Hi everyone,
I don't want to sound overly dramatic, but I'm guessing I roughly have 1 day to cancel my order (because of Thanksgiving). I pulled the trigger on the "deal of the day" on Amazon, for the Drobo 5N at $429.99. I have some past experience with Drobo, but mine is an old model -- and it has been a mixed experience. More on that below.
A little background:
First, my uses: Professionally, I teach at a college, with my emphasis in the visual effects industry. Image sequences (sequential TIFF, EXR files, etc) are the norm, instead of large video files. These normally range from less than 1MB to 8MB per frame, typically at 24-30 frames per second. I know this would be difficult for any disk or nas, as random read / writes are always the toughest things for drives.
But, I would love for the NAS to be able to at least decently feed me file sequences -- from there a fast, local scratch disk could cache the files locally.
I also would like the NAS I go with to be able to serve 1080p lossless mkv files -- though I think any current NAS would be up to this task...which brings me to my history...
...I've had a Drobo 2nd Generation (FW800) for years now.
It has been a love / hate relationship.
It has kept my data reliably safe, and I've grown the array over time (very important feature for me) -- but it functions horribly slow.
At best it will move data a around 25-30MB/s...but this is with large files, and it will slow tremendously (sometimes to 1 to 2 MB/s) over time if it's a sustained operation (for large folder file copies, backups, etc). I use the drobo for storage of important data, but if I actually want to use that data, I need to pull it off the drobo from my mac-mini server (the drobo isn't a NAS) to a local drive.
Anyway, I apologize for the rambling.
More to the point -- I see some nice offerings from Synology, but many of the ones compared to the 5N don't seem to be current and/or aren't readily available. The DS414 seems to be in the same general price range (although 4-bay vs the 5N's 5-bay). Also, I wouldn't be using link-aggregation...so that feature on the synology isn't a factor. I do like that their products now have the hybrid-raid technology...so it can 'grow' and mix-and-match like the drobo can -- which was the main driving force behind my purchase of the drobo years back.
I'm completely open to any and all recommendations -- brands, models, etc.
I would like to try and stay within that general price range though, and am looking for an automated NAS...not really a DIY build. I would love to have some decent performance in the above-mentioned uses (image sequences, etc).
I know there are a bunch of charts on here, but I didn't see Drobo on there at all, and since that's what I've placed the order for, I'd love to hear your thoughts -- even though I know it's Thanksgiving!
I really appreciate the help -- for me this will be a purchase I will be living with for quite a while, so I want to make as educated a one as possible. In fact, I had forgotten I was registered on this forum -- it turns out I was on here back in 2008 when I returned one unit, a D-Link, and then purchased my Drobo!
John
I don't want to sound overly dramatic, but I'm guessing I roughly have 1 day to cancel my order (because of Thanksgiving). I pulled the trigger on the "deal of the day" on Amazon, for the Drobo 5N at $429.99. I have some past experience with Drobo, but mine is an old model -- and it has been a mixed experience. More on that below.
A little background:
First, my uses: Professionally, I teach at a college, with my emphasis in the visual effects industry. Image sequences (sequential TIFF, EXR files, etc) are the norm, instead of large video files. These normally range from less than 1MB to 8MB per frame, typically at 24-30 frames per second. I know this would be difficult for any disk or nas, as random read / writes are always the toughest things for drives.
But, I would love for the NAS to be able to at least decently feed me file sequences -- from there a fast, local scratch disk could cache the files locally.
I also would like the NAS I go with to be able to serve 1080p lossless mkv files -- though I think any current NAS would be up to this task...which brings me to my history...
...I've had a Drobo 2nd Generation (FW800) for years now.
It has been a love / hate relationship.
It has kept my data reliably safe, and I've grown the array over time (very important feature for me) -- but it functions horribly slow.
At best it will move data a around 25-30MB/s...but this is with large files, and it will slow tremendously (sometimes to 1 to 2 MB/s) over time if it's a sustained operation (for large folder file copies, backups, etc). I use the drobo for storage of important data, but if I actually want to use that data, I need to pull it off the drobo from my mac-mini server (the drobo isn't a NAS) to a local drive.
Anyway, I apologize for the rambling.
More to the point -- I see some nice offerings from Synology, but many of the ones compared to the 5N don't seem to be current and/or aren't readily available. The DS414 seems to be in the same general price range (although 4-bay vs the 5N's 5-bay). Also, I wouldn't be using link-aggregation...so that feature on the synology isn't a factor. I do like that their products now have the hybrid-raid technology...so it can 'grow' and mix-and-match like the drobo can -- which was the main driving force behind my purchase of the drobo years back.
I'm completely open to any and all recommendations -- brands, models, etc.
I would like to try and stay within that general price range though, and am looking for an automated NAS...not really a DIY build. I would love to have some decent performance in the above-mentioned uses (image sequences, etc).
I know there are a bunch of charts on here, but I didn't see Drobo on there at all, and since that's what I've placed the order for, I'd love to hear your thoughts -- even though I know it's Thanksgiving!
I really appreciate the help -- for me this will be a purchase I will be living with for quite a while, so I want to make as educated a one as possible. In fact, I had forgotten I was registered on this forum -- it turns out I was on here back in 2008 when I returned one unit, a D-Link, and then purchased my Drobo!
John
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