8 Bay Storage, Which is better?

[kag]

Thecus N8800
http://www.thecus.com/products_over....nguage=english
Cost about $1500

QNAP TS-809 Pro
http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=109
Costs about $1700

Data Robotics DroboPro
http://www.datarobotics.com/products/drobopro/
Costs about $1300

DroboPro advantages
Able to mix disks of different size (Something i need so i can recycle my old 1TB drives while using 2TB ones)
Ease of use
Small

TS-809 Pro and N8800 advantages
Large amount of functionality
Lots of interface

I'm looking at DroboPro right now, anyone thinks the DroboPro would be fast?
I don't want the idea of upgrading my storage 8 disks at once. (Costs for upgrade for Thecus and QNAP is higher)
Any comments about DroboPro, i don't see any reviews or benchmarks yet?
The only downside is the lack of interfaces and that it is a SAN so i still need a Server to share content.

I'm not going to build a 8 bay NAS, I know everyone is going to say it is cheaper but it still doesn't have DroboPro's advantage and it takes up a lot of time to set one up.

[peterb]

Depends which features are the most important to you - you have summed up the relative pros and cons. For me, the additional functionality would probably be more important, but it depends what you intend to do with it.

[vinnyT]

Going by what I have heard on podcasts I trust, I would choose the drobo pro. Speed really depends on what connection it has, I believe that you can get the drobo in usb, firewire or e-sata, the latter two giving better speed.

[kag]

The new drobopro has Gigabit iscsi connection but i'm afraid it might bottleneck on the PC as it is using single 100MB connection.

[Funkstar]

The N8800 does iSCSI and had dual gigabit connections which can be set as fall over or load balanced (802.3ad)

[aidanjt]

The QNap does iSCSI and dual gigabit too. Look at performance and (if you care about) environmental characteristics if you need a swing vote.

[kag]

If i were to use DroboPro i'm limited with ISCSI and from my knowledge the communication will be something like this
My Assumption of ISCSI Communication(Correct me if i'm wrong)
PC Requests Data -> Router/Switch -> PC(ISCSI initiator) gets Data -> Router/Switch -> DroboPro sends Data -> Router/Switch -> PC(ISCSI initiator) sends Data -> Router/Switch -> PC gets Data
For Thecus and QNAP as NAS
PC Requests Data -> Router/Switch -> NAS sends Data -> Router/Switch -> PC Gets Data

I'm more sided towards DroboPro for now due to the mixed disks configurations but ISCSI is my only concern that it might bottleneck on my 100MBit connection due to the way it communicates.

[aidanjt]

Either way, your 100Base-TX network will become saturated as it's being used.

[Funkstar]

I'm more sided towards DroboPro for now due to the mixed disks configurations but ISCSI is my only concern that it might bottleneck on my 100MBit connection due to the way it communicates.

Have you seen benchmarks of both units?

I know there are N7700 benchmarks floating about. N8800 are going to be similar if not higher.

[Darlo]

I would go for the N8800 or TS-809, ive had 2 drobo's die on me (they were the consumer version though) but if you really want to recycle disks then it would be your best bet.