Drobos, like any other raid device will wipe any drive you insert into them.
but because they can dynamically grow the array you can pull off the same trick I did.
I had a the previously mentioned dumb raid box (prone to overheating) with two 400 Gig drives (raid 1) in it.
I bought a the bottom tier drobo + two 1 TB drives. (though I could probably have done it with just one 1 TB drive, Drobo would complain that data is not safe).
1) setup drobo with the 1TB drives
2) copy the contents of the dumb raid box onto drobo.
3) pull the both 400 gig drives out of old raid box, and slot them into drobo
4) drobo wipes the 400 gig drives, but we don't care, because the data has already been copied.
5) I now have 1.6 TB of storage that can survive a single disk failure.
6) if I need more than that, I can replace one (or both, one at a time) 400 Gig drives with larger drives.
The fans can be a little loud for a bedroom if you access data while trying to sleep (like with an automated backup program that runs at 3am or something).
But as long as the disks don't need to spin, the fans will shut off.
edit: jorlem, I don't see any problem with your plan. You could probably fill up the existing drive up 80%.
as long as you have enough room on the drobo to copy the data off your preexisting drive, you'll be golden.
The link Ankh provided should help with exact numbers.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
but because they can dynamically grow the array you can pull off the same trick I did.
I had a the previously mentioned dumb raid box (prone to overheating) with two 400 Gig drives (raid 1) in it.
I bought a the bottom tier drobo + two 1 TB drives. (though I could probably have done it with just one 1 TB drive, Drobo would complain that data is not safe).
1) setup drobo with the 1TB drives
2) copy the contents of the dumb raid box onto drobo.
3) pull the both 400 gig drives out of old raid box, and slot them into drobo
4) drobo wipes the 400 gig drives, but we don't care, because the data has already been copied.
5) I now have 1.6 TB of storage that can survive a single disk failure.
6) if I need more than that, I can replace one (or both, one at a time) 400 Gig drives with larger drives.
The fans can be a little loud for a bedroom if you access data while trying to sleep (like with an automated backup program that runs at 3am or something).
But as long as the disks don't need to spin, the fans will shut off.
edit: jorlem, I don't see any problem with your plan. You could probably fill up the existing drive up 80%.
as long as you have enough room on the drobo to copy the data off your preexisting drive, you'll be golden.
The link Ankh provided should help with exact numbers.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy