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The Home Tech Podcast: Drobo Special from San Jose, CA
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Jim is with Mario Blandini from Drobo and a visit to their international headquarters in San Jose for the first ever Home Tech Podcast from Drobo. Mario and Jim talk about Drobo product direction, hardware vs software development, RAID usage and even some new product announcements! Drobo is now shipping a new 12 bay Drobo for enterprise business that need more storage.
Mario also breaks down some of the new naming convention for the latest line and talks about the future of expanding Drobo’s BeyondRAID technology. He also covers some of the future when it comes to using smaller form factor drives and responds to the hacking community. Jim gives Mario some ideas of what he would like to see in the future including some tips for the Home Server Community.
Mario also announces the first ever Drobo on Windows Home Server 2011 Add-in challenge. If you are a Windows Home Server Add-in developer and write a successful add-in for the WHS 2011 platform that manages a Drobo unit, Drobo will reward you with one! For details, watch for the “official announcement” over at the HomeServerShow.com after Wednesday night’s live show (10/12/2011)
Love it or $$$$ it, this is a show you will not want to miss.
Jim’s Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/jcollison
Andrew’s Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/unrealshots
Christian’s Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheWizBM
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| Print article | This entry was posted by jcollison on October 10, 2011 at 7:11 pm, and is filed under Drobo, Home Tech, Home Tech Podcast, TAG Podcasts. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
69 The Home Tech Podcast: Commodore 64, Dropbox, Facebook, Home OS, Lead Recycling, Timex Sinclair 1000
about 1 month ago - No comments
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Listen LIVE every Thursday night at http://TheAverageGuy.tv/live @ 5pP/7pC/8pE
The guys are joined by Bryan Auer and Rich O’Neil for show 69 of The Home Tech Podcast.
The guys start off learning some about the lead recycling business that Bryan works in, with Bryan telling us how lead-acid batteries, and other lead containing products are recycled into re-usable components.
Jim and Bryan take a trip down technology’s memory lane, back to the days of the Commodore Pet, and the Timex Sinclair 1000
Jim talks about the recent updates to Google Plus, with the interface being revised, making the service easier to navigate, and simpler to use. There are also some nice new features such as the ability to broadcast a Google Hangout, rather than using a third party service like Live Stream. The guys discuss some of the newly accessible features such as simplification of photo uploading, and the introduction of games to Google Plus.
As a follow up to previous discussions, Jim tells us how he has configured his Samsung Galaxy SII, Dropbox and the Windows Home Server to make sure the photos he takes using his phone are not only copied from the phone, but are being backed up as well.
Whilst talking about Android and applications, the guys talk about the recent $1 billion acquisition of Instagram by Facebook.
For those who haven’t yet used it, Instagram integrates with the camera in your smart phone, to which you can apply a filter, and then post it to the Instagram service, Facebook, Twitter and the blogging service Tumblr. Instagram usage statistics are incredible, as shown by our friends over at the Digital Buzz blog. Rich talks about some of the privacy concerns with the Facebook acquisition, and the future of the application now it is part of the Facebook community.
Jim talks about the recent surge in the popularity of digital photography, which the guys attribute in part to the affordability of good quality digital cameras, as well as the quality of the camera built into most smart phones.
Rich shares his experiences with his Android smart phone journey, having tried the Samsung Galaxy SII Skyrocket, iPhone 4S, finally settling on the Samsung Galaxy SII.
Rich shares some of the applications he has found and purchased, and some of the processes he has employed to improve his experience with the Samsung phone, not to mention installing Ubuntu Linux onto the phone.
Christian joins the show half way through, and spreads the news that he is now loose on the roads, as a licensed driver, passing his test with full marks!
Bryan talks about the passing of Jack Tramiel, who was the founder of Commodore Business Machines, whose claims to fame were the Commodore PET, and Commodore 64, as well as the Atari ST.
The guys take another trip down memory lane, reminiscing about the early days of the IT Industry as we know it.
Bryan also tells us about one of the Microsoft Research projects being HomeOS which promises to be an Operating System to run home automation systems from, with the product currently having support for a range of devices including switches, cameras and TV’s.
