[sts9fan]

I think I was unclear.  I am all for a SB3 because it is a source that uses a computer.  I think something like a olive or  music vault is short sighted and will not appeal to the next audiophiles.

[The Computer Audiophile]

I think I was unclear.  I am all for a SB3 because it is a source that uses a computer.  I think something like a olive or  music vault is short sighted and will not appeal to the next audiophiles.

I agree 100% canned music servers are an intermediate solution that will soon be gone.

I should be clear that the Drobo is just a disk solution that has nothing to do with music servers like the music vault etc...

There is nothing easier than a Drobo. I talk to many people every day who think RAID is a spray for hornets. Telling them to get a Drobo makes this fact irrelevant. Ease of use and great functionality are going to allow this hobby to continue and not fall prey to mp3s and the like.

[Tirade]

Having just gone through this again, I had considered the Drobo and then marked it off my list. In your case though it looks like a solid piece of equipment if you dont mind spending a little extra for the convenience factor. If you have very limited PC knowledge then something like the Drobo would be great.

My reasons for marking it off my list are reasons that probably wont be an issue for someone who just wants a music server. If you had wanted a media server, then the Drobo is not the way to go.

To be clear, I still think a silent custom built PC is the way to go. Its cheaper initially (and in the long run), future proof, faster and more customizable once you figure out what you want to do.

Goodluck!

Tim

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hey Tim - I've gone the silent PC route before and really liked it. I used a Zalman fanless case and customized the whole thing with an HD QAM tuner card etc... I loved it. But, the convenience factor of the Drobo is wonderful. For my two channel audio system I want to maximize listening and minimize everything else, so the Drobo is perfect for this.

[Tirade]

Hey Tim - I've gone the silent PC route before and really liked it. I used a Zalman fanless case and customized the whole thing with an HD QAM tuner card etc... I loved it. But, the convenience factor of the Drobo is wonderful. For my two channel audio system I want to maximize listening and minimize everything else, so the Drobo is perfect for this.

From what I can see, the limitations of the Drobo are not things that would affect 2 channel audio listening. I can see it being an excellent choice for people looking to stream music to an SB3 or some other PC front-end. I do have a question about the Drobo that you probably already know the answer to... if you fill it with 4 X 1TB drives, you'll get roughly 75% of that space for storage (I assume the other 25% is a parity drive), can you later take those 4 drives and drop them into a Windows box and be able to read them? I havent dug around enough to see what type of RAID Drobo is doing. Normally the answer would be "No" but maybe the Drobo is doing something unique.

Tim

[The Computer Audiophile]

Here is an interesting drive space calculator from Drobo http://www.drobo.com/drobolator/ if anyone is interested.

The drives would not work, as you suggested, in anything but another Drobo. Sure you cold hack it to make it work anywhere but that is another discussion. It appears the Drobo uses some proprietary "RAID" like system or they won't say what they are using.

[sts9fan]

To be clear, I still think a silent custom built PC is the way to go. Its cheaper initially (and in the long run), future proof, faster and more customizable once you figure out what you want to do.

Exactly my point.  Things like the Drobo will only limit you in the future while a pc or mac will give you much much more room to upgrade.  The convenience is not really that much greater to be worth an extra $500.

[EchiDna]

TCA, not to put too fine a point on it, what's the big deal about the DROBO?
I don't see any advantage in using it instead of any other form of NAS... maybe for raw begineers, but that is the minute of an already pretty niche enthusiast market.

I'm personally hanging out for a ReadyNAS Pro - it will house 6 drives, suposedly RAID 6 capable and coming soon....

if I didn't personally want a NAS, I'd go with a small form factor PC and build my own....

[woodsyi]

Chris C does have a point that there is a generation of people who are willing to pay the money for plug and play audio server.  Once you figure out the ins and outs of networking a server, something like a DROBO and others seem redundant but not for those who haven't the foggiest idea what we are talking about.  My mom is very hip 70 but freezes when it comes to computer and electronic gadgets.  I have to be picky to get only the gizmos with clear and concise operational steps for her to use it. 

