Can this Drobo be used with ROCK?

Roon Software Discussion ROCK
1

Could the Drobo 5c DAS be used with Rock?
If so how would you setup the Drobo with Rock and view the Drobo’s dash board also how would you copy files to the Drobo?

2

I would stay away from Drobo all together.

3

Why? I have a Drobo 5N that I use to store all my music files and my Roon Core accesses it seamlessly. I’m sure there are better options out there now for a NAS as my Drobo is a few years old. I have no complaints on usage with Roon, however, with my Drobo 5N.

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4

Assuming that the DROBO is compatible with Linux and presents itself like any other USB hard drive then it should work… BUT… there won’t be any way to run the Drobo dashboard software on ROCK. If that’s required to make the array work then you’d be better off looking for a different storage solution.

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5

Thanks Andrew - that makes sense. This then is another reason for me to not use ROCK and stick with my purpose built Win 10 RoonServer box.

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6

i think you would need the dashboard to intially set it up but not 100% sure if you could just plug and play without the dashboard,i dont really want to go the nas route but maybe i should be looking at the drobo 5n nas.
my intiall thought was using wd duos but this would cost too much as i would need the 16tb version were as using a drobo i could change drive sizes over time when funds allow.
at the moment all my files are on 2tb drives,i really need a one box soloution instead of lots of powered usb drives.
all ideas and input welcome.

7

Pretty sure I needed Drobo Dashboard to mount the shares and get Roon to access them. After initial setup I haven’t used it. I was interested in ROCK but then decided to just build a Win10 machine for Roon Core with spare PC parts I had on hand including an i5 4690K CPU. Works perfectly.

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i have a i7 skylake,m.2 ssd windows 10 i got built for roon[which ill be buying roon next month or so] my pc skills are limited and im a bit worried about any issues which might arrise rock looks ideal for a issue free setup my only cocern is my 500,000 tracks collection,would a i7 nuc be able to cope with this.

9

Gary - that should work fine and is the simplest possible PC build you can do. I have an i5 Devils Canyon, M.2 SSD, 16 GB RAM, on an ASUS mATX mobo. I am an experienced PC builder but this was the easiest build I have done. Luckily I had these parts on hand and only needed to buy a case and CPU cooler. Far cheaper than buying an i5 or i7 NUC for ROCK. After installing Win10 and RoonServer I was up and running with the machine as my Roon Core. My main PC accesses Roon as a Remote. I run nothing else on the server that is my Roon Core. This works so much better than when my main machine was my Roon Core. No need to wait for ROCK in this case and you have lot more flexibility down the road. Go for it!

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10

I’m not a huge Drobo fan, but if the Drobo unit can be setup to do SMB, shouldn’t it work with ROCK? Is the Drobo-specific stuff all that different from, say, Synology-specific stuff?

I’m genuinely curious about this, since someone in a position like @Thomas_Blake’s would ideally be able to leverage existing hardware.

11

Some of the cheaper USB Storage Solutions, require software to be run on the connected computer to manage the device. If this is the case, then it cannot be used with Rock.

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ive read a few posts on the forum were windows 10 updates have messed up roon operating properly,looks like i will run with my pc build and roon server and see how i get on without forking out for a nuc,i can always go with rock in the future if things dont go how i like with my pc.

thanks

13

Well, if you use Win 10 pro you can set the updates to delay, which helps a lot.

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14

I’m pretty sure Drobo can use SMB for its shares. It’s just easier to use Drobo Dashboard to do it, which is no issue with a Win10 based Roon Server.

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15

I also store my FLAC library on Drobo 5N2.

Now I would like to know if I could run the Roon controller on my 5N2.

Thank you.

16

Drobo 5D2 user here for my photo biz, and I would say no. It’s a proprietary system. One thing I will advise is be sure to back up to both another Drobo (preferably of the same make) and non-proprietary drive(s) as well. If the Drobo power supply or motherboard goes, then those drives will only work in another Drobo. But you probably already know this.