Drobo or ??

[cadfael_tex]

I’ve been living dangerously for far too long. I’ve had my pictures all on a 1TB lacie rugged drive. Finally got around to putting them on my old computer (an iMac that my 5 year old uses mostly now). It has carbonite so that’s good but it has outgrown the ‘time capsule’ 2TB drive. This computer holds all our iTunes music and movies, has the backup for out pictures (now) and is getting long in the tooth (late 2009 build).

I want to add a new drive to back things up on. I haven’t heard much except Drobo lately as far as backup storage - is it still a good choice or are there better? I like the idea of a swappable self-monitoring raid (which is basically what the Drobo is right?).

Also, any stand-outs in the HDD world? I’ve pretty much stuck with Seagate (and occasionally Western Digital).

TIA,
Tony

 

[lynnb]

I haven't researched this recently, but when I was buying HDDs a few years ago I bought WD Caviar Black HDDs, as they had a higher MTBF (mean time between failure) rate. I think they were recommended for servers because of this.

A computer shop salesman advised me to steer clear of the Green drives as they had had a higher than expected failure rate.

One question about the Drobos - if the Drobo unit itself fails, can the drives only be read in another Drobo unit? And if so, if Drobo were to go out of business, are you going to be able to access your data if you can't buy another?

 

[texchappy]

That's something about the failure that I'll have to find out Lynnb. Good info on the Caviar Blacks (and greens).