Drobo v. ReadyNAS V: Conclusion

So, what's the bottom line? I've written about what I am looking for, the obvious differences between Drobo and ReadyNAS, differences in connectivity and use of disks, and some of the more technical advantages that favor ReadyNAS. What does it all add up to?

Speed is not a huge issue for me. Sure, I would like a faster solution. But it is not that important. If things go well, I'll never need the fastest speeds. And I'd have to upgrade other equipment to take advantage of it. More importantly, Drobo is already faster than 802.11n wireless networking, so it is fast enough for me. However, others, especially those working with large graphics or video files over ethernet could really make use of ReadyNAS's huge speed advantages. 

Cost, on the hand, is a concern for me. Drobo makes better use of its disks, and costs less up front, especially if you don't need DroboShare to put it on a network. That's a major advantage for Drobo, regardless of how you use it. 

ReadyNAS has many features that Drobo does not. I am especially intrigued by the ease with which you can back up the data on the unit. This would be important desktop users, as their computers and any backups on their ReadyNAS are always in the same place and if disaster strikes all the data could well be lost. It is also important if any data is kept exclusively on the device. However, keep all my data on my laptop, so the device itself is a backup. I am a laptop user, and I usually have my machine with me, meaning that the laptop itself acts as offsite storage, much of the time. And if there were a fire in my home, you can be damn sure that I'm not leaving without my laptop, anyway. But older backups themselves are valuable, and Drobo does not make it easy to copy them. To be entirely honest, though, as much as I like this feature, I am not disciplined enough to use it. And ReadyNAS's other advanced features really are of no use for me.

Apple supports Time Machine -- its cool backup system built into the latest version of OS X -- to devices attached directly to its routers or other Mac OS X computers, but not to other network devices. For my purposes, this virtually cinches it for Drobo, as it can be plugged into my Apple router with USB. I'd rather not try unsupported hacks to make Time Machine work with ReadyNAS.

In fact, I tend to wonder why home users would want ReadyNAS. For basic use, Drobo is cheaper and simpler. Its advanced features are more appropriate for small offices than even most home offices, even even most most offices wouldn't know what to do with them. 

And so, despite the recommendations that I have received to check out ReadyNAS, I don't think that the decision is close at all. When my current network drive gets full, I'll get a Drobo and another internal drive or two and be good to go!

Drobo v. ReadyNAS IV: ReadyNAS Just Does More

In previous posts, I've discussed what I am looking for, some obvious differences between Drobo and ReadyNAS and differences in their connectivity and use of drives. They have tended to favor Drobo. But ReadyNAS does some things that Drobo does not.

1. As I have already mentioned, ReadyNAS is faster. It does not have to deal with a USB bottleneck (40-60MB/sec, theoretically) when doing gigabit Ethernet (100BM/sec). 
2. Drobo is not even as fast as USB 2.0. Drobo claims throughput of up to 22 MB/sec, but most people report around 15MB/sec. On the other hand, ReadyNAS can push through as much as 37.9MB/sec, and there are reports of 50+MB/sec or even 70+MB/sec. ReadyNAS is known for its speed, and it blows away Drobo in this area.
3. While you cannot connect ReadyNAS to a computer with USB, ReadNAS can share devices that are hooked up to its own USB ports, including flash drives, USB hard drives and even printers. Drobo and DroboShare can only share the data on the Drobo itself.
4. ReadyNAS supports many file service protocols (i.e. SMB, AFP, NFS, HTTP, FTP). Drobo only supports SMB. 
5. ReadyNAS devices  can be set to back themselves up, and Drobo cannot. This itself can be a very big deal, as it easily allows you to create backups to take offsite. 
6. ReadyNAS comes with backup software for other computers to backup to ReadyNAS (Retrospect for Windows and for Mac OS X). Drobo does not.
7. ReadyNAS can automatically shut itself down if the UPS it is attached to notifies it of power loss. Drobo cannot.

I'm sure that there are even more differences that favor ReadyNAS, too. 

Of course, there are more similarities, too. They both have built-in system monitoring and notification of problem, though surely ReadyNAS's is more complete. They both support remote administration, though ReadyNAS's is more complex as there is more to administer. Moreover, I believe that ReadyNAS can be administered from a web browser -- so long as it supports Java -- whereas Drobo requires a particular application be installed on the machine. 

