Drobo FS in-depth, Part 2: day-to-day use

jmke · 5th April 2011, 08:10

I'd done some spring cleaning and ended up with about 1.3TB of collected media to move over. Most of it was video (movies and TV), with a few gigabytes of archived software and some photos and music. The copy, unfortunately, confirmed one of the universal negatives I'd heard in other older Drobo product reviews—the thing is crazy-easy to use, but it's just incredibly slow.

I saw consistent sustained file transfer speeds of 26-28 MB/sec from the WHS via gigabit ethernet, about half of what I get between my iMac and my WHS for sustained transfers (my work laptop, with a cheap Samsung SSD, can copy data from the WHS at ~85MB/sec, which works out to about the max random sustained read speed of the SATA disks in the WHS when accounting for overhead and a nominal system load).

So, yeah, it's slow. It took a full day—a bit under 24 hours—to move over about one and one-thirds terabytes from the Windows Home Server. There were periods of time where the Drobo would drop down to an ingest rate of 1-2 MB/sec for minutes at a time, further lengthening the overall transfer. I don't really know what the story is on those extremely slow periods, either.

http://arstechnica.com/business/news...red+Content%29

5th April 2011, 08:10	#1
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,021	Drobo FS in-depth, Part 2: day-to-day use I'd done some spring cleaning and ended up with about 1.3TB of collected media to move over. Most of it was video (movies and TV), with a few gigabytes of archived software and some photos and music. The copy, unfortunately, confirmed one of the universal negatives I'd heard in other older Drobo product reviews—the thing is crazy-easy to use, but it's just incredibly slow. I saw consistent sustained file transfer speeds of 26-28 MB/sec from the WHS via gigabit ethernet, about half of what I get between my iMac and my WHS for sustained transfers (my work laptop, with a cheap Samsung SSD, can copy data from the WHS at ~85MB/sec, which works out to about the max random sustained read speed of the SATA disks in the WHS when accounting for overhead and a nominal system load). So, yeah, it's slow. It took a full day—a bit under 24 hours—to move over about one and one-thirds terabytes from the Windows Home Server. There were periods of time where the Drobo would drop down to an ingest rate of 1-2 MB/sec for minutes at a time, further lengthening the overall transfer. I don't really know what the story is on those extremely slow periods, either. http://arstechnica.com/business/news...red+Content%29 __________________

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
The Drobo FS in-depth, Part 1: what it is, how it works	jmke	WebNews	0	29th March 2011 10:08
windwithme’s Core i7 review Part 10 - Foxconn Flaming Blade GTI Indepth review	windwithme	Hardware Overclocking and Case Modding	3	27th July 2009 18:29
IN DEPTH OF FOXCONN BLACKOPS–the x48 motherboard dedicated to gamers	windwithme	Hardware Overclocking and Case Modding	10	15th June 2009 03:52
Happy Pi Day!	jmke	WebNews	0	14th March 2008 17:32
Seagate 1TB Family of Drives ... Part 2 - ES.2	Sidney	WebNews	0	15th November 2007 16:05
Computex 2007 Day 1 Coverage	jmke	WebNews	0	6th June 2007 14:08
CES Day 3 Roundup - Tons of interesting news	jmke	WebNews	0	11th January 2007 11:38
CES Day 2 Roundup	jmke	WebNews	0	10th January 2007 10:22
Computer Chess Benchmark	JPQY	Hardware Overclocking and Case Modding	0	19th August 2006 18:20
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe - SLI Part 1	Sidney	WebNews	0	27th January 2005 20:28