[a1p1]

Looking for advice as to whether I should purchase the new Drobo FS or standard Drobo for use with a Mac mini running SqueezeCenter that pulls from iTunes.  The mini will be a dedicated music server.  Squeezebox Duet connected to router via Ethernet.  Anyone know if the Drobo FS will work seamlessly with SqueezeCenter? I'm not interested in other RAID, NAS options other than Drobo.  I'm leaning toward the standard Drobo to Keep It Simple Stupid. 
Thanks,
AP

[skunark]

I found iTunes very sluggish with two different NAS solutions before going with the older usb drobo.  However, the usb drobo is a bit loud and since it sits in my home office it's been permanently demoted to just archival storage duties.

If you are going to have a dedicated Mac Mini then I would probably recommend Drobo S and hopefully it's not as loud as the past models.

[Jeff Ward]

I solved the noise problem with my standard Drobo and equally loud UPS for it by drilling a hole in the floor. I relocated it to the basement and now it's totally silent.

[skunark]

I solved the noise problem with my standard Drobo and equally loud UPS for it by drilling a hole in the floor. I relocated it to the basement and now it's totally silent.

Great idea    

I was considering building a sound damping box to go around the drobo, i just couldn't figure out a cheap solution to allow the thing to cool. 

I also have to laugh at some of my replacement drives.. g-tech raid with it's "silent technology", the thing sounded like a miniature jet engine.  I just went with a WD external drive because it was fanless, but found that the FW port and Mac OSX had some issue if the drive went to sleep and switched to USB connection.   After filling up the WD drive, I went with another g-tech but the fanless version, the Hitachi drive inside does write with authority though.  Sadly I also had several lacie drives but all of the power supplies are dead and decided to just pop the drive out and populate the drobo for the two that were sata.   

[a1p1]

so looks like the standard drobo is the one for me.  the mac mini and drobo would be in a different room from my stereo so noise is not a great concern.  i'll be using a squeezebox duet.  i'll probably go with WD green drives. 

ap

[Jeff Ward]

I'm using 2 of the 2tb green drives, and 2 older 1.5 tb units scavenged from other external hard drives with my mac mini server and couldn't be happier.

Of course, I could have without the one screw up where I tugged on the firewire cable and sent the drobo crashing six feet onto a concrete floor. The drives still perform well, and my data was perfectly intact though my original drobo was smashed like a car in a high speed collision. I just slipped the hard drives into a new drobo, and moved on.

It was the second failure I've recovered relatively painlessly from, (the first was an older recycled hard drive that failed) I am completely satisfied with the Drobo unit's performance.