To Drobo or not to Drobo.......
 

I'm running out of space pretty quickly over here. I could swap out the 750's for 1TB's, but that is only going to last so long. I've been looking at the Drobo (www.drobo.com) and my only issue is USB 2.0. If I'm able to offload some storage from my main drives to the Drobo, I can capture on my internals. My question is, will the Drobo be fast enough to edit from? Anybody have any experience with it?

Thanks,

Chad

I must confess to never having heard of Robot Hard Drives (drobo!).
Can't you get similar sata set ups with FW 400/800?

No experience with the Drobo, but I do NOT like USB hard drives. SATA is best, followed by FW 800 then 400. Look into something like a MacGurus Burly bay (although there are many manufacturers of hot-swappable, multi-drive towers).

Mike

"Drobo" seems to be "mass-storage for dummies" which is fine for consumer applications and general computing use however I would not ever trust a consumer-grade device to manage or control data backups or storage of mission-critical data for a FCP project and it's assets.

You would be better off using industry standard tools (hardware/software) if you want data-save automation (and you have the budget for it) but an even more logical solution would be to do this manually and control the process from start to end and save the cash.

I have a 4TB Vista box in the other room that has some free space on it. Would it be safe to store it on there? Its a RAID 5 array. I'm not sure what the rules are for moving stuff from Mac to PC.

Chad,

Do you need storage space, as in archiving or do you need more HDD space to work with? RAID arrays are not for long-term storage, they are for fast/large access during editing. Once the project is completed you should be moving those files off to a redundant storage archive.

I've posted many a thread about archiving methods and the "gotchas" to avoid; try searching out these threads and do some research on how to set this up before spending money or trying to create a hybrid-access RAID for your computers.

Robert,

We are keeping the original files (weddings) on the computer for 4 weeks after the delivery of the DVD's. Once edited, I would like to move them off of my main drives and store them on the RAID array on the PC. If there are no changes to be made, they will be removed. If there are changes, I would just push them back to the Mac Pro and re-edit the wedding. This is in no way long term storage. I really appreciate all of the help!

-Chad

Now that the new Drobo has Firewire 800, I'm considering it.

Chad,

Any drive - be it part of an array or single - that is powered-on and active cannot be considered "storage" or an archive. An archive/storage drive is one that is powered-off and lives on a shelf or, in a storage tower where it's only accessed when required. A drive that is powered on and running is considered a working drive and is subject to failures from heat, power spikes, human error etc.

If you're looking for easy-access storage my suggestion would be to get a 2-bay drive enclosure with Hot-Swap capability which would allow fast access to your "storage" when required. This means each drive would live in it's own "sled" allowing it to be inserted-removed from the enclosure on-demand.

Check out this product - and others like it.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Raidon/ST36202SWABC/

You simply purchase more drive-sleds as your number of drives increases.
I would *not* suggest the Drobo or any other self-automated device for the workflow you are suggesting.