To close out the show this week, Christian tells us about the forthcoming Intel PCIe-based SSD, designed for data center systems, but with some phenomenal performance numbers, as well as telling us about a Yahoo! Finance article about who is watching you on Facebook!
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WHS Drobo Status Beta 2–An Update
about 2 months ago - No comments
I have been working on reinstalling Windows Home Server 2011 back on my HP Microserver N40L after some issues with the first install. Part of the process was to install the WHS Drobo Status Beta 2 Add-in from Ross Dargan that can be found over at the Home Server Show Forums.
http://homeservershow.com/forums/index.php?/files/category/7-whs-drobo-status/
The Add-in was part of a contest that we ran over at http://homeservershow.com. Ross answered the call and produced not only an initial beta, but now a second one as of January 15 2012. Here is what it looks like on my system. I actually have two Drobos. The first Drobo S (5 Bay) is attached to the WHS 2011 box via USB 3.0 and the second is networked attached via Gigabit Ethernet on the LAN. With his add-in, I can view the status of both Drobos from my WHS Dashboard.
I am now off to load up the Drobos with all kinds of fresh data! I will post some updated pics when I have them completed loaded!
#54 The Home Tech Podcast: HP MicroServer, WHS 2011, Low Power CPUs, Samsung Galaxy S II, Tom Tom, Issuu.com and Viber
about 5 months ago - No comments
Jim and Andrew are joined this week by Gary Johnson for this weeks’ installment of the Home Tech Podcast.
The guys start off the show with an update on the solar grid feed system Andrew and his wife installed in May this year, followed by some discussions around if the others would “green” their lives.
Jim talks about his new HP ProLiant MicroServer N40L, which has arrived, and been set up running Windows Home Server 2011 for some testing with a Drobo S.
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The guys talk a bit the hardware power required to transcode video, and how some of the hardware we were using in days gone by is reasonably high in power consumption, as well as being somewhat inadequate for the day to day usage we need from a computer these days, not to mention thermal and energy efficiencies.
The guys talk about using low powered CPU/GPU combinations such as the Zotac Nano or the fit-PC3 for uses such as an HTPC, or an always-on device with low power draw.
Jim tells us he has upgraded his Samsung Galaxy S mobile phone to a Samsung Galaxy SII, and is once again a happy Android user, sporting a 4.3” screen, dual core processor and 8MP camera to name a few features!
Andrew talks about his TomTom Sat Nav unit packing it in, and the challenges with trying to find a replacement unit that has comparable features to his 3 year old model. The guys discuss using Google Navigation, which is built into the Android platform. Gary tells us about integrating Subsonic for music, Google Navigation, all from his HTC EVO 3D.
Whilst Sat Nav shopping, Andrew happened upon the new Ultrabook’s coming from the usual hardware vendors, and is seriously considering a new personal machine. The appeal with an Ultrabook, such as the ASUS UX31 or Acer Aspire S, is the form factor bought to the computing world by Apple with the MacBook Air, with the beauty of being a native Microsoft Windows PC.
For those who may have a requirement to create an online publication, Andrew has stumbled across issuu, a service which allows you to publish, and have your content consumed online. With both free, and paid versions, if you have a requirement to move a printed publication online, this may be a solution to your needs!
If you’re a mobile phone user, and frustrated with the mobile version of Skype, Andrew tells us about Viber which comes in both Android and iPhone versions
The guys talk a bit about our dependency on e-mail, as opposed to non-disposable communication like the various social media platforms, such as SharePoint, Wiki’s or other online collaborative solutions like WordPress blogs.
Gary gives us an update on their migration away to their new hosting provider, telling us some more about the reasons why they moved the hosting of bios-mods.com to the Virtual Private Server provider Christian told us about last week in Show 53.
Gary talks about a nice case for a home builder, being the Lian LI PC-Q25B Case, from NewEgg.com, which takes a Mini-ITX board and up to 7x 3.5” hard disks.
To wrap up the show, Gary shares some of his predictions for the coming year or so, regarding his belief that storage will begin moving away from traditional rotating hard drives to solid state storage units, and the possible start of the demise of Cable TV services as we know them today, with some providers already offering video on demand services, rather than the traditional subscriber model we’ are accustomed to.