[Tirade]

Yeah, I agree. I think when sts9fan stated that the convenience of the Drobo isnt worth the $500, I think that depends on who is buying it.

If PC's just arent your thing and you want to be able to plug n play, then the $500 is worth it. In fact some people would be willing to pay 10X that for convenience. There are plenty of people out there who would rather pay to have it done instead of fooling with it themselves (all the FLAC ripping I do backs that statement up). Plug n Play is the key buzz word for them and time is worth more than money (I feel like that a lot lately).

Usually though, the easier it is to use the less you can do with it and if you intend to learn about and want to tinker with it and do other things other than just housing/streaming all of your music, then a PC is the way to go. I just built a 6TB music archive that was a bit more than I needed right now but because I plan to make it a movie server whenever I get around to ripping my blu-ray disks, I knew that a simple NAS would not work for me.

[The Computer Audiophile]

To be clear, I still think a silent custom built PC is the way to go. Its cheaper initially (and in the long run), future proof, faster and more customizable once you figure out what you want to do.

Exactly my point.  Things like the Drobo will only limit you in the future while a pc or mac will give you much much more room to upgrade.  The convenience is not really that much greater to be worth an extra $500.

Let me be a bit clearer. A custom built PC is the way to go versus a canned music server. With a custom PC I would still use an external disk array such as the Drobo or a NAS box or even SAN. A Mac or PC will use the Drobo so I don't get your logic that a Drobo will  limit you and a PC or Mac won't. A PC has many limits. Try expanding a RAID 5 set with a different size disk. Try moving your RAID set to another PC or even the same PC with a different RAID controller.

sts9fan - I have to admit I don't think you get what I am trying to say. An array of disks must be used in your scenario or mine. Your is internal to the Mac or PC, mine is external. An internal array limits you much more than the external array of a Drobo.

When talking regular NAS v. the Drobo the difference gets much smaller and as others have said has a lot to do with convenience. with regular NAS expanding a RAID set can be much more difficult and can't take advantage of a new larger size disk like the Drobo can.

One person I have been working with uses a complete Audio Research / Wilson Audio two channel system. There is no way he wants to know anything about RAID and NAS. With a Drobo he throws in two 1 TB drives. When he uses that space he will buy the current maximum size and throw one or two of those in the Drobo and be done. no configuration.

[sts9fan]

sts9fan - I have to admit I don't think you get what I am trying to say. An array of disks must be used in your scenario or mine. Your is internal to the Mac or PC, mine is external. An internal array limits you much more than the external array of a Drobo.

Limits how?  You connot convince me that using two devices to do what one can is superior. 

One person I have been working with uses a complete Audio Research / Wilson Audio two channel system. There is no way he wants to know anything about RAID and NAS. With a Drobo he throws in two 1 TB drives. When he uses that space he will buy the current maximum size and throw one or two of those in the Drobo and be done. no configuration.

What does brand of audio gear have anything to do here?  Why am I supposed to think someone who owns expensive gear would not want to know anything about RAID?  There is zero connection with wealth and desire of knowledge.

K.I.S.S.

[The Computer Audiophile]

sts9fan - I have to admit I don't think you get what I am trying to say. An array of disks must be used in your scenario or mine. Your is internal to the Mac or PC, mine is external. An internal array limits you much more than the external array of a Drobo.

Limits how?  You connot convince me that using two devices to do what one can is superior. 

One person I have been working with uses a complete Audio Research / Wilson Audio two channel system. There is no way he wants to know anything about RAID and NAS. With a Drobo he throws in two 1 TB drives. When he uses that space he will buy the current maximum size and throw one or two of those in the Drobo and be done. no configuration.

What does brand of audio gear have anything to do here?  Why am I supposed to think someone who owns expensive gear would not want to know anything about RAID?  There is zero connection with wealth and desire of knowledge.

K.I.S.S.

