Which is better Drobo 5N or 5D as a media storage device connected to a Mac Mini with Plex Media Server running on the Mac Mini ?
1239160
As an owner of two Drobo's, I wouldn't buy another one of them. Look at the Synology NAS devices. I can't think of any aspect where the Synology isn't superior - especially the tech support. Or if fireproof, waterproof and bulletproof counts, look at ioSafe which runs the Synology software.
1239161
If you are going to direct attach it to the Mac Mini, your only choice is the 5D. I stream media on the 5N, which is only network attached and it steams without any problems. Full resolution media.
1239162
Well, Plex runs on the 5N without a computer, and when connected directly via Ethernet port the 5N is still quite speedy for file transfers, so I think the 5N is more versatile. If you were doing huge file transfers and editing huge images and videos I'd say get the thunderbolt version. But I'm very happy with the 5N on my network.
1575671
Yes, as a JBOD I have (1) 3TB and (3) 500 GB drives installed. I will add though, my MacMini has a had issues with seeing all.
533167
From what I've read, make sure the firmware on the Drobo is up to date you should be fine with drives > 2TB.
638153
I have found that my two drobos work very well for my needs. The one thing I would like to see work better, but I think it is a limitation of Windows not Drobo, is to report the current size of the mass of drives not some specific value like 16TB when you only have 5TB total space. I've installed Plex Server on my Drobo5n and it's been working great even without a mSSD that can improve performance. I don't know or really care about the processor or other specs as long as it works well and performs well.
843072
Thanks for the helpful comments. Does this mean that I could connect a Mac mini Apple Mac mini MC239LL/A Desktop to my network, and use it as a server to make my music accessible to a Squeezebox, and maybe for back-ups, too? Would I need to run the server version of Mac OS X on it, or would the regular OS work for these purposes?Thanks.
1122621
The DROBO allows you to slide 4 separate drives into it, it then automatically formats them and creates a RAID type system. It does contain its own power supply and cooling fan for the drives. You get a redundant back-up of anything you copy to the DROBO, so if one drive fails, all your data is safely on the other drives. You simply replace the bad drive and march on. Yes - you can use 4 separate 4TB drives. Be aware though, that since it creates a redundant back-up of your data, you will not have 16TB of total storage, but just under 11TB. I suggest you visit the DROBO website, it has excellent documentation on everything. The DROBO allows you to slide 4 separate drives into it, it then automatically formats them and creates a RAID type system. It does contain its own power supply and cooling fan for the drives. You get a redundant back-up of anything you copy to the DROBO, so if one drive fails, all your data is safely on the other drives. You simply replace the bad drive and march on. Yes - you can use 4 separate 4TB drives. Be aware though, that since it creates a redundant back-up of your data, you will not have 16TB of total storage, but just under 11TB. I suggest you visit the DROBO website, it has... » Read More The DROBO allows you to slide 4 separate drives into it, it then automatically formats them and creates a RAID type system. It does contain its own power supply and cooling fan for the drives. You get a redundant back-up of anything you copy to the DROBO, so if one drive fails, all your data is safely on the other drives. You simply replace the bad drive and march on. Yes - you can use 4 separate 4TB drives. Be aware though, that since it creates a redundant back-up of your data, you will not have 16TB of total storage, but just under 11TB. I suggest you visit the DROBO website, it has excellent documentation on everything. « Show Less
956777
Yes, I have successfully upgraded from a Drobo FS to Drobo 5N. In order to avoid any data loss, make sure to power down both Drobos before moving the drives. Here are the instructions I got from Drobo support. 1. Ensure that the latest version of Drobo Dashboard is installed on a host computer. 2. Ensure that both the Drobo FS and Drobo 5N are updated to the latest version of firmware by "checking for updates" in Drobo Dashboard. 3. Safely power down both the Drobo FS and Drobo 5N. 4. Remove ALL drives from Drobo FS and insert ALL drives into the Drobo 5N. 5. Power on Drobo 5N. Within a few minutes, shares, data and users will all be visible on Drobo Dashboard. Do not reset or unplug your Drobo during this process.
820324
No. It will not fit. I bought 2 of these and tried to put them in my Drobo mini and they do not fit (Drobo only handles 12 mm) :( This means the Drobo will only fit 4T (not 8T as I had hoped) as the 1T drives are the conventional 9 or 12 mm. I am not sure about whether a 1.5T drive will fit (that would be 6T in the mini) but you could check that option too.
