A Year With the Drobo FS

I came across another type of post that I really like to read - real world long term experience with a NAS in the home. This one is about living with a Drobo FS for a year. The writer seems to really like the device especially after he sorted out his bad drive problems (Seagate). He sums up his experience as follows:

1. Use quality drives. Don’t buy the cheap drives and definitely avoid Seagate drives as the Drobo seems to hate those. When I upgraded to the WD drives, I bought the server-level Enterprise drives. Those have been rock solid. My guess is that Drobo is pretty hard on drives, with lots of reads, writes and seeks.
2. Use the same size and manufacturer. Now, one of Drobo’s big selling points is that you can use different size drives and all that. This is one of those cases where what you can do and what you should do are two different things. You can use any size and manufacturer, but I’ve had better success and performance when all my drives are from the same manufacturer and are the same size.
3. Be sure your firmware and software are up to date.  Kinda goes without saying, but the firmware upgrades for the Drobo have really helped with it’s stability.
4. If you start having problems with your Drobo like I had above, get ready for a drive failure

Source: http://www.robpeck.com/2012/05/a-year-with-drobo/