Two devices can be vastly superior to one. If your internal space is limited to a few drives and you have no built-in array controller you are very limited. Connect an external array an you are good. Get a new PC and you can plug that external array into the new PC with no configuration. With an internal RAID array using the array controller on your motherboard you will "never" get your RAID set on to a new computer unless you buy double the disk space and do a file copy. Two devices allows me to have a Mac Mini with a solid state internal drive in my equipment rack and the external disk array somewhere else in the house. Then I am not limited to the few wireless devices on the market. I use a Mini directly connected to a USB DAC.



Brand & price have a lot to do with this conversation and I used it appropriately for illustrative purposes here. If you spend time with most people who drop over $100,000 on an audio system you'll notice they don't want to spend time or don't have time to spend on annoyances like computer configuration just to listen to their system. This has nothing to do with wanting the knowledge. It is all about convenience and time.

Why do custom home theater builders and system integrators exist? because people with a lot of cash and nice gear don't want to put time and effort into some things.

Of course there are people in every category and no statement by anyone should be taken to the extreme. Sure some people with very nice systems want to know about RAID and configure their systems.


As you said K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple Stupid)

[kbuzz3]

For a music server the Drobo is perfect for placing your disk outside of your listening room connected to an Apple Airport Extreme Base Station. My Mac can't boot off an iSCSI disk, so I don't have the option of placing disk far away from my computer.
[/quote]

Computer audiophile, as a non cpu person i agree this is the way to go. Plus the discussion on your site makes the most sense. However, as i may have mentioned in another post, the Apple Airport Extreme Base Station has endemic problems. Basically, AAEB will not recognize hard disks, will recognize but not alllow file transfers, or drops hard disks intermintantly for no reason at all. I can verify this problem with two base stations i have worked with.  So while id like to adopt your reccomendation, i think we may need to warn some folks that the product may be flawed, and thus you may want to qualify this response.  See, e.g.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6706960&tstart=0
http://forums.techguy.org/apple-macintosh/557743-connecting-external-hard-drive-airport.html
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1135&start=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1425008&tstart=0

May mean we have to spring for a time capsule ...but im glad that you at least were able to get it working....

As an alternative, i wonder if anyone has tried a mac mini, (with wireleess) to a dobro, and controlling via a laptop.  PS i think your site is great and hope you contiue the good work on the cpu audio front

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hey thanks a lot for the kind words kbuzz3.

This is kind of weird because my AEBS works flawless with a disk connected! But, I guess that can be the nature of buggy technology. It works great for some, but not for others. I hate to suggest the Droboshare as a way around this because it costs another $200, but it would solve this AEBS problem because it just connects to the gigabit Ethernet interface.

I am thinking about a follow up article on your suggestion warning people about this issue. I think the Time Capsule would solve the issues, because its main purpose it disk. But with the time sensitive nature of streaming audio there may still be issues.

Thanks again for the comments.

[EchiDna]

it probably sounds a bit inane, but if a user wants plug and play convenience, I'd add that they would probably also want to plug and play a music library and just use it...thus they would be willing to pay for that too... which means getting someone else involved, i.e. an installer of some kind - if that installer wants repeat business, he would never install a device that doesn't need his assistance to fix/repair/upgrade so a NAS would work better.

Given that your average joe doesn't know how to add an internal hard drive to a pc in the first place, I still fail to see the niche that the drobo fills - is it computer users who know how to physically add hard drives to a system (open up the box, mount the drive, cable it up), but do not want to know how to configure then once they are there? sure you can buy it with disks pre-installed, but how does this guy who wants plug and play suddenly get the nerve to open it all up and add some extra capacity and get it right? 

at the moment, streaming media is very much an enthusiast market, that caters to (typically) knowlegeable users. So until you can buy a drobo or proper NAS box full of music ready to go, I believe it's market will remain small. No doubt that time will come, but it is not today.

Also, what's with the basic drobo's lack of connectivity? it just a multibay USB2 hard drive cage with a piece of fancy software... so you still need a PC/mac turned on to even access the content on it, thus it is effectively identical to a stack of daisychained USB drives - big disadvantage over NAS boxes!! sure you can buy the 'share' module, but at an additional $200 a normal NAS box looks even better. If I was to go for USB drives, I'd buy them in pairs and keep the second drive as a backup off site - Drobo or NAS can't do that