When you pay for ReadyNAS, you clearly get more. In fact, if these features matter to you, they are easily worth more than the price difference between the devices. Be it data security, speed or protocols, these differences are so great that one might even think that ReadyNAS is in a whole difference class than Drobo.

Drobo v. ReadyNAS III: Connectivity and use of drives

Previous posts have addressed by needs/criteria and some of the obvious differences between ReadyNAS and Drobo. This time, I'm getting a bit more technical. 

Drobo does not do Ethernet by itself. That means that it is not a truly a "network attached storage" device. However, DroboShare is designed to work with Drobo to put it on a network. There are some advantages and disadvantages to this setup. 

1. If you want to connect it to your computer by USB, you have that option, unlike with ReadyNAS (RN). You can even switch it up from time to time, without impacting your data.
2. If you know that you don't need an Ethernet connection, you don't even need DroboShare, and can save the $200. 
3. USB 2.0 is not the fastest way to connect a drive to a computer, FireWire is. Moreover, gigabit Ethernet can be faster than USB. Drobo is stuck with that USB bottleneck on speed, because it connects to DroboShare with USB.

However, my router -- Apple AirPort Extreme BaseStation -- can share USB drives plugged into its USB port. Therefore, I don't need DroboShare. Because my computers access the network wirelessly --being laptops -- USB is not the bottleneck. Rather, the slower speed of wireless networking is the bottleneck.  The only times that I might be able to take advantage of ReadyNAS's real speed advantage (i.e. gigabit Ethernet) would be when I plugged a network cable into my laptops. And to do that, I'd have to replace my router and the hub in my office with new gigabit equipment. For me, ReadyNAS's faster connections just don't matter. 

The second big technical difference is how each device handles expandability. This expandability is the coolest thing about each of them. When they close to full, you can add more drives until they are full. If you are already using all four drive bays, you can replace the smallest drive with a larger drive and get more space. Yes, they each  can use drives of varying sizes simultaneously! This means that you can just by the most cost effective drive -- by which I mean the least $/GB -- at the time. Later, when you need more space and storage prices have dropped further, you can buy another larger disk. They both grow as you grow, and each allows you to take advantage of the fact that larger drives become available every few months and the cost per GB keeps going down. 

However, there are some differences in how they handle disks of difference sizes.

ReadyNAS treats every drive as though it is the size of the smallest drive. This means that the extra space on the larger drives are ignored. When you replace the smallest drive with a larger drive, ReadyNAS will then use more space on every drive. For example, if it has four different drives - 100GB, 200GB, 300GB, 400GB -- it only uses 100GB on each disk. If you replace the smallest disk, say with a 500GB disk, it then checks what the new smallest disk is (in this case, 200GB), and only uses that much space on each drive. It's a very simply approach. If you have larger disks, it doesn't use that space now, but will use it later when other disks catch up. 

Drobo also ignores some space, but far less. Rather than ignoring space on all the drives, it just ignores space on the single largest drive. It ignores the extra space on the largest drive in excess of the size of the second largest drive. So, in the previous example, it ignores 100GB, because 400GB - 300GB = 100GB. Unless the three smallest drives are the same size -- and the fourth can be the same size or larger -- Drobo ignores less space than ReadyNAS, and it never ignores more space. 

Both devices essentially use one drive for redundancy, so that if anything happens to any of the drives you data is still safe. For Drobo, the spaced used for redundancy and the space ignored add up to the capacity of the largest drive. With ReadyNAS, it's a bit more complicated, but always more than than.

So, here's how it works out for each device in various configurations. 

Example 1: 

Drives: 100Gb, 200GB, 300GB, 400GB

           ReadyNas Drobo

Available   300GB   600GB 

Redundancy  100GB   300GB

Ignored     300GB   100GB

Example 2: Replace the smallest drive above (100gb) with a 500GB drive.

Drives: 200Gb, 300GB, 400GB & 500GB

           ReadyNas Drobo

Available   600GB   900GB 

Redundancy  200GB   400GB

Ignored     600GB   100GB

Example 3: Start with the most cost efficient drives available today, and add larger drives later.

