If you know me, you know that I make videos. I use a computer to edit these videos. And since video files on a computer are very large, this requires a lot of hard disk space to archive the videos I want to keep. And, if you are responsible with the data you want to keep, you will keep it on at least 2 hard drives, because hard drives fail. So storing these large files requires at least twice the space that they actually take up. As a consequence, over the time I have been doing serious video work, I have amassed an array of external hard drives on which to store my work. It’s quite a pain in the ass because each has its own power supply and connection cables and it doesn’t take too many of them to clutter my desk. At some point I began thinking about how nice it would be to have a single, multi-bay enclosure with a single connection cable and a single power supply that I could use for backup. RAIDs do this. But the problem with a RAID is that when it comes to expanding a RAID they aren’t very flexible–they have to have multiple matched drives to work. Well, last year I began to hear about a product that might be the answer to my dilemma–the DROBO.

DROBO is short for Data Robot. It’s a RAID-like piece of hardware in that it’s a multi-drive storage solution, but unlike a RAID you can put miss-matched drives in it–and the enclosure has handy-dandy slots that allow you to pop in and out drives when needed. So as bigger hard drives come along you can just keep swapping out smaller drives for bigger drives in the DROBO and all your data stays protected–and distributed among the multiple hard drives in a single enclosure. BRILLIANT! (or so I thought).

Well, I was fortunate enough to get a deal last year where I was making a little bit of extra money every month making videos for my video blog, LO-FI SAINT LOUIS. Because of that, I was able to purchase some things for this work that I normally wouldn’t be able to afford (I have a decent job, but I have a family and am not rich by any means). One of these things was a DROBO–because it seemed like a perfect solution to my data backup needs. So last fall I went ahead and ordered a DROBO and also ordered three identical 500 gb hard drives from Other World Computing. When everything arrived I started setting everything up. Right off the bat the DROBO indicated that one of the three hard drives was bad. So that was removed–it’s not unheard of to get a brand-new DOA drive, so no big deal–I can get a refund on that, right? So with the other two drives in place, I began backing up some data to the DROBO that needed to be backed up because all my external drives were full. I also needed space on the Firewire drive I was backing up so that I could continue to work. Once the backup was complete and all the data seemed to be in place, I made the mistake of deleting the data off the Firewire drive–yes a mistake I know, as I have very painfully learned, but hey, I had a Data Robot where the data was duplicated between two hard drives, right? What could go wrong?

Well the very next day or maybe later that afternoon (I can’t exactly recall but let’s just say that it was mere hours later) I was copying some other data to the DROBO and it suddenly stopped and rebooted itself. I thought it was a fluke but soon it was doing this every 5 minutes, which was a problem because it takes more than five minutes to copy even one of the very large video files to another drive. OK, time to call tech support. It took a couple of days to get a response from support. Once contact was made, the back and forth begins. Finally they send me a replacement DROBO. I load the drives into the replacement unit and the same thing starts happening again. They ask me to send them the DROBO with the hard drives and they will try to get my data back for me. So I (mistakenly–but they weren’t specific as to which one they wanted back, frankly) send back the replacement DROBO to the company and a couple of weeks later I get an email saying that they are able to recover MOST of my data but one of the drives is bad, and the other is on its last legs. They send me back the drives and tell me to put the one that still works in the DROBO along with a new drive so at least my stuff will be backed up. So I do–in the original DROBO that I started with. I bought another new 500 gb drive and let it run for a few hours backing up the data and BANG! It happens again–constant rebooting. Long story short, they send me yet ANOTHER replacement and as near as I can tell the drive with the data on it is hosed at this point and nothing can be done about it.

So the CSR emails me one more time and says:

Ok, here’s what Engineering says to do. Boot your Drobo with both drives in it and let it attempt to complete the re-layout even if it keeps rebooting. The reason it keep rebooting is because the Drobo needs the data that is on the bad disk (because it is the critical disk) to complete the re-layout. In an attempt to get around all the errors it keeps encountering on that disk, it power cycles the slot (and reboots the system) to try and clear the problem. The hope is that the Drobo is able to read more and more of the data between reboots and eventually complete the re-layout otherwise the data will be lost. If the re-layout does complete, then swap the bad drive with a new one.

So I do. I let it run for a week. Still rebooting over and over and over again. Finally I pulled the plug on it. I took the bad drive out. Let the thing cool down a bit and then restarted the Drobo with just the one drive in it. Nothing happens. NOTHING. My system doesn’t detect the drive, all the lights turn red on the DROBO and it goes to sleep. I don’t even hear the drive spin up. I realized then that the drive was probably cooked in that week of “trying to relay out the data.” So that’s it. No more Drobo for me.

Here’s what I figured happened. The first DROBO I got was defective. It was a drive killer. Because, while there is a chance that I could have gotten ONE bad brand-new hard drive form a reputable dealer, the chances of getting THREE are nearly impossible. So the first DROBO must have damaged the drives. When I got the recovered drive back I must have put the drive back in the original faulty DROBO and killed it again for good. Their advice to put the drives in a third DROBO and let it run for a long time to re-layout the data cooked the 4th good drive and killed that one.

So at this point I figure it’s time to give up. I want a refund. I email my CSR contact and tell them as much.

A few days pass.

Finally tonight I get this email:

Hello Bill,

You actually needed to boot up the Drobo with both of your drives and
let it go through the repeated boot cycles until it finishes the
re-layout it is trying do. With any luck it will eventually finish the
re-layout and you will have access to your data.

Unfortunately there will not be any type of refund available because of
the time that has elapsed since you first purchased your Drobo.

I’m sorry that I do not have any better news regarding your situation.

Best regards,

Carl

Drobo Support Center

I reply:

I did that for a week. I told you that. As for the refund, that’s
complete bullshit. I was never able to use the thing for more than a
day before it malfunctioned.

I get this back:

Hello Bill,

Unfortunately the problem(s) you encountered were with your drives and
not the Drobo. The two replacement Drobos we sent you were thoroughly
tested to ensure there were not any problems and when we checked your
original Drobo it was also found to be good working order too.

Best regards,

Carl

Drobo Support Center

Which is bullshit–I still have the original DROBO sitting on my desk. I never sent that one back–which they KNEW because I told them this in an exchange in December.

So I emailed them back:

Bullshit.

That’s where I’m at with this. So far I am out $500 for the DROBO, plus about $500 for the four hard drives I purchased for it, and all the data I lost, not to mention all the time and headaches dealing with this.

So… um yeah. Fuck DROBO.

Photo By: HumanBehaviour via Flickr