2 TB NAS or similar? (Drobo?)

I need to add an external backup device to an existing 2 TB Time Capsule which is backing up a 1 TB drive in my MacPro.
Anyone have any recommendations on something that will let me "rotate" backups off-site in a convenient way? Right now I am running an Iomega External for both my MacPro and my MacBookPro and I'm wondering that as long as I need to by more storage if I should go with NAS such as this Drobo unit.
http://www.drobostore.com/store/drobo/en_US/list/parentCategoryID.54837300/categ oryID.56378300
Any advice or experience would be really appreciated.
Thanks,
Jon

"You CAN NOTSHARE iSCSI filesystems between client computers. Like a SAN block device, an iSCSI block device is literally treated like a disk on the OS. No workie that way."
Actually that is incorrect as well. The iSCSI protocol makes the volume a direct attached storage volume to the assigned client. To share that volume, you simply share it out like any internal drive that are set to shared on the network. Those volumes then use the standard file sharing protocol instead of the iSCSI protocol as far as network layers/packets go. So the host system of the volume will have a lower latency connection to the volume where the systems that hit the shared directories or volume will have the standard network latency when dealing with shared drives. That is the only real difference between the protocols other than theoretically the iSCSI is also suppose to be faster overall but it normally does not work out that way.
There are also Virtual iSCSI programs out there that allow shared use of a iSCSI volume but that is an entirely different scenario and commonly used by blade servers.
The Microsoft iSCSI client is now built into the OS so you dont require 3rd party software.
Eric
ADK

Similar Messages

Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Aperture (Drobo, ReadyNAS, etc)

My photos are growing past a single hard drive worth of space - I'd like to attach a Droboshare to my iMac, and keep my photos on it.
I was wondering - will this still have usable speed, if I store my library locally (I believe this is called referenced photos - where the originals aren't in the library itself)?
Anyone else using such a setup? How is the speed?
Anyone have a Drobo or ReadyNAS, and have some feedback on how usable/fast it is with Aperture?

Note: See the other threads referring to storing the library on a NAS device -- basically it won't work (or, it's a minefield and it's unsupported).
So that leaves using referenced files on a NAS device. That will work. However, the Drobo is going to give you maybe 15 MB/sec over the NAS. The Infrant ReadyNAS is faster, but we're talking 20 MB/sec writes (best case) and 30 MB/sec reads (best case). Compared to an easy 50 MB/sec reads on an internal 3.5" drive on a desktop machine.
So will you notice the speed difference? Yes. If you use previews, it may not be intolerable, but it will be slower.
If you want to get a feel for yourself, I'd suggest baby steps. Maybe try referenced masters on one project to start, put them on the NAS, and go through your typical workflow. Only you can really determine what's slow for you. If they're small files, it may be okay. If they're 1Ds Mark III files, fuhgeddaboutit.

ITunes library local and media on NAS

Is there a way to have the library files local and the media files on a NAS like a Drobo?

Yep, I have my iTunes media folder on my WD Nas.
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder - Apple Support

Error while wirelessly connecting Photosmart C5280 to Apple Macbook

I have a Photosmart C5280 All-in-One connected to my PC computer. While trying to wirelessly connect my Apple Macbook to the printer this error occured: Cannot Connect to the Printer Using the Wireless Printing Upgrade Kit Connection Manager in an Infrastructure Network
How do I fix this?

No - it won't work - AppleTV gets it's data via iTunes.
iTunes fetches data from wherever it is be it attached/internal/network drive, then relays it across the network to AppleTV.
Being able to access an iTunes style library on a NAS or similar would be great in principle but it's not possible in practice.