Drives: 750GB, 1000GB, 1250GB & 1500GB

           ReadyNas Drobo

Available  2250GB   3000GB 

Redundancy  750GB   1250GB

Not used   1500GB    250GB

Almost regardless of your configuration, Drobo uses more of the drives' capacity. This means that, in addition costing less upfront, it will cost less over time for a given amount of available storage. Or, you'll get more storage for the same amount of money. And once you have filled all four drive bays, regardless of your configuration, if you replace your smallest drive with a larger drive you will get more space. Whereas with ReadyNAS, if your smallest drive is not the only drive that size (i.e. you have another drive the same size as your smallest drive, or even all four drives are the same size), you have to replace multiple drive to get more usable space.

Clearly, advantage Drobo. 

Drobo v. ReadyNAS II: Obvious Differences

Yes, I am talking about ReadyNAS (from Netgear) and Drobo (from Drobo). 

But which one should I get? Well, my previous post laid out what I was looking for. This leaves the question of which of these two products best fits my needs.

First, what they have in common:

1. Both use multiple drive so that if a single drive fails, you don't lose any data.
2. Both can be expanded more or less on the fly, simply by replacing smaller drives with larger drives.
3. Both are fairly easy to set up.
4. Both start under $1000.
5. They are about the same size, each about 5" wide and 6" tall and 9" deep. (Drobo a little deeper and wider, ReadyNAS a little taller.)  

There are some important obvious differences, however.

First, ReadyNAS looks like it is geared more towards pros at home (i.e. real techies), whereas Drobo is aimed more at advanced users. ReadyNAS does more, has more features, is more powerful. Drobo is simpler. To me, ReadyNAS just looks like a windows product, both in terms of specs and appearance. Drobo seems more like an Apple product, both in appearance and simplicity.

Second, ReadyNAS is more expensive. The basic unit, without drives, is over $900. Drobo is around $450, plus $200 for DroboShare -- which you need if you want to hook it with Ethernet, as opposed to via USB. To be fair, though, it is only marginally more expensive to get a ReadyNAS unit with 1TB of storage in it, though this only lessens the price difference, and does not actually wipe it out. 

So, on the surface, if you want more features and power, get ReadyNAS. But if you want a prettier and easier to use solution, or you want to save money, get Drobo.

But that's not the end of the story. 

Drobo v. ReadyNas I: My Needs

DJ and I have had some major technology failures the past few months, and this had prompted me to revisit our computer storage.

What does that mean? Well, individual computers store stuff on their hard drives. File servers -- often just called "servers" -- store stuff on their hard drives, in a way that other computers can access them. While it is pretty easy to set up a way to share files between our computers, that is not the only issue. We also need somewhere to back up our data.

You see, if a computer has a problem, it can be a pain to copy data off of it. If the problem is the hard drive, the data can even be lost. Which is bad.

In my view, Apple's Time Machine (TM) -- part of the latest version of Mac OS X -- is a great backup solution. However, it's not perfect. At times, it needs quite a bit of storage. The other issue -- one I've long pointed to -- is that laptop users cannot simply plug in an external drive as easily as desktop users. The laptop might not even be in the same room as the external drive, and the laptop moves around, even when it is in the same room. Therefore, the shared storage/backup drive should be on a network. Now that Time Machine allows backing up across a network, I've been thinking about how I want to set things up.

(Yes, TM has supported backing up to another computer's external drive for a while, but we don't have -- or even want -- that desktop computer. Nor would we want it on all the time, sucking up power. Yes, TM works with Apple's Time Capsule, but that's not what I want. 1) It's largely redundant with my existing wireless router. 2) The cost of storage is too high. 3) The storage is not expandable. 4) The storage is a single source of failure.)

The list in that previous parenthetical paragraph forms the basis for what I am looking for.

1. I want to hook up my shared/backup storage to my network.
2. I am cost conscious about it, especially looking forward. I understand startup costs, of course. But I don't want it to be extra expensive to add storage later. And I'd rather not spend money to replace equipment I already have, unless I am really adding something new.
3. I want the storage to be expandable. I've been using a serious of external drives to hold my backups, and I am sick of that. I don't want to have to look though multiple volumes to find something. Moreover, TM backup stores cannot span volumes. So, what ever I do must support expandable volumes.
4. I want some sort of data redundancy, so a single drive failure does not mean lost data. You see, all hard drives die. The only question is whether you will still be using them when they do. If you are lucky, no. But if you are not, well, that really sucks.

These features strike me as really advanced. When I was working in IT, there were expensive solutions to handle all of this. You see, these are not new issues at all. The shocker is that there are consumer level products that can deal with all of this.