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Looking for a Drobo Deal? Look No Further!
about 6 months ago - No comments
With as much as I have been talking about Drobo lately, I figured it was time to let you in on a deal. Whether it’s a Christmas gift or just some rockin’ good storage, you can get it cheaper with these deals. Act quickly, offers expire December 31st!
- Use code 100DROBO for an instant $100 discount at drobostore.com
- Up to $150 rebate when you purchase a Drobo from any authorized reseller
- FREE Professional Drobo product with every Drobo Business product purchased
#49 The Home Tech Podcast: Drobo, Recycling, the Internet, No More Landline, HD Home Run Prime
about 6 months ago - No comments
Jim and Andrew are joined by Gary Johnson at The Average Guy for this week’s installment of the Home Tech Podcast.
After the introductions, and weather reports from around the world, the guys kick off the show, talking about Jims’ search for a miniature computer to match to a Drobo S, and run Windows Home Server 2011. Gary warns against small form factor machines that can trap heat inside the case, and recommends using a drive such as the Seagate Momentus XT for a system drive for performance gains.
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Listen LIVE every Thursday night at http://TheAverageGuy.tv/live @ 5pP/7pC/8pE
The guys talk about PC recycling programs – Andrew talks about the PC’s for Kids program that runs in Australia, which donates computers to children who are physically, mentally or economically handicapped. From the chat, we get recommendations of Freecycle, a global organization who are all about “giving (and getting) stuff for free in their own towns.” Jim recycles his old equipment through Best Buy. Remember, if you are recycling a PC, that you either remove and destroy the hard drive, or use a program such as DBAN or Secure Erase to securely erase your data before recycling a PC if you don’t want to, or don’t know how to remove the hard drive.
Andrew talks about the possibility of upgrading his home Internet connection, moving from an ADSL 8 mbps connection to a Cable connection at 30 mbps.
While talking about in-house services, Jim tells us that he has finally disconnected the phone line in his family home. The guys discuss the price benefits of VOIP vs land lines, and the various providers and methods for saving on phone bills.
The guys talk about the upcoming change of IP addressing from the current IPV4 standard to the new IPV6 system. Jim talks about a new concept being thought about, being the building of a network in space, to ultimately allow network connectivity for space craft – watch this space!
Gary gives an update on the HD Home Run Prime he purchased a couple of months back, from Silicon Dust, and some of the issues that he and his family are seeing when they try to stream video over their wireless network, versus working perfectly on the wired network.
The guys talk briefly about some late breaking news, relating to HP retaining the Personal Systems Group, as reported by our friends over at ZDNet, and the potential for the HP Touchpad to run Windows 8, as is also being rumored around the Internet.
Gary talks about the increase in hard drive prices that have been since the the Japan Tsunami and the more recent flooding in Thailand, where most of the hard drives on the market are manufactured.
The guys talk some more about the recent word added to the Urban Dictionary last week by Rich O’Neil, being The Full Fo-Shay.
The guys talk about some of the rumored upcoming mobile phone devices such as the ASUS Transformer 2, and an article Gary has found talking about 18 TB drives being made possible using table salt!
Be sure to listen to the show after the music finishes, to hear about Mike Howards’ recent Windows Home Server 2011 adventures!
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Find this and other great Podcasts from the Average Guy Network at http://theaverageguy.tv
#46 The Home Tech Podcast: Disk Defragmenting, In-flight Internet Access, Steve Jobs and Weather Stations
about 7 months ago - 1 comment
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Jim and Andrew and Christian are joined by Bill Paulmenn for this week’s installment of the Home Tech Podcast.
For those of you hearing the show via iTunes or your podcatcher of choice, thanks for switching feeds – if your friends are missing this episode, please remind them to switch to the new feeds – the link is below!
Christian is back this week, taking a break from the school work for an hour or two, catching some time for technology!
After some updates from Bill and Christian, Jim tells us about his trip to the San Francisco Bay Area to visit Oracle World, and his visit to Drobo – watch out for the podcast that Jim recorded with Mario Blandini from Drobo while he was visiting. Jim tells us about the performance of in-flight Internet access on his flight, a great way to be able stay online whilst in a flight, and not have to resort to reading a book while flying!
