The requirement for centralizing storage is ever-present. Thousands of songs, movies, photos and documents have to be stored somewhere. Local storage is fine, but constantly presents problems when content needs to be shared or a combined pool of files is required to be shared by more than one machine. Add to that the fact that I still have one staunch Windows lover to contend with whilst I’ve moved firmly into the Mac and Linux camp and it becomes clear that a specialized solution is called for. Ideally, the Mac Mini that is destined to live under the LCD in the TV area should also be able to access all media content, as should every other system in the house. And then there’s the problem of backing everything up.

Late last year, I started assembling a dedicated server to contain as much storage as I could cram into it. The idea was to run something like OpenFiler to provide a SAN/NAS capability. I bought some decent components, but ultimately the result of my efforts turned into a rather nice desktop system that I simply cannot give away to the boring task of chugging along, completing file-handling duties. In part, I blame Leo Laporte and Geoff Smith. Smith‘s catchy Drobo song and Laporte‘s constant ramblings about how wonderful the Drobo is made me consider a dedicated SAN/NAS device as an option. All the ones I’d looked at so far didn’t impress me much.

The Drobo is a dedicated storage device (DAS) and is hooked up to a single machine by Firewire 800 or USB 2.0. Single machine is hardly a great idea, I hear you say. And that is perhaps one of the only drawbacks the Drobo has: the Drobo unit itself does not cater for network connectivity. An additional component, the DroboShare, is required to enable storage space in the Drobo to be made accessible to other systems on the network. That adds approximately ZAR 3500 to the ZAR 6500 price of the Drobo itself. The Drobo is bare, so some hard disks will be required before it can be put to use.

The storage management within the Drobo is a special RAID 5 technology that is not hampered by traditional RAID configurations. So, for example, any type of SATA drive with any size and performance characteristic can be slotted into the Drobo. The location within the unit is unimportant, so drives can be replaced at will. This presents some interesting cost benefits when setting up the Drobo for the first time. I have two 400GB and two 320GB drives. I’ll plug these into the Drobo to get roughly 1TB of usable space. As the Drobo is put through daily use, its indicator lights provide feedback as to the filling level of the combined drive space configured. Multiple partitions may be created, though it’s probably best to make a single, large drive. I’ll need to choose a format – since I can’t avoid Windows systems on the network, NTFS will have to suffice. Once the Drobo has filled up, a simple rip and replace of the smallest capacity drive with a larger one causes a complete rebuild of the data and obviously additional space for files. In a similar fashion, a single drive failure enables the Drobo to continue serving the attached machines.

In the next few days I’ll be setting up a Drobo in DAS mode to test with katana, a Linux system. I’m hoping to get my hands on a DroboShare unit as soon as possible to enable full SAN/NAS capability. Though the Drobo contains a battery to provide clean shutdowns in the case of a power failure, I’ll be adding another APC UPS to provide protection from spikes and short electricity interruptions. On Windows, a daily robocopy is a fast way to synchronize backups and on the Mac and Linux I like rsync. Individual machines will no longer require huge drives and there are a number of applications that assist with sharing of media for iTunes specifically developed for the Drobo.

I think I’ve found the ideal centralized storage solution for my needs! I’ll keep you in the loop as to how this project progresses…

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