Customer Reviews

DroboShare, Network Attached Companion for Drobo

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

To provide a little background on me: I'm a software developer by trade. I have built numerous PCs including a server that was using a RocketRaid RAID-5 controller. I switched to Drobo and DroboShare because, after my RAID array became critical, I could not find an adequate device that could support my desire for RAID 1+0. At this point, I just wanted something that worked. Just to make the point clearly: I'm technically savvy; I have a fairly good idea of what I speak.

I bought a 2nd Gen Drobo and a DroboShare about a week ago. While the Drobo is performing well enough, DroboShare has proven out the opposite.

DroboShare is supposed to act as a NAS head for Drobo. In this simple capacity, DroboShare generally fails. While DroboShare will connect to my network and performs adequately, it does so for brief periods of times. The DroboShare spontaneously loses connectivity to the Drobo within an hour of being connected! At this point, the only way that I can make Drobo responsive once again is to cycle the power! Interestingly, the DroboShare will still respond to pings. However, I could no longer SSH in nor access the storage attached to the DroboShare.

Unfortunately, you can only determine the severe unreliability of DroboShare upon signing up for DroboSpace. Data Robotics sagely made a valid S/N a requirement for registering on DroboSpace. This has the benefit, for them, of keeping prospective customers from realizing how terrible DroboShare truly is. Reviewing the DroboSpace forums, there are a multitude of posts discussing lost connectivity as well as anemic performance (i.e., 15MB/s on a supposedly gigabit device). Also, from reading the forums, it becomes fairly clear that Data Robotics technical support is extremely poor.

Given all of the above, caveat emptor! DroboShare is very much an alpha product that should not be on the market. While it may work for some, it was an utter failure for this user.

This is a neat product, much like the original Drobo device in that is very easy to setup and use.

The big problem, however, is that it is very slow. I expected some added latency with this device but I have to say that it is much more significant than I was hoping. The device goes into a sleep mode after a period of inactivity, so waking it up takes some added time, 3 or 4 seconds maybe. But even after it is spun up, it is still quiet slow, particularly when I am moving files around or flipping through photos. This is the first personal home NAS device I've used so maybe this amount of slowness is typical with these things.

The convenience of being able to access my Drobo easily from any computer in the house is worth it to me and it integrates very nicely with my Drobo, so I am keeping it.

Update 23 October 2008:

I can't deal with it anymore. It is just too slow. I am going to look at other options. I should have just done this in the first place.

The data transfer over the network is slow that it does not meet the standard of today's network drive. You probably won't notice it if you copy a file or two. But if you try to copy large files (over gigabyte), you may want come back in a few hours. Trust me, I have other network drives at home in comparison to the Droboshare. In addition, it's overprice for something that doesn't perform.

I've been using the Drobo with DroboShare for a while and it is worthwhile to discuss some things that I believe some have a fundamental misunderstanding about:

1. DroboShare is a Linux based kernel and behaves that way
2. The world does not revolve around Mac or Windows (although Windows does have a strong gravitational pull)
3. Energy efficiency and simplicity are part of the main attractions
4. This device is for Intermediate to advanced users in order to use some of the more advanced DroboApp capabilities.
5. You should understand the principles of RAID and USB vs Firewire vs Network speeds if you are comparing the speed of a share vs the speed of a internal or direct connected Hard Drive.

I've used iSCSI devices, specialized Network drives and generalized NAS shares before (which DroboShare is). Here are advantages and disadvantages of DROBO with DROBOSHARE (they are two seperate devices that work together):

Advantage:
1. Simple, Simple, Simple
2. Highly Expandable (actually, amazingly expandable on DroboShare for a home NAS) (up to 8 drives with 2 Drobos on a single DroboShare)
3. Easily upgradeable (I bought a single 1TB drive and the Drobo made it almost instantly available...truly amazing use of the technology)
4. Uses regular SATA drives, not "special drives" (however, this leads to a cost disadvantage for the basic units (I used any old SATA drive I had laying around)
5. Data Protection Scheme is very "neat" and the way it uses space is efficient.
6. DroboShare is a computer (albeit tiny) and can be manipulated by tools available on the DroboShare developers forum. (DroboApps)
7. Drobo and DroboShare have been reliable
8. Goes into low power mode when not being used
9. Actually has status lights that mean something !!
10. Pleasing aesthetics and is relatively quiet for the all the drives.


Disadvantage:
1. Linux Interface can be manipulated in DROBOSHARE, but that is not for the faint hearted. Intermediate or Advanced Skill is required to enable things like the media center type capability (FUPPES)or other DroboApps like the Time Machine utility.
2. Expensive base units
3. Management interfaces are designed for the basic user only...a little too simplified for me.
4. Sometimes can lose connection if you are using DHCP (the default) but that can be overcome. Reboot usually fixes the issue.
5. Drobo connects to DroboShare via USB not Firewire (I think this was a compability decision, but with GigE interface, FireWire from Drobo to Droboshare would perform better)
6. Low Power Mode sometimes causes an initial delay while the Drobo wakes back up (kinda like my teenager)
7. Web and client interface is only o.k. I would like more advanced options...such as a sleep scheduler and things of that sort.