Andrew joins late, and the guys pay tribute to the passing of Steve Jobs, and discuss the amazing contributions he made to the technology world. For those of you who wonder just how much of a contribution Steve Jobs made to the world of technology, the New York Times listed the patents registered with him as an inventor.
From Christians’ Corner, Christian brings us Disk Defrag from Auslogics, which Christian recommends as it is more efficient and has more features than the built-in Windows Defrag.
Christian talks about the benefits of running Check Disk following an unexpected power shutdown to help avoid File System corruption.
The guys go on to talk about the benefits of installing device drivers from the hardware vendor, instead of installing the default drivers that come from Windows Update. Christian and Bill give some tips on how to find the correct driver for the hardware you have installed using Google.
Christian remind us to use MSConfig.exe to review the applications that automatically start with Windows – take a look at what is automatically starting on your PC – if you disable the apps you don’t use on a regular basis, your PC will boot up faster. Christian also talks about speeding up your PC using various tips and tricks, as well as checking the performance of your hard disk using HD Tune Pro. You can always check the startup time of your PC using the following script from Seven Forums.
Christian talks about some of the performance issues that have been seen in older versions of Mozilla Firefox – if you are using Firefox, and finding that your PC is a little sluggish, make sure you upgrade to the most recent version.
This weeks’ Deal-of-the-Week is the Seagate 3TB XT from NewEgg.com, which runs out at $139.99 when used with the coupon code EMCKAHA26 at checkout.
Andrew returns from greeting the in-laws, and talks for a while about the trip they are having with their caravan in tow. The guys talk about road trips and technology for uploading images when on the road.
Jim and Andrew talk about the potential of moving from an Android phone to an Apple iPhone, and the reasons why they would move over.
To close out the show, the guys talk about Bills’ weather station, and the Davis Vantage Pro2™ hardware, and options that Bill has added onto the unit, and why he uses it.
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#45 The Home Tech Podcast: The New Kindle, Amazon Prime, Ford Mustang Customizer, HD HomeRun PRIME, Home Storage, and ISP Modems
about 7 months ago - 1 comment
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Jim and Andrew and Gary Johnson are joined by Gordon Schmidt and John Hughes for this week’s installment of the Home Tech Podcast.
After a timely reminder that the podcast feed will be changed next week, the guys kick off the show.
Jim starts off, talking about the new Kindle range of eBook readers, announced by Amazon this week, with the new range starting at $79 for the Kindle 6” model, all the way up to $199 for the new Kindle Fire, which is 7” has a color display, and runs Android, with the Amazon Silk Browser. The 6” model is available now, with the larger and color units becoming available in November this year. While talking about Amazon products, the guys discuss Amazon Prime, as well as Netflix and Redbox, and cutting the cable.
Andrew talks about the Ford Mustang Customizer on the Ford website, which lets you build a completely customized Ford Mustang, complete with custom background, and burnouts! No Knight Rider lights are available though…
Gary steps in for Christian this week, and for Christians’ Corner brings us the NewEgg 72 hour Labour Day sale, where he found the Seagate XT 3TB Hard Drive at $149, using a promotional code of EMCKAHA26. Sign up for Newegg’s Daily Deals via email, to be sure to get yourself a regular tech bargain.
Gary gets the HD Home Run fans drooling by telling us about adding a Silicon Dust HD Home Run PRIME into their home network, and streaming content via their Verizon FIOS connection. Gary gives a few tips on getting the unit for the best possible price, found over at J&R.
For the security conscious amongst us, Gary shares a link over at the How-To Geek, that shows how long your cellular phone provider retains your text messages, call logs and other information – something to be mindful of if you’ve sent the odd text message you wish you hadn’t!
For Christians’ Speed tip of the Week, Gary tells us about an article over at PC Stats, which talks about Intel Smart Response Technology, which boosts the performance of a regular spinning hard drive by caching frequently accessed data.
John talks to us about his Synology DS411+II NAS, and the features it has, including:
- RAID (4 drive bays up to 12TB), PC backups, IP Camera Surveillance Station, DLNA/uPNP Media Server, SqueezeBox Server, OpenVPN and a bittorrent client, just to name a few.
