. After asking around and reading some research online, I decided to try the Drobo to store my photos

Now for the technical waffle…

What makes the Drobo great is its BeyondRAID technology. Typically RAIDs are very complicated and take expertise to manage, but the BeyondRAID system requires no management at all. The Drobo handles everything. Moving between RAID levels is typically a complicated process that usually puts data at risk, but the Drobo does this safely, with no risk to data, on the fly as drives are added or removed.

With two disks, the Drobo creates a mirror; with three or more, the Drobo changes to RAID level five. If a drive fails, software on the computer and the lights on the Drobo notate which drive died or is dying. Replace it with any drive of equal or larger capacity, and the Drobo rebuilds the RAID with zero data loss. Need more space, just plug in a new drive into an available bay. Drobo full? Just pull out the smallest drive and replace it with a drive of larger capacity.

Final thoughts

What really jumps out at me after this exercise is that there is still no single solution that handles all of my large file storage and backup needs the way that I want. The Drobo moves the ball forward, and I appreciate that. But I feel that it isn’t a neat solution yet.

I’m probably going to move back to direct attached Firewire 800 unit (RAID 0) for my day-to-day work and them keep a direct mirror image on my Drobo. I just find the Drobo a little slower than I had first thought.

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