811610
Save your money and try the Synology DiskStation 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage DS212j (White) It is more for home use. It is also DLNA certified. Product website: http://www.synology.com/products/spec.php?product_name=DS212j〈=us. Also, save your money and don't get the Western Digital Red NAS Drives. Use the WD Green drives instead.
1145713
Yes, please note that the camera can work standalone with a MicroSD card, and if you like to use a NAS drive instead, we have these recommendations: For residential PC users we recommend the WD MyCloud for best value, or for businesses with multiple cameras the higher performance Netgear ReadyNAS might be suitable. For Apple users we recommend the Apple Time Capsule, which can be used as just a drive, or as a drive + router combination.
506084
According to Drobo support:"Thank you for contacting Drobo Technical Support. Unfortunately at this time it is not possible to determine if there will be any problems with a newer 5TB drive in the Drobo5D. Once the newer 5TB drives are released next year there will be more information to provide in regards to 5TB drive support. Please let me know if you have any further question."
1501440
The freenas mini has 2 lan ports for networking and a 3rd for management. The ipmi (management port) gets bound to the lan ports and has it's own ip. It's pretty good because you can actually control your frenas mini from another computer from through ipmi. The freenas mini has a marvel raid chipset with 6 ports (sata 6gbs) and an intel chipset that has (2 sata 6gbs ports) and (4 3gbs ports) overall it's a good unit. I personally prefer my Synology nas unit. I hope this answer helped.
1841861
Possibly - depending on several factors. Data size would be one. The other factor would be what NAS you have and what the data rate (throughput) is. Most manufacturers don't publish this beyond interface speed, but you may be able to find benchmarks on the web.I replaced 2 WD Green drives with three of these and added a mSATA accelerator to my Drobo 5N and it was a marked improvement. In this case the mSATA was likely most responsible for the boost.Short answer - the Green drives are 5400 variable speed while this drive is 5900. I doubt you would see any detriment over a 7200 drive in general use. Possibly - depending on several factors. Data size would be one. The other factor would be what NAS you have and what the data rate (throughput) is. Most manufacturers don't publish this beyond interface speed, but you may be able to find benchmarks on the web.I replaced 2 WD Green drives with three of these and added a mSATA accelerator to my Drobo 5N and it was a marked improvement. In this case the mSATA was likely most responsible for the boost.Short answer - the Green drives are 5400 variable speed while this drive is 5900. I doubt you would see any detriment over a... » Read More Possibly - depending on several factors. Data size would be one. The other factor would be what NAS you have and what the data rate (throughput) is. Most manufacturers don't publish this beyond interface speed, but you may be able to find benchmarks on the web.I replaced 2 WD Green drives with three of these and added a mSATA accelerator to my Drobo 5N and it was a marked improvement. In this case the mSATA was likely most responsible for the boost.Short answer - the Green drives are 5400 variable speed while this drive is 5900. I doubt you would see any detriment over a 7200 drive in general use. « Show Less
1005955
It totally depends on the router. I tried to connect it to a Apple AirPort Extreme - it won't work. The APE will not recognize anything bigger than 3 TB and the Drobo won't format to anything smaller that it's maximum capacity...no matter how few or small you drives are. The Drobo I have, with only 3 TB of disks always formats to 16 TB (to permit expansion without the need to reformat) so the APE won't work with it. You will have to look at the limitations of your router's USB support.
1073434
JW, I'm ordering a AE to do exactly what you are looking to do. My PB needs some space cleared up so I'm planning to put the majority of the music on the external hard drive attached to the AE. Are you able to use the N-spec on your mac laptops? If so then you should have no problem. Remember they brought this out with teh appleTV which is going to stream movie content over the N network, so music should be easy.
100782
Here are Drobo's recommandations: http://www.drobo.com/products/choose-drive/You want at least Red SATA based on your need for easy, fast access (photobooks).
1792581
Dave, the bulk of my experience has been in the microsoft world. In that environment ie: win 7 etc, you can use the cineraid in JBOD, RAID 5, RAID 0, RAID 1 configuration. The JBOD is what you referring to for the MAC world. Again not a mac person but I believe it would be no different for macs especially using each drive having its own drive letter. The cineraid software will walk you through the configuration you are looking for.