Performance Review: I've read that Drobo and DroboShare are too slow. I would offer that you really need to look at your network. I use GigE hardwire connections and wireless 802.11G going to 802.11n and I have not noticed the "lag" others experience. It will NOT be as fast as the Drobo direct connected if you have a slower network. That being said, it performs well, but will resemble a USB 2.0 connection on really fast networks due to the way the Drobo connects to the DroboShare. Drobo can direct connect to a PC via FireWire so I'm not sure why you can't do so with a DroboShare. Anyway, performance is acceptable and the data protection so far has been outstanding. I use SynchToy 2.0 to move files from my PC's to Drobo Shared folders for protection of photos and the like. I also backup to my Drobo using Memeo and it hasn't puked yet. I'm very pleased and have compared.

Power Consumption: The Drobo (especially when used with "Green" drives will go into a low power state automatically when not being used. This is great for those of use that hate wasting power unnecessarily for the 12-15 hours of the day (or even days) we are not using the device. The only caveat I have found is that it does require a few seconds to wake up and there has been some cases that one of my PC's can't seen to wake it up (but I think that is a DHCP mapping problem...just too lazy to fix it... not sure if the DroboShare can always resolve names to IPs when sleepy...I did a fixed IP once and that worked but I changed configs again later)

Overall: GREAT unit for those that want virtualized storage for the home that is expandable easily and upgradeable easily. The USB connection (at least on my unit) between the Drobo and DroboShare is not ideal...but who cares. I put my performance apps on my way too big internal hard drive and use the Drobo for storing my files I use less often, share my music/photos to my Playstation 3 media center (it never complains), and generally use it to backup things I want to save safely. Not so great for those who are budget Bob and want the cheapest. Performance mavens will likely want to connect the Drobo directly to their workstation and create a share from their PC to the Drobo for use on the Network (this lets you use FireWire 800 to the network share vs USB 2.0), but depending on your PC or MAC, this may not be a good idea.

Overall: Highly Recommended (as long as you have read my comments and not just skimmed :) )

This comes so close to being an ideal add-on to the Drobo (which I feel is great, BTW).

* It's well integrated into the Drobo system.
* It has first-class support for both Mac and Windows systems (neither seem like an afterthought)
* Damn simple to set up
* Has add-ons you can install to make it do other new things like stream audio and video

If it ended there I would give it five stars without a second thought.

However, it's slow. Not just a "oh, just be patient" slow, but slow to the degree of delivering less than 10% of what the Drobo is actually capable of. I've done tests with the Drobo connected directly to my computer versus connected to the Droboshare and sometimes the results were less than 10% of what it could actually deliver.

When connected directly I was regularly seeing 30MB/s (bytes, not bits) being sent from the Drobo directly to the computer. When a Droboshare was connected using gigabit ethernet (and a managed gigabit switch to verify everything was in fact using that speed) things rarely went faster than 3MB/s. Sometimes much, much slower even.

The next question to ask is: "did I do anything wrong?" The real killer for me is unresponsive tech support. After filing a help ticket on their web site I've only received one email asking for more information in seven business days (not counting national holidays). No resolutions, nothing to try, nothing.

I've since connected the Drobo to an Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station (Gigabit) MB053LL/A using USB and things seem to have sped up substantially. Unfortunately I no longer have the cool DroboApps that give me streaming video to my XBox, but at least it's usable. As a plus, however, it's much more natural to use Time Machine to back up my Macs using the AirPort.

I have had a first-generation Drobo for three years. It was connected to a Macintosh in my home office, and I accessed it over my wired/wireless network with flawless performance for years.

I recently decided to purchase and deploy the DroboShare so that I did not have to leave my office Macintosh powered up all the time.

I wish I had read others' reviews before purchasing; I wouldn't have bothered.

First, my Drobo has been out of warranty for 18 months. Imagine my surprise when I hooked up the DroboShare and discovered it didn't make my Drobo visible on my network. After some sleuthing, I discovered that the Drobo's firmware was way out of date (1.0.something vs. the current 1.3 version). And after downloading the latest firmware, I was greeted with a message stating I couldn't install the firmware update because my Drobo was out of warranty. I had to go to Drobo's web site and purchase an "out of warranty" maintenance agreement for $129 just to be able to install the firmware upgrade, after which my Drobo appeared on the network.

Second, when I attempted to attached to DroboShare via Apple's native Apple File Protocol (AFP), I received a cryptic error message. It was frustrating and took some time and more sleuthing to discover that DroboShare does NOT support AFP...it only supports SMB, Microsoft's file-sharing protocol.

Third, as others have stated, Drobo file access across the network using DroboShare is ridiculously slow. I got much better file service speed over AFP when my Drobo was directly connected to my Mac.

For the $329+ investment in DroboShare and the maintenance agreement, I could have added a couple of hundred bucks and bought a low-end Mac Mini, attached the Drobo, and had a cheap networked file-sharing solution.

