March 19, 2010

Pogoplug and Drobo USB – I think I’m on Cloud Mine

Filed under: Hardware Reviews — Victor Cajiao @ 2:39 pm

I think I first heard about the Pogoplug on on TWiT a while back. At the time I really did not have a need for a device like this and all my hard-drives were being used for backup and archive storage. Recently Tim Verpoorten over at The Mac Review Cast covered the Pogoplug and given the upgrades that he mentioned I decided to buy one. I had already had a letter out to Cloud Engine  the  makers of the Pogoplug for a review unit,  but this one (full disclosure) I paid for in cash $127.00 U.S. at my Amazon store.

Since I recently got the Drobo S , I now had the Droob USB free to be used as off site storage or backup.
After talking a bit to Pat Mahon about this unit and its potential, we mused and our premise was this. I buy a Pogoplug and attach the Droob USB to it. I take it to a relatives house, or send it to George Starcher to keep at his home.  By doing this I could have a 2 TB redundant storage device that I could access from my computer, any browser or my iPhone.
I read some postings on the Pogoplugged forums  that I may run into some issues because the Droob USB is formatted as HSF+ Journaled . Well that’s why I’m a geek and I was willing to risk it as the data on the Drobo is all backed up.
I got the Pogoplug today and in eight minutes had it hooked up to my network and I was talking to it via the web-browser. Literally, I plugged the power cord in to it, then my Ethernet cable went to their web page and followed the activation process.
The moment of truth was here. Would the Pogoplug see the Droob USB using the  HSF+ Journaled?  Well it took about 6 minutes but sure enough the drive was recognized and with in 25 minutes of me first powering up the Pogoplug I was up and working.

I was then able to create a public area and share out two photos with my Twitter followers. I had conformation from Steve Stanger that he could see this pictures no problem. I then installed the local Mac client and the Pogoplug drive (which from now on will be know as the DroboPlug) was just another drive I could access on my Mac. Next I downloaded the Pogoplug iPhone app and that saw the DroboPlug no problem. As a matter of fact I could even stream music from the music backup I have on that drive to my iPhone. Call me impressed.
The last step in this little Friday afternoon geek adventure was to use ChronoSync (one of my favorite Mac apps ) to create a cron job that would backup (sync) a few of my mmost precious files from Dropbox to the DroboPlug. I set up that cron job and as I write it’s backing up those files from my Drobox cloud to the DroboPlug cloud.
It’s not often that I can say with 60 minutes of trying a new piece of technology that I would recommend it. However, my first impression of the Pogoplug is a strong one, and I would recommend it highly at this point. I believe I still will be getting another unit from the folks at Pogoplug. I’ll use that to test their Active copy enhancement feature that is suppose to allow for easy offsite backup from Pogoplug to Pogplug. More to come
+ = Yum

 

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  • Anonymous

    I generally really like it, but I have had issues. George and I do a 20 minute segment on this in the show I’m about to release. Again, generally the device is worth the price

  • Anonymous

    So I just bought a pogoplug to test it out with my Drobo (firewire 800). Let me ask you, I remember reading somewhere in the documentation that it wasn’t recommended to keep your Drobo plugged up and mounted al the time. What have you found? Do you leave it on all the time? Have you had any issues?

  • Anonymous

    Victor:nGreat summary of your adventure with drobo and pogo plug: I’ve been looking for online storage but and am now seriously considering doing the same.nnScott

  • Anonymous

    Thanks for the info. As you know i like to stay balanced on these things and will report the good, bad or ugly

  • Anonymous

    It handles small things well. The failure happens when trying to use Chronosync for things that I’d like to be able to do with the Drobo… like do an incremental backup of all my data roughly 100GB.nnEven when removing the Chronosync from the mix and just copying or moving large files on the Drobo it fails intermittently. Folks trying to use a Pogoplug / Drobo combination seem to have similar problems. There’s a string here that speaks to the need to copy small amounts of data at a time.nhttp://www.pogoplugged.com/forum/thread/11751/Pogoplug-with-iTunes/nnAnother problem I faced that I hope you never see is the unwelcome warning that the drive is “read only” when you really need to copy something to it. Many people have reported that problem. There’s a great post you can find by searching on drobo pogoplug read only. I’d encourage you to have a look:nnhttp://www.pogoplugged.com/forum/thread/12415/Too-Much-Drama-Not-Enough-Reliability…-Adieu-PogoPlug/nnThe thread shares stories from many people who truly wanted the technology to work, but it didn’t. I hope your mileage varies Victor!