Hard Drive recommendations or experiences

Hi,
I have a home network with a good number of Macs and i-devices and am (once more) looking at file sharing and a shared dump for old fiiles, ripped CDs etc.
I have tried NAS, specifically a Drobo - didn't like the price, but I did like the lights! Which was just as well as I had a LOT of time to admire them. My conclusion - and others too - is that NAS on an Airport network is painfully slow and just not worth it if you don't need all the server stuff they offer.
So. I went back to the good old 'hang an HD off the back of the Airport USB' solution. And I find this is fine in terms of functionality and speed.
Initially I used a Seagate Barracuda green drive (in a LaCie caddy) and this worked very well. It was always available, and would spin up and down correctly to save power and noise. The only problem was it was only 1Tb and so my daughter nabbed it for her photography projects.
I replaced it with a LaCie 3TB 7200RPM d2 USB3 Hard Disk. Plenty of storage, nice design, pretty good reputation, reasonable price. BUT it just doesn't play as well. It often is unavailable on the network. I can't get at the Airport Extreme's configuration to see if it even knows if a hard drive is there. Repowering both the drive and the Airport solves the problem, but then the drive is up and spinning constantly (and quite hot, too) until it disappears once more.
So, replacement time again. I just want a large drive (2TB or 3TB) connected by USB to the back of an Airport Extreme. Always available but spins down to save power.
Any ideas or shared experiences?

Yes - I originally thought the same thing but as I dug deeper, I saw that it didn't matter that the drive had external power because most drives do - for some reason that was not fully explained, in many cases when a hard drive alone wouldn't work on an Extreme or TC, it would work with a powered hub - this was the consensus of several gurus (of which I am not) and other posters - they said that a hub costs $20-$30 and if you bought one that you could return, give it a try and see if it works - so I just thought I would pass it on.
Regards,
Charlie

Yosemite SMB 3.0 opinions

Hi,
We are actually using a Maverick's Server (3.2.2) as file server for the business but we recently purchased a true business oriented server (HP Proliant DL380P-G8) running Windows Server 2012 R2 with a Hitachi HUS110 SAN storage and we want to use it as file server now since the OS-X server isn't capable of serving files for our size of business anymore!
All our workstations (60+) are Apple iMac and/or Apple laptops. They are all running latest of Mavericks (10.9.5) and I ran some test trying to access files on the Windows Server and the actual version of SMB (2) is TOTAL CRAP!! I have several file access errors, most of times files remain locked in the server after use, filename issue, long path issues, file access right error, etc, etc... nightmare!!
I was on the way of purchasing ExtremeZ-IP AFP server software to serve files to my Macs, but this software is very expensive (4000$+) but it's actually the best software for AFP fileserver. I test the Trial version and this this is amazing!!!
Just before spending 4000$+ in the next days, did anybody ran some true "business" test on Yosemite with the new SMB 3.0 built-in client? Maybe this time it will work fine with Windows Servers straight out of the box??? Just wondering...

Thanks for the suggestion DonFromCanada, but how to say (don't want to seem pretentious)... but our business is way too large for this type of installation involving NAS or similar technology because of the number of workstations and the amount of data processed. We work with dozens TBs of data and many are large videos files (1080P or even some 4K). That's why I decided to go with a true business storage solution from HP and Microsoft. Apple server can't handle anymore for the size of our business and amount of data.
I first connected my new Hitachi SAN storage to my MacPro Server (running latest Mavericks 10.9) using a fiber channel HBA. My MacPro is the top notch aluminium penultimate generation with 12-cores, 64 GB RAM, O/S on RAID, etc. I also have a quad 10 Gbps PCIe full mesh network card in the MacPro than uplink directly to four HP Core 10 Gbps manageable switches that provide optimal 1 Gbps link to all my Apple workstations.
Despite this new ultra-high-performance storage/network/hardware, what we're seeing now is that the file server application from Apple OS X Server is not capable of handling the number of requests that we ask. This is not an hardware bottleneck anymore, it's a software bottleneck! We talked with engineers working in large Apple environment and they confirmed there was an obvious request handling limit in the Apple server software.
That's why I decided to go a Windows Server 2012 R2 file server environment to enjoy the high performance of a true business file server platform with true business features like VSS, DFS, Deduplication, Multi-queuing, etc, etc. But now I need to figure out now is how to connect the Apple client's to this business server environment. ExtremeZ-IP (formerly from GroupLogic) is a world leader in this domain and their software is an optimized native AFP protocol that are actually more evolved than original Apple AFP. The ExtremeZ-IP software talk directly with the NTFS level of the Windows 2012 R2 server, it's not only a GUI level application, it's way more than that! But it's a pretty expensive software (with annual renewal $$) and sometime I want to believe Apple will release one day a true Microsoft optimized SMB protocol where you can connect to Windows Server without a third-party app needs.