Check it out over at the Synology website, and look forward to Johns’ review over at the Home Server Show website soon. If you are looking for a solution that “just works” this could be an alternative to Windows Home Server.
Gordon helps wrap up the show with some tips for getting more control over your broadband modem, and learning what the parameters you see in the configuration screens mean, to make sure you are getting the value you should be receiving from your ISP.
If you are not sure if you are getting the speed you are paying for, you can always test the performance of your Internet connection using services such as SpeedTest.net, Speakeasy and PC PitStop.
Don’t forget our feed location is changing this week – click on to update your iTunes library, or for other Podcast downloading applications, please click on the RSS Feed and pick your Pod Catcher of choice!
Jim’s Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/jcollison
Andrew’s Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/unrealshots
Christian’s Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheWizBM
Contact the show at podcast@theaverageguy.tv
Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/theaverageguy/
If you have a product or a topic you would like us to discuss, please tag your articles in Delicious using the tag “TheAverageGuy”.
Find this and other great Podcasts from the Average Guy Network at http://theaverageguy.tv
Drobo Dashboard 2.0 Continued: Tools, Drobo Copy, Dashboard Preferences and Some Final Thoughts
about 9 months ago - 1 comment
I have been reviewing a Drobo in some form or fashion since December 2010. Some reviews over at the Home Server Show and some here at the Average Guy. The first part of this review can be found at Drobo Has a New Dashboard! Welcome Version 2.0 with a Drobo S and 5 Drives In recent months, Drobo has released a new version of their dashboard (v2.0.3 updated for this review) for both their consumer and enterprise products. For a company that is taking steps in the right direction when it comes to back up hardware, this software upgrade replaces a fairly vanilla offering from the last several years. It’s a definite upgrade and one that users of a Drobo should test out quickly. I found no reasons not to upgrade. If you are a Drobo owner, the upgrade is free.
With the new Dashboard, you can: (from Drobo.com)
- View all your Drobos in one window
- Get capacity and status for each Drobo
- DroboCopy tasks run in the background
- Get email alerts about your Drobo
Here is a good overview of the Drobo Dashboard v2 from Mario Blandini.
Tools
From the Capacity and Tools option in the Dashboard select Tools. This gives the user the ability to do several functional and maintenance items. Blink the lights, rename the device, check for software updates, register your Drobo, perform some system diagnostics, shutdown your Drobo, format it and reset the unit.
Let’s look at them one at a time!
1. Blink Lights – I’m sure there is a good reason to blink the lights on a Drobo, but this might be the least used function in the tools bar. I did it several time to impress my friends when on a Skype call, but that was it. When selected, it will blink the light between red and green.
2. Rename Device – If I had two of the same unit or if I just wanted to rename my Drobo to “Bob” this would be the place.
3. Check for Updates – Between this post and the first one, Drobo upgraded the software to version 2.0.3! The software does automatically check for updates, but in case you skipped it the last time, you can update it from here. I was already up to date!
4. Register – Takes you to the Drobo site for registration of the unit. http://support.drobo.com/app/utils/login_form
5. Diags – Runs some very quick diagnostics and puts a log file to your desktop for review. Support will most likely ask for this if you are experiencing problems. The file itself is unreadable by the end user.
6. Shutdown – Performs a clean shutdown of the unit.
7. Format – Use this to change the way the Drobo has been formatted. For the purposes of this review, the Drobo was formatted into 4 – 2TB volumes. Selecting the format option starts with a prompt warning you that all your data will be deleted.
The rest of the process is similar to the format this is done when first installing the Drobo. See my first post here.
8. Reset – Made a horrible mistake and just need to start over? This is your tool.
Drobo Copy
Drobo Copy is a feature that enables you to easily backup files to your Drobo device.
From this screen, you can add, edit, delete or run a Drobo Copy task. You can also view a report of the last run of a particular Drobo Copy task.
Selecting the + option allows me to create a new copy object.
I will rename the copy to ‘First Drobo Backup’
Select the source folder at my Documents Folder from my PC
Select the destination folder as one of the Drobo volumes
Leave the default time and days of the week to 8:00 AM and All Days
| Basic View | Advanced View |
 |  |
In Advanced view, the options to include system files. Delete files in the ‘To’ folder that are not present in the ‘From’ folder, set the Reporting Level and add exclusions are optional. For the purposes of this review, they will remain default.
