Fantastic Backup Systems: WiebeTech RTX200

I recently added WiebeTech's RTX200 to my backup system, which now includes a first generation Drobo (with four internal 500 GB SATA drives), two 300 GB Seagate external drives, and one iOmega 500 GB drive. I've included the WiebeTech RTX200 to my backup system because I recently had THREE! -- yes, you read that right, THREE! -- LaCie external hard drives all fail in the course of one week! Or, to be more accurate, the LaCie housing failed. So I pulled the drives from the LaCie housing (two Seagate drives and one Samsung drive), and bought the WiebeTech system to house the old drives. The beauty of WiebeTech's system is that it allows you to hot swap drives. So instead of continuously buying new external drives, which consist of an internal drive encased in some kind of housing, you simply buy the internal drive and plug it into your WiebeTech bay whenever you need it. The particular WiebeTech box I bought is the RTX200H-QJ. It provides two docking bays and comes complete with FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB2, eSATA connections.

Final note: When it comes to internal drives, I plan to stick with Digital Western, or Seagate, and avoid everything made by LaCie and Maxtor (which have both repeatedly failed me over the years).

Second Generation Drobo With Firewire 800

Those of you are regular readers of my blog know that I bought a Drobo in December of 2007. Now, seven months later, I'm glad to report that it has performed flawlessly. I reported two significant concerns in previous blogs: 1. That Drobo only uses SATA, not ATA drives; that Drobo uses 1/2 to 1/3 of your total storage capacity for making a backup of your backup. You can read my previous Drobo posts here.

I solved the first problem by migrating to SATA drives, and accepted the second shortcoming as a necessary evil of having a backup system that is designed to stay viable even if one or more of your drives fail. It costs more, but the peace of mind that comes from knowing specific hard drives can fail and you won't loose any data was worth it.

There was, however, another issue that has bugged me from day one: the first generation Drobo shipped with a USB 2.0 connection which made for slow transfers of data. The Drobo folks have now fixed that shortcoming with their second generation Drobo. Here's some background information from Rob Galbraith's website:

"Data Robotics has announced the immediate availability of a new version of its Drobo storage device featuring twin FireWire 800 ports, promised faster USB 2.0, an upgraded internal processor, quieter, cooler operation and revised firmware.

"A version of Drobo with four empty SATA I/II hard drive bays, two FireWire 800 ports and one USB 2.0 port is US$499 when purchased direct from the company (the previous generation USB 2.0-only Drobo is still available, for US$349 in the same driveless configuration). The FireWire 800/USB 2.0 version with two 1TB drives is US$899; with four 1TB drives, US$1299."

Click here for more information, including Drobo's press release.