  • Anonymous

    Hey Dan I really appreciate your thoughtful comments. I got the Drobo S and this meant the original Drobo could be used for this purpose. I will keep you informed. So far I’ve had no issues but it’s only been a few days. I’m interested in your comments what kind of load where you putting on it. I’m interested cause the Chronosync jobs I’m using so far are not that big, and your issue maybe only happens on heavy load (like backing up 200GB or something. Let me know

  • Anonymous

    I’d be curious to hear how this works for you over the long term. Pogo and Drobo on a Mac It has been an absolute headache for me that I wish I hadn’t started. I tried several backup programs before settling on ChronoSync, which worked intermittently, but more often that any other. At least once a month the Pogo is unable to see the Drobo, so I have to disconnect from Pogoplug, power down, connect to Mac directly, and wait for it to churn a few days. The first time I never was able to see the drive through disk utility, and I bit the bullet and reformatted. The only help Drobo tech support provided was to tell me to buy DiskWarrior, which I’ve had to use about once a month when the setup fails. It’s a stressful ritual where I kick myself for having plunked down the money and hope that DiskWarrior works. nnI look forward to hearing how the Drobo / Pogoplug / Chronosync trio work for you in a few months.

  • dan

    I'd be curious to hear how this works for you over the long term. Pogo and Drobo on a Mac It has been an absolute headache for me that I wish I hadn't started. I tried several backup programs before settling on ChronoSync, which worked intermittently, but more often that any other. At least once a month the Pogo is unable to see the Drobo, so I have to disconnect from Pogoplug, power down, connect to Mac directly, and wait for it to churn a few days. The first time I never was able to see the drive through disk utility, and I bit the bullet and reformatted. The only help Drobo tech support provided was to tell me to buy DiskWarrior, which I've had to use about once a month when the setup fails. It's a stressful ritual where I kick myself for having plunked down the money and hope that DiskWarrior works.

    I look forward to hearing how the Drobo / Pogoplug / Chronosync trio work for you in a few months.

  • http://typicalmacuser.com typicalmacuser

    Hey Dan I really appreciate your thoughtful comments. I got the Drobo S and this meant the original Drobo could be used for this purpose. I will keep you informed. So far I've had no issues but it's only been a few days. I'm interested in your comments what kind of load where you putting on it. I'm interested cause the Chronosync jobs I'm using so far are not that big, and your issue maybe only happens on heavy load (like backing up 200GB or something. Let me know

  • dan

    It handles small things well. The failure happens when trying to use Chronosync for things that I'd like to be able to do with the Drobo… like do an incremental backup of all my data roughly 100GB.

    Even when removing the Chronosync from the mix and just copying or moving large files on the Drobo it fails intermittently. Folks trying to use a Pogoplug / Drobo combination seem to have similar problems. There's a string here that speaks to the need to copy small amounts of data at a time.
    http://www.pogoplugged.com/forum/thread/11751/P…

    Another problem I faced that I hope you never see is the unwelcome warning that the drive is “read only” when you really need to copy something to it. Many people have reported that problem. There's a great post you can find by searching on drobo pogoplug read only. I'd encourage you to have a look:

    http://www.pogoplugged.com/forum/thread/12415/T…

    The thread shares stories from many people who truly wanted the technology to work, but it didn't. I hope your mileage varies Victor!

  • http://typicalmacuser.com typicalmacuser

    Thanks for the info. As you know i like to stay balanced on these things and will report the good, bad or ugly

  • Scott

    Victor:
    Great summary of your adventure with drobo and pogo plug: I've been looking for online storage but and am now seriously considering doing the same.

    Scott

  • http://twitter.com/zmacman zmacman

    So I just bought a pogoplug to test it out with my Drobo (firewire 800). Let me ask you, I remember reading somewhere in the documentation that it wasn't recommended to keep your Drobo plugged up and mounted al the time. What have you found? Do you leave it on all the time? Have you had any issues?

  • http://typicalmacuser.com typicalmacuser

    I generally really like it, but I have had issues. George and I do a 20 minute segment on this in the show I'm about to release. Again, generally the device is worth the price

  • http://www.50ftethernetcable.net 50 ft Ethernet Cable

    This is the great blog, I'm reading them for a while, thanks for the new posts!

  • David

    So how has the Drobo/Pogoplug combo been working out?

  • http://typicalmacuser.com Anonymous

    I still say that it’s a good combo for casual use but I would not trust the PogoPlug as a serious cloud solution. Only in my opinion

 

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