This would be a very handy way to back up the files on your computer if you had no other form of back up. Set up is very easy to use and understand as well as manage.
To run the backup manually, use the ‘Run Now’ button at the bottom of the menu. Select ‘Edit’ to make changes to the scheduled jobs.
One a job is run, the ‘Last Report” option is available. When completed, it looks something like this.
For Drobo Dashboard version 2.0 or later:
- See Using Drobo Copy to Back Up Data in the Drobo Online User Guide.
- To create a new Drobo Copy, see Creating a New Drobo Copy in the Drobo Online User Guide. (Also see "Information for Advanced Settings" below in this article.)
- To run a Drobo Copy now (manually), see Running a Drobo Copy Now in the Drobo Online User Guide.
- To review a report of Drobo Copy activities, see Reviewing the Last Report for a Drobo Copy in the Drobo Online User Guide.
Dashboard Preferences
There two options under the Dashboard Preferences – Dashboard Settings and Email Settings
Under Dashboard Settings, a General Settings window appears. The options to Auto Update, Enable System Tray functionality (which means it is running even if the software is closed) and Alert configuration.
If I wanted to configure Email Alerts, I could do that in the Email Setting Page. This option is for more advanced users. More information on setting up Email Alerts can be found here.
Conclusion
The upgrade to the 2.0 Software was a huge improvement over the 1.0 version. A better interface, easier to use features and a more intuitive layout is a big plus for the average guy. There is no reason not to move to this version of the Drobo Dashboard and if you are just purchasing a Drobo, the dashboard should be a tremendous help. Nice work Drobo!
So what is next?
In the next review, I will atake a look at how it can be used with different applications including Windows Home Server 2011 and Oracle’s Virtual Box.
Jim Collison is a blogger and podcaster for HomeServerShow.com and TheAverageGuy.tv.
Full Disclosure – Drobo provided an evaluation unit with drives for this review.
Drobo Has a New Dashboard! Welcome Version 2.0 with a Drobo S and 5 Drives.
about 10 months ago - 2 comments
I have been reviewing a Drobo in some form or fashion since December 2010. Some reviews over at the Home Server Show and some here at the Average Guy. In recent months, Drobo has released a new version of their dashboard (v2.0.2 for this review) for both their consumer and enterprise products. For a company that is taking steps in the right direction when it comes to back up hardware, this software upgrade replaces a fairly vanilla offering from the last several years. It’s a definite upgrade and one that users of a Drobo should test out quickly. I found no reasons not to upgrade. If you are a Drobo owner, the upgrade is free.
With the new Dashboard, you can: (from Drobo.com)
- View all your Drobos in one window
- Get capacity and status for each Drobo
- DroboCopy tasks run in the background
- Get email alerts about your Drobo
Here is a good overview of the Drobo Dashboard v2 from Mario Blandini.
This review was done on Windows 7 PC using a 5 bay Drobo S connected via USB 3.0
The Review
The v2 software can be found at the Drobo support site. http://drobo.com/support/updates.php The install is fairly standard and I selected all the defaults.
The Dashboard:
(Click on any of the images to enlarge to viewable size)
| Icons View | List View |
 |  |
Both views give the ability to sort by Health, Name or Product. There is a graphical representation of the device in the lower left corner of the dashboard. Very handy to use if your Drobo is in another location and cannot be seen.
Since the Drobo is empty of drives, we are going to add 5 of them. 2 – 3TB, 2 - 1.5TB and 1 – 1TB drives. I am going to load all of them at once.
While the drives are being loaded by the Drobo, I get this warning message:
The Drobo itself is flashing the yellow and green lights. This process is no different in previous versions of the dashboard, just a new way of alerting the user.
Because the drives are not completely acquired by the unit, this alert occurs as well:
It took the unit about 3 minutes to completely add all the drives. Now they need to be formatted.
| Icons View | List View |
 |  |
Selecting the first option, Capacity and Tools, I am prompted to format the drives. Selecting Yes.
A final warning before the format.
