Firewire for Software RAID

[Daniel Hazelbaker]

If you (whoever the OP was) is looking for a "cheap" desktop box that  
they can put 2 drives in for mirroring I recommend taking a look at  
fwdepot.com.  They have some pretty decent cheap cases that do basic  
hardware RAID.

<http://fwdepot.com/thestore/default.php/cPath/101_132>

If you are looking for something that is solid, sturdy, and reliable  
beyond belief you are going to be spending at least $1,000 for  
something that is either SCSI or Fiber.  I have nothing against USB  
(other than the speed and CPU requirements) or firewire, but they are  
just not good server connections.  They don't lock in (you can easily  
knock them out while trying to fish out other cables), personally I  
have found them to be inherently unstable (they just were not designed  
for 24/7/365 use), and the non-rackmount cases just seem to be a  
little fidgety when it comes to heating issues.

Personally, we limped through with a 1TB Lacie disk until we could  
afford a nice 16-bay rack-mount unit from firewiredirect.com ($5,000  
but it was more than worth it) and it has been running solid for 2.5  
years without an issue.

For desktop use, we have firewire drives everywhere.  But we don't  
leave them running 24/7 anymore.  They just seem to burn up too fast.

Daniel Hazelbaker

On Dec 18, 2007, at 9:13 AM, Thomas Baley wrote:

> I was very interested to read your comments on the Drobo. It caught  
> my interest with all the bubbling enthusiastic reviews in the last  
> six months. But it seems you are certainly correct on the price  
> point. I can get the 2 TB Buffalo NAS for $1,700-$1,800. Doesn't the  
> Drobo have a limit on the size of an individual drive, too?
>
> I had not heard anyone else talk about speed one way or another.  
> Your comments are valuable.
>
> Perhaps the things it brings to the table are (1) no-brainer for  
> installing and using and (2) for the person with a pile of stray  
> drives laying around, it handles drives of different sizes without  
> blinking (limiting the overall size by the smallest drive). It is  
> also limited to being just a USB external device, right?
>
> All-in-all, it seems like a good idea, but may lack some in  
> implementation and price point. I would be interested in any other  
> experience you have with it, like reliability, heat (?), etc.
>
>
> Thomas R. Baley
> tbaley at mac.com
> 770-984-8655
> 404-529-4710 f
>
>
>
>
> On Dec 18, 2007, at 11:57 AM, Brett Dikeman wrote:
>
> On Dec 14, 2007 8:26 PM, Kenny Leung <kenny_leung at pobox.com> wrote:
>> I have been using a drobo (www.drobo.com), and I think it's great.
>
> They're expensive ($500, with no drives, which puts them deep into NAS
> territory), slow as molasses, and don't offer anything above or beyond
> other units, except for a few LEDs in a cute-looking box.
>
> I saw a review recently where READ speed was about 10-15MB/sec no
> matter how many drives were installed.
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