File Sync across WRT1900 and EA6900 Routers

I am trying to setup some type of sync across the internet for two locations. The primary location has a WRT1900 router and a Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials server with all the files. I am trying to setup a NAS or similar at the 2nd location connected by a EA6900 router. Files are media such as HD movies and iTunes content. Want to be able to access the content locally at hte 2nd site and watch HD movies and alike. Content is too big (expensive) to keep fully in cloud plus want speed of content locally. I would really like to minimize all the parts and hoping there is an easy way to setup a site to site VPN or similar across the two products and sync to a NAS or use DFS or similar. Simple and easy is key. Thank you!

Thanks Chadster - problem is I then loose the wireless networking, which I use extensively throughout the house. I guess I could add a WAP, but then left with $500 of routers plus the cost of the new routers and APs. I like the WRT's performance. Any ideas to keep the existing routers in place?

HT1449 Can I move my iTunes library onto Time Capsule and share it across my devices (similar to a NAS drive)?

Hi
Would anyone know if I can I move my iTunes library onto Time Capsule and share it across my devices (similar to a NAS drive)?
This would give me some hard drive space on my iMac and more importantly mean my iTunes library is available all the time. Although I have Home sharing I need my iMac on and if not I use iTunes on iCloud I always seem to be downloading the tracks I need.
Current configuration / devices:
iMac 20-inch, Mid 2007 - nearly full!
Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
OSX Mavericks
Time Capsule (1TB)
iPad
iPod Touch
Apple TV
iTunes 11.1.5 (5)
Many thanks

What "devices" are these? By devices I normally understand i-devices and not computers. How many computers?
If you put the whole library on the Time Capsule (TC) you can only use it with one computer at a time because the iTunes library file can only be opened by one copy of iTunes at a time. If you put only media on the TC but have a copy of the library files on each computer you can use media by multiple computers but you then have the headache of trying to make sure that any changes done to the collection by one computer are mirrored by the libraries on the other computers which will be more or less independent.
I hope this TC isn't also your backup drive. When the TC drive fails (and it will someday) then your whole collection is gone. Don't rely upon Apple to always have copies for you to download. For one, if a distributor puylls an item then it is gone period. Additionally, Apple only keeps media, not the actual organization that is your set of library files. If you do this, buy another backup drive.

Drobo NAS and Time Machine restore problems

My HDD crashed. I installed a new one. Reinstalled OSX Mavericks and tried a Migration Assistant from a DROBO 5N NAS (holding the Time Machine sparse.bundles). Profiles reinstalled, no data, no applications. Weird. I have tried Drobo, I have tried Apple consultant - recommended by Apple's support website. No success in getting the restore to take place with Apple software. Wondering if I can do this file by file. I really only care about the 1TB of movies, music, photos I have on iTunes and Aperture backups inside of the sparse.bundle files. Everything else I can reload. Please help. I have been down since July 15 on my home theater and photo library. Need to get this up and running ASAP. Everything looks OK on the backup file. When I try to simply copy the data files to my new HDD I get the dreaded OSX file copy error after about 200GB - which takes an incredibly long amount of time on my wireless home network (about 5 hours). Really need an expert to help out on this one. Please let me know if you can.
Thanks,
GJM120

Hi Bret,
You state it's running 10.5.8 but that it's only 9 months old; those two don't match up. If it is only 9 months old, bring it in to an Apple Store ("genius" bar appointment) and have them check it over. It sounds like it may be a HD issue to me.

Airport Extreme with 6 TB Drive vs. Drobo vs. NAS?

I am looking for system design advice in preparation for a new Mac Pro set up.
Long story short- I am a semi-professional photographer. I shoot 1 - 2 TB a year (Nikon D800 and various other bodies). I currently have a 24" iMac (2007) and a MacBook Pro (2008) that are WELL past their prime. I have at least 8 TB of external drives with all of my previous years of Aperture libraries connected to my iMac which is my primary machine.
My question-
I am looking to have my previous Aperture libraries accessible to all of my machines and have a central storage solution.
I am looking opinions on placing a new Airport Extreme with a 6 TB external drive connected to it with my previous libraries (which do not change) on it and have it Time Machine backup my current photo library and system nightly. I do not require fast access to my previous libraries or fast backups.
I have off site backups of all my libraries and I backup my current stuff monthly offsite.
My new MacPro set-up will likely have a 4-6 TB G Tech drive attached to it for fast access for video projects etc.
I want all my photos accessibl, a current onsite backup… and I want it all automated- no input at all… and I don’t want a big huge mess of RAID drives and worries of multiples drives all over the place.
What would most of you suggest?
Drobo? NAS? … any help is appreciated.
Thanx