Like in the previous version of the dashboard, there three different Format Types listed. For the purposes of this review, I am choosing the 2nd or NTFS option.
In further reviews, I am going use the Drobo to test the new Windows Home Server 2011 with Oracle’s Virtual Box software. For that purpose, I need 2TB partitions. So for this review, I am choosing to create multiple 2TB volumes. It would be just as easy to create a 4, 8 or 16TB volume right here with the slider.
One of the handy features about the Drobo is that I can very easily set up the volumes once I chose their size. I am going to change both the drive letters of the volumes as well as their names. This will help in future reviews know which drive is which.
Its important to remember that while I might have 4 – 2TB volumes, I really only have 6.3TB of capacity total. If I loaded more than 6.3TB of data to these drives, the Drobo would require that I add larger drives to the pool.
| Before | After |
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And a confirmation. Selected Format
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The formatted look from the Dashboard.
| Usage Option | Capacity Option |
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In order to complete the set up, the Drobo needed to be rebooted. This was accomplished in about 2 minutes time without rebooting the PC.
| Volumes Tab | Status Tab |
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Out of the box, the Drobo uses Beyond RAID to protect any data stored on the device. By default on the Drobo S, one drive can fail without the loss of data. In the Setting – General Tab, there is an option increase the number of drives that can fail at once to two drives. While it adds a greater amount of protection, it takes additional space. Each user needs to evaluate their risk tolerance. Here is what it looks like if it’s turned on with this configuration.
There are also two other options for power savings. The first one determines how quickly the disk spin down when they are not in use. The default is 15 minutes. The second is brightness of the lights. 1 is nearly off and 10 is bright. 10 is default.
By selecting the Dual Disk Redundancy, the drive capacity is almost cut in half with this configuration.
With this configuration, it took the Drobo about 12 minutes to convert the disks.
| Before | After |
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Since I can risk having only one drive fail at a time, I am going to set the protection mode back to the default setting.
This process took about 5 seconds to complete.
So what is next?
In the next set of reviews, we will look at The Tools available from within the Dashboard, Drobo Copy, the Dashboard Preferences and the Help available from the Drobo website. I will also take a look at how it can be used with different applications including Windows Home Server 2011 and Oracle’s Virtual Box.
Jim Collison is a blogger and podcaster for HomeServerShow.com and TheAverageGuy.tv.
Full Disclosure – Drobo provided an evaluation unit with drives for this review.
#30 The Home Tech Podcast: Android Apps, Google Products, Phones, Getting Things Done, and Loyalty Card Apps
about 11 months ago - No comments
Jim, Andrew and Christian are joined by Gordon Schmidt for this weeks’ installment of the Home Tech Podcast.
Christians’ latest tech news for the Home Server crowd is that the BIOS for an HP EX485 MediaSmart server can be recovered if becomes corrupted somehow. If you have somehow corrupted the BIOS on your MediaSmart Server, you can check out how to recover your MediaSmart Server BIOS over at BIOS-Mods.
In a Windows Home Server bent, Gordon fills us in on upgrade to Windows Home Server 2011, and his coding project in conjunction with his brothers, to bring additional information into the Home Server console. Gordon tells us how he manages the storage drives with Windows Home Server, and how he manages his external backups using an ioSafe external hard disk.
Christian gives us a sneak peek into his Summer vacation projects, assisting some of the local organizations in his area to bring some efficiencies to their businesses via web based services.
Gordon starts off this week, bringing us some Android apps that let you start working smarter, not harder. Chrome to Phone, is a Google Chrome browser extension that lets you send the web page you are viewing on your PC directly to you Android handset. A great app if you are looking at a web page you want to keep reading as you head away from the PC.
While talking about Google Products, Jim discusses Google Voice, which integrates voice calling into your GMail account. The service provides a single contact number, and lets you make free calls and send free text messages within the U.S and Canada, as well as providing an integrated voicemail service directly into your GMail Inbox in the form of a transcribed message. Jim and Gordon talk about their practical application of Google Voice, using it to advertise a car, yet not advertise his mobile phone number to the public.
For the Android users amongst us, Gordon tells us about the Amazon Appstore for Android, who each day, give away a paid app at no charge. Gordon also tells us about AppBrain, which is a a free Android service that remembers what you have installed on your phone, and in the event of having to restore your phone to default, you can easily re-install your applications.
