[Leica] drobo question

[jbm at jbm.org (Jeff Moore)]

2009-08-02-10:00:14 leo wesson:
> a drobo formats it's drives in a drobo specific way, doesn't it?  So that
> means you are always committed to reading your drives in a drobo and they
> can't be used in any other raid setup?  so if your drobo toasts, you have 
> to
> get another one to transfer your data?  If drobo goes out of business, what
> happens?

1) something like a Drobo (or a ReadyNAS, which I use) shouldn't be
considered a final archive/backup solution.  It's large-volume storage
for stuff one currently works with, and should be more reliable than a
single disk, but it, like any other working storage, should be backed
up.  To removable disk drives, or to tapes, or... whatever.  But you
can't count on absolute reliability in anything.

So if down the line your Drobo (or whatever) dies, and you can't find
another Drobo to stick your disks in...  that should be fine, because
you'd roll your data back in from your other backup medium.

2) FYI, with the ReadyNAS family (with which I'm more familiar): they
always said that if you chose a traditional, standard RAID scheme (like
RAID-5), if it ever became necessary to read the data without a
ReadyNAS, if you could stuff the drives in a Linux box, its software
RAID should recognise and properly interpret the drives and present your
volume appropriately.  This isn't the case if you use their proprietary
"X-RAID", but the latter has some advanteges of its own (automagic
migration into a larger volume if you replace disks with larger ones one
by one; sensible utilization of some configurations with unequal-sized
disks).  So you can make your choice accordingly.  I spent several years
sternly insisting on keeping my ReadyNAS NV in RAID-5, and recently,
when I migrated to a ReadyNAS Pro, just decided to go ahead and trust
their weird but handy X-RAID.  I don't know if there's an equivalent
tradeoff you can make a choice about with a Drobo, but read the manual
before you commit to moving all your stuff onto it.  (Because changing
underlying formats would probably require a scorch-and-repopulate).