Thank you for the replies.
My predicament can’t be unique. I need a large chunk of connected, stable and slow storage that seldom gets used but is safe and sound… and I need a safe automatic backup of my current projects (but never am I so stressed that every nanosecond of data is replicated on the moon at the speed of light…).
I have witnessed massive Drobo failures and oddly been thankful that I had a mess of several external drives on my desk.
The other challenge is that my new system will be installed in a location that has no easy way of connecting to the wired network in my house…
Should I go with an Airport Extreme to increase the wifi speed a bit in the house and an attached Drobo 5D to the new machine?

Last chance before I return my TC and get a Drobo w/ NAS adapter...

I've been struggling mightily for 24 hours now to get this 1TB TC working with my network and MBP. I've setup lots of wired and wireless SOHO networks, but have never had anything close to this much trouble and frustration.
So after a ton of trial and error that could have EASILY been avoided with a proper product manual and logical configuration interface, here is what I'm left with...
The LAN ports do not work when the TC is setup to "connect to an existing wireless network".
The link lights up and Ethernet connectivity is established, but no IP address is assigned. I've also tried manually configuring a valid IP address and that does not work either. There is no way to activate DHCP in the Airport Utility interface when the TC is configured this way.
Any help would be greatly appreciated...
I'm going to give it another day or two, but I'm on the verge of returning this thing and getting a Drobo. The Drobo is twice as expensive with the NAS adapter, but I'd rather feel that $1,000 was well spent rather than feeling like $500 was wasted.

Yeah thanks for the heads-up, I just read that thread and replied to it. Too bad the Time Capsule setup guide isn't as knowledgeable as iFelix. Besides, there is more than one way to skin this cat, but the other ways don't work either. There just seem to be some incredibly arbitrary limitations in functionality that should be clearly disclosed in the documentation.

Moving iTunes to NAS or Drobo

I'm considering moving iTunes to my Drobo and would like to know if anyone has done this by moving whole contents of iTunes folder and then replacing the contents on the Mac with Aliases to all files and folders in new location?
Aliases or Symbolic Links?

i know apple has a help disk on your system disk that carries all personal data over from old system to newly installed systems, like playlists, email setting, bookmarks, etc. but i don't know how it would work with non apple environments. ask your apple dealer. yeah so what's the alternative. thinking outside 'the box', is there any standalone digital player stereo system available now that does not require computer hookup, that does not need stupid operating systems, that does not need software updates, that does not try to sell you something each step of the way, that can record, play, download, music cds, vinyl, aac and mp3, organize my library, 50,000-100,000 songs and just let me listen to my amazing music? i am tired of pulling five tons of software around just to hear songs. ipod it too small and the earplugs kill your eardrums. i remember hi-fidelity stereo on a vinyl sound surround system. now that was phaaaaat! mac osx is too slow. aren't nas and drobo still computer software? they actually look like external drives for computer. i looked them up but very little that makes sense to me out there. i'm talking about a standard music player with a built in 1 terabyte, oh ****, make it 10 terabyte storage system.

System Image Backup failing when trying to write to a Drobo 5N NAS

I'm trying to make a full system image through file history, and I get part way through the process until I get the following error:
The backup failed.
There was a failure in preparing the backup image of one of the volumes in the backup set. (0x807800C5)
Additional information:
The process cannot access the file because another process has locked a portion of the file. (0x80070021)
I've found one other thread where this was an issue and the user said that he had no issues doing it to a USB drive, so I'm assuming it's related to using a network one. I can run file history/recovery (whatever it's called) to the same network attached
server in the same parent folder so I know it's not a permission issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi,
In order to know whethr this issue is related with the speicfic NAS, I suggest you try to backup the image to another external drive and check if the error persists.
Actually, according to the error message, it seems more related with the files which need to be backed up, it is locked\unaccessable. I recommend you temporarily turn off any anti-virus program protection. Stop other running processes including background
processes, then try to backup again, test the result.
Regards
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help, and unmark the answers if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact [email protected]

Time Capsule? Drobo, ReadyNAS???