Following on from Show #28, where we discussed RSS Readers, Gordon tells us about how he uses Google Reader to manage his RSS reading, tagging, sharing, and podcast management, all from within the Google Reader interface. You can follow Gordons’ shared Google Reader feed via the Google Reader Shared Items feature.
Gordon brings us Hard Forums, a reference site he uses for unique hardware configurations, to be able to reference hardware specs and compatibility, the guys discuss their sources for hardware research, including AnandTech, OverClockers, and our good friends over at the BYOB Podcast. The guys briefly discuss the merits of overclocking for the average home user versus ongoing system stability and longevity and power efficiency.
Andrew gives an update on the power output from the output of the solar panel system installed a couple of weeks ago. For those who missed the link previously, Andrew visually tracks the output and efficiency from the solar panel installation over at PVOutput.org.
Launching into Christians’ Corner, we now have an intro, recorded by Christian himself, using Jam Studio, which has enabled Christian to create a backing track, and overlay the audio using Audacity.
Christians’ Speed Tip of the Week is more of a power efficiency tip, where he walks us through how to tweak CPU performance via the Windows 7 Power Options, which will in turn slow down fan speed, and system noise. Christian then tells us how to validate the changes after you have made them.
The Deal-of-the-Week is the Lian-Li PC-C33B HTPC Case, which looks just like a piece of home entertainment equipment, and will only set you back $169.99, from NewEgg.com.
Christians App of the week is ClipGrab, which is a downloader and converter that will convert videos from online sources including YouTube, Vimeo and other sites and transcode them into MP4 format. This is an incredibly useful application if you need to embed a video into a PowerPoint presentation or to copy onto an iPod or other mobile media device for sharing with friends.
Christian shares the Engadget Review of the HTC EVO 3D, one of the latest Android phones about to hit the market from HTC, a mouth watering offering coming soon to Sprint in the USA.
Andrew brings us Natural Reader, an application that will read highlighted text from any application. There are free and paid versions available for both PC and Mac users.
Andrew reaches out to the listener community about choosing a Personal Productivity / Getting Things Done application to better help manage the Inbox in Outlook. So far, he has looked at SimplyFile from TechHit (which builds rules based on Outlook email movement), and Xobni (which builds statistics around emails that are received and sent). Jim talks about The Other Inbox which integrates with online email providers such as Gmail and Yahoo!Mail.
To wrap up the show, the guys talk about the recent mobile applications released from Starbucks which allow you to pay for your caffeine hit, directly from your mobile phone, as well as the mobile application called CardStar, which allows you to load all of your loyalty cards into your phone, and simply scan your card at the cash register.
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about 7 months ago
Drobo has a lot of issues with performance. The stability and disk replacement is nice, I have one of the version #1 Drobos, and do appreciate the features. However, I don’t like the fact that it takes 2-3 days to reconfigure for a 2TB disk replacement. This is a huge “hole” in “reliability”. Yeah, you can get a new Drobo with 5 disks, and get better stability. But, in the end, the devices, overall, are just too rigid in configuration and too slow in performance to be a single storage solution.
I have to buy other storage that is “fast enough” for digital media production, and use Drobo for “storage”. But, because I now have two places to keep data, I have to make sure that “Drobo Copy” or rsync or something is keeping stuff “safely” in two places etc. So, there’s still no direct “benefit” to have Drobo over some other storage system.
When you look at the extensibility and flexibility of a ZFS based system, using Solaris, FreeBSD, Linux or MacOS-X, you get a lot more flexibility in using a greatly more resilient system. Not only that, it is very performant and very extensible to zetabyte (64 bit) sized pools.
Tools to manage ZFS are still immature, overall, for people who know nothing about managing storage. But, that could trivially change. But, also, ZFS disk management is pretty straight forward.
Drobo really needs to focus on performance, and chaining. In particular, they really should build Drobos which have thunderbolt chaining for “expansion” so that storage space can be expanded with fantastic performance. They could still provide other types of “to-computer” connectivity if they wanted, but in the end, thunderbolt performance should be the goal!