How Do I Backup My Drobo?

Are you asking “How should I back up my Drobo?” or “How can I back up Drobo to an offsite system?” or “How should I back up my computer(s) to Drobo”? This note is first of a series that will investigate these questions.

This note will present tools for Mac or Windows users to backup your Drobo so that your data is protected against fire, flood, theft, or other damage.

How to backup Drobo?

Eighty-five percent (85%) of Drobo owners use it to backup other systems, and as primary storage (i.e. only location) for other valuable data. While Drobo is designed to protect against single drive failure, many are looking for additional protection against fire, flood, theft, or other calamities that can damage their system, Drobo, and data.

The mean amount of data Drobo owners have is 2.6TB. To back up that much data, the optimal solution is another Drobo plus automatic backup software. What does “optimal” mean? It means that backup is handled automatically, that the user doesn’t have to try to partition and backup subsets of the data to multiple devices, and that the user can backup to either another Drobo, or one that is shared on a network.

What free or low cost backup software can I use?

There are many different types of backup software. They are differentiated by the types of backup operations they perform (one way or two way sync, incremental, etc.),  price, and how much user configuration is required. Our preference is for something that is straight forward to setup and use, and low cost.

Data Robotics has tested, certifies, and recommends the packages shown below:

With these packages you can easily backup one Drobo to another. Please note that unless you move and store one Drobo to a different location, they are both exposed to fire or other risk factors. You can re-sync your Drobos by periodically connecting them both to the same computer and re-running the backup software.

Why are these packages recommended?

Both of these packages have the following features in common:

• Backup copy is readable by the computer’s OS, i.e. it’s not a proprietary format.
• Simple set up – all the user needs to do is specify a “copy from” and “copy to” locations.
• Backup targets can be either another directly attached Drobo, or a Drobo connected to a DroboShare or another computer.
• Choice of a one-time copy or scheduled recurring backups.
• Cost – free versions are fully functional.