So if you think you're going to buy DroboShare and have a fast and easy network storage solution, think again. This one misses the mark.

I generally do not leave reviews, but had to for this product.

I am Trying DROBO as NAS product for my home (amongst many others, nto to be mentioned here). While I have no problems with Drobo, it is great for what it is and requires no IT expertise, Droboshare on the other hand is a BAD and overpriced external USB network card. This product looks to be slapped on top, just to add network functionality. It really needs to be integrated and FREE.. here is why:

While hooking this to my gigabit switched network the Droboshare looks to have connected at 1GBPS, so I am expecting corresponding transfer speeds.

My first test has been to play a 1.4 Gig AVI file located on the DROBO. I wa svery surprised when the video playback came back choppy. Then trying to transfer this same file, it took 15 MINUTES !! or close to 1 Megabyte per second, or about 300 Times slower then the Gigabit speed that it is supposed to deliver !!!

Now, if you store your documents on Drobo, this may be ok, but for VIDEO or even MUSIC, this is unacceptably slow.

Now, some of you will say that my computer must be screwed up (BTW, this was tested on a MAC and 2 PC's). Other then this, I may only say that I a m a network engeneer with over 10 years experience..

here is my 2 cents.. if you can wait untill DROBO 2.0, I am sure this issue will be fixed with an intergrated NIC. Otherwise stick to the USB cable.. or even try a cheap USB NIC by linksys/dlink. (~50) It just can not be any workse then this.. and the price $$$.. NOT WORTH THE TROUBLE.

EXCELLENT product, and installation was essentially automatic when adding to my iMac and existing Drobo (LOVE DROBO). But MAC users take note - I didn't research this carefully prior to purchase. My main usage of Drobo is backup using Time Machine. When Drobo is installed on my network via Droboshare, Time Machine DOES NOT recognize it, and it CANNOT be utilized for backup with Time Machine. I am very disappointed, but Apple does not support this (I wish I knew why). Awesome product for network storage, but still waiting for the ability to use it like I intended. (Note - entirely my own over-sight - the Drobo web-site clearly states it cannot be used with Time Machine).

Drobo hardware is well built, cleverly designed, and comes with all the A++ quality cables that you need. Even the packaging has cool graphics, and the training videos for the Drobo itself are first rate and industry leaders. What happened with the Droboshare? Who knows. The documentation is spotty and as of this writing is not available off their website. Data transfer rates are ho-hum. Curiously no step by step complete installation procedure exists for this box. If you write tech support they will write you back with most of what you need to know. An experienced user can guess the rest. For a company like Drobo this box is not ready for prime time.

I wrote DROBO the following, their reply is below that, it's from their tech department support:
I think this will help many decide it's usefulness...FYI I am on Intel Macs and G5, router is Apple Airport Extreme and my connection to Drobo is through this routers' USB output.

TO SUPPORT:
I have read many reports and reviews that the DroboShare slows the network speeds down. How can I be assured it does not? Other than the use of Dashboard are there any other advantages, really?
It is working fine as a safer network drive right now, what's my gain if any?

FROM DROBO SUPPORT:
The throughput on the DroboShare will be about a quarter of the throughput you are getting with your current configuration. The main purpose of the DroboShare is to turn the Drobo into a true network drive and provide cross-platform compatibility between the computers on the network and the file system on the Drobo. It's most useful in mixed OS networks.

Best Regards, xxx-omitted
Technical Support Agent
Data Robotics, Inc. 7-16-09

I find it very useful as a more safe network drive. I might (as has been well suggested) use it with FW800 to one computer and then network share it from there, but then you must have both computers on to read or write. I think it will work best (for me) as a network drive as currently configured. I will miss the showy Dashboard, but it's just a cool factor to me only! I like that it stays on all the time and sleeps itself, very nice feature. It wakes in seconds, not an issue at all --and sleeps only after 10 minutes of non use. It's a big investment (including drives) and I hope and feel file contents are protected, but I will still run Retrospect backups of Drobo every 15 days. I also have an offsite backup and will keep that going as well.
"USE THE TECHNOLOGY WISELY but don't ever fully trust it..."

ADDED 12/09:
I wanted to add some later comment about Drobo (in general). It has worked flawlessly for months. I found that Seagate drives don't like it, I now use WD (pair of 2TB) and a pair of left over Samsung (750GB). It ate the Seagate 1.5TB drives right away, but all else seems fine so far.
I removed it from my network share scheme and now use it as a shared disc on my G5 using Firewire 800: much faster! I make Retrospect 8 backups from it on a WD 4TB (like making three backups; rather safe than sorry) and then also make a Retrospect 8 offsite copy. No one wants to lose their digital data! I use the Drobo as a shared disc (as a server of sorts) also using my Mac Pro Intel machine, the Drobo as a shared disc; this way I have quick instant access to all my files on both networked Macs. This is the best and safest system I could figure out and I love the way it works with everything and my safety factor. I did not need the DroboShare!