I was in the Apple store ready to pull the trigger on a 1TB Time Capsule, but then I called a tech buddy of mine, and also realized that my Verizon FIOS wireless router (an Actiontec) has a COAX port on it to apparently feed the cable boxes an internet connection through the house. So, my idea of replacing that router completely with a TC was foiled. My buddy mentioned I'd have to try and disable the router functionality of the FIOS router, use a LAN port on the back of it to throw the TC an internet connection - then TC does everything it is supposed to theoretically (any comments on that idea?)
So, I guess thats possible...but the more I keep reading on the Time Capsule now that I have more time before i figure how this will work, I am getting a little disenchanted with some of the issues related to the TC. I understand it is not a RAID, and its all about simplicity. I am also about simplicity. My main purpose for it will be: 24" iMac houses over 30,000 photos, 50GB of iTunes, and home videos (however, many of those are on a 250GB LaCie locally attached drive - Time Machine wont back those up, will it?). I have 2 other Macs and 2 PCs in the house, but there is no critical data on those - the iMac is the main, but I do want a NAS to be able to push data up from the other machines as needed. I thought the solution was going to be hanging additional drives off the TC, but now reading about all kinds of issues with not only USB hubs off the TC, but the addressability of the drives in this scenario. So - not sold on the TC.
Then I start reading about Drobo - I love the ability to hot-swap drives (I know, I know - cant really compare it to TC), but see that it is also Time Machine compatible. But starts getting really expensive....but still sounds incredible....yet I still hear people here using TC and Drobo.
Finally I read something about NetGear ReadyNAS....cheaper than drobo, not quite the same functionality.
So - yes, I am a bit confused on which way to lean here to totally backup the iMac and its attached storage - as well as (didnt mention this) - I have an HDV camcorder (tape based) which I plan to start creating a lot of videos in iMovie/FCE on, and also have a Canon TX1 which is generating a lot of digital AVI files that must be offloaded on storage.
What would you do?

Hi. I’m in a similar situation, looking for a perfect network storage device.
I can tell you that I have a 500GB TC (running 802.11n) bridged to an older AEBS running 802.11g for my Tivo wireless device and my older AE for AirTunes.
For the fun of it I plugged in a 4-year-old Belkin powered USB hub. It seemed to work with a 4-year-old Canon inkjet. Now I have a 1TB external WD drive and a 2TB external WD drive plugged into the USB hub and they’re both working perfectly. I use the TC just for TM for my laptop.
I’m still looking for something more bulletproof, like RAID 5, but nothing seems to be the perfect solution yet.
Message was edited by: BflatBlues

Reindex itunes to NAS

I have moved all my music files onto a NAS and am in the process of cleaning it all up, removing duplicates, keeping the better quality files etc. Once finished I would like to have the NAS as my base folder going forward for all my itunes files. Has anyone done something similar, what is the best way of going about wiping the current music library and reindexing itunes to the NAS folder? Will it be possible to keep my playlists?
I'd like to also have it that itunes in future then send all imports/downloads etc to the NAS as well - is that easily done too?
Many Thanks!

i know apple has a help disk on your system disk that carries all personal data over from old system to newly installed systems, like playlists, email setting, bookmarks, etc. but i don't know how it would work with non apple environments. ask your apple dealer. yeah so what's the alternative. thinking outside 'the box', is there any standalone digital player stereo system available now that does not require computer hookup, that does not need stupid operating systems, that does not need software updates, that does not try to sell you something each step of the way, that can record, play, download, music cds, vinyl, aac and mp3, organize my library, 50,000-100,000 songs and just let me listen to my amazing music? i am tired of pulling five tons of software around just to hear songs. ipod it too small and the earplugs kill your eardrums. i remember hi-fidelity stereo on a vinyl sound surround system. now that was phaaaaat! mac osx is too slow. aren't nas and drobo still computer software? they actually look like external drives for computer. i looked them up but very little that makes sense to me out there. i'm talking about a standard music player with a built in 1 terabyte, oh ****, make it 10 terabyte storage system.

2 TB NAS or similar? (Drobo?)

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