Drobo Fully Automated SATA Robotic Storage Array 4 Bay USB 2.0: Digital-Cameras-Photo.com

Drobo Fully Automated SATA Robotic Storage Array 4 Bay USB 2.0

Drobo Fully Automated SATA Robotic Storage Array 4 Bay USB 2.0
by Data Robotics

List Price: ~~$434.15~~
Our Price: $199.99
You Save: $234.16 (54%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: CE
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Customers in the UK, buy this product at amazon.co.uk for British Pounds

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Manufacturer: Data Robotics
Audio: English (Original Language)
Model: 900-00002-002
Color: Black
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Drobo Fully Automated SATA Robotic Storage Array 4 Bay USB 2.0

Customer Review: Works exactly as advertised - Terrific!
Summary: 5 Stars

I've been heavily using my Drobo over the past month, using it to host multiple databases. Ownership and operation of Drobo has been, in a word, anti-climactic.

But don't confuse "anti-climactic" with "disappointing"! Drobo works exactly as advertised and is ridiculously easy to install and use. There's no great sense of accomplishment when Drobo comes online, and even intentionally "failing" drives by removing them gets old after a few demonstrations. The thing just works, and hides all the technical magic behind clean black housing.

The front faceplate is attached via magnets. It's easy to pull off, yet plenty secure when attached. I think it's a great design decision over a hinged faceplate, as I can tuck the Drobo into narrower spaces or leave the faceplate off entirely. While most of the faceplate is opaque, there are transparent areas so the drive status lights can be seen. As an added safety feature, the faceplate will not attach properly if any of the gray drive catches are open (an indication that a drive is not properly inserted).

The back of Drobo is equally clean. Evident are the large air holes for the internal fan, and the two connectors: USB and power. No power switch or buttons anywhere; Drobo is a literal interpretation of a "black box." There is also a slot for connecting a laptop-style anti-theft cable (so you can lock Drobo to nearby furniture), and a hole for the reset button.

Drobo's fan is audible, but easily drowned out amidst normal office noise. I've since tucked Drobo inside a cabinet and I don't expect to hear it even when I'm the only person in the office. I also recommend using "silent" drives, otherwise the clicking of the read/write heads could be distracting.

There is some friction when inserting a drive, but nothing unusual. The main source of friction is the gray catch on the left side, which snaps into place once a drive is fully inserted. The drives do not pop out easily, even when the gray catch is pushed aside. Perhaps I don't know the secret yet, but it took some fumbling every time I attempted to remove a drive. While Drobo can utilize any 3.5 inch SATA hard drive, I opted to use a pair of their recommended drives.

Drobo connected easily via USB to my limited-account Win2K computer, installing as a generic USB Mass Storage Device. While it attached correctly, I could not use Drobo because my limited user account prohibits formatting any drives. Were it already formatted for NTFS (or I had Administrator rights for my work PC), it would have worked like a charm. I had no problems attaching or formatting with my home Windows XP or Windows Vista PC's (where I have full privileges).

Drobo connected just as easily to my nearby eMac running OS X 10.4.9. It took OS X about 10 minutes to format the drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) (aka HFS+). It appeared on the desktop as a generic USB drive icon, which I was able to easily change thanks to a supplied Drobo icon from the Drobo website.

The format step brings up my biggest concern for Drobo: portability between Windows and OS X. Drobo officially supports NTFS and HFS+, but not any version of FAT. This makes sense from a technical standpoint but can be an issue for those expecting to use Drobo across both operating systems. FAT, while common and compatible with nearly every current operating system, has limitations that can be frustrating to the unwitting user. These limits include file-size restrictions and the inability to format/use FAT partitions above a relatively low size. Neither NTFS nor HFS+ suffer these restrictions (yet), but Windows cannot easily read/write HFS+ drives, and ditto for OS X and NTFS. FAT can be used, but compatibility will be sketchy due to different versions of FAT and limitations/bugs in the operating system's implementation. In short, format as NTFS for Windows and HFS+ for OS X. I have not tested Drobo with *nix, but it should work with any modern build.

The USB interface should be plenty fast for most people, and it's wonderfully prevalent across the computing spectrum. FireWire, while technically faster, is primarily an Apple thing. FireWire is available for PC, but it's usually included as an afterthought on most motherboards. An eSATA connection would be ideal option for future versions of Drobo: SATA is designed for hard drive connections, motherboard and drive manufacturers have agreed upon the standard, and it is easy to boot from an eSATA device. I'd love to use Drobo as my boot drive, saving me from the headache associated with losing my OS partition. But USB is everywhere these days, so I understand their decision.

Drobo initially installs itself as a 2TB drive, regardless of actual drive capacity. 2TB (2000GB) is plenty huge, and actual capacity will probably be less than that. Case in point, I have two 250GB drives installed in Drobo, nowhere near the 2TB that Drobo reports to the operating system. This gives users plenty of elbow room to add new drives without having to alter any partition settings. I haven't tested what happens when Drobo hits the limit of the physical drives - will it report an "out of space" error, or will the data disappear into the æther? I may test this, but I doubt it will be worth my time. If the easy-to-read indicator lights warn me that Drobo is running out of drive space, I'll just add a bigger drive. If Drobo finds itself with more then 2TB of physical drive space, it will add another partition (aka "drive") to the operating system.

For those who have watched the Drobo promotional video, it takes longer than shown for Drobo to return to a safe state. I haven't really timed it, but definitely longer than the few seconds that is implied in the video. I have intentionally failed each drive by separately removing them from Drobo, and the data was still fully accessible. It's a slick system, and it works exactly as advertised. Even when I didn't make any data changes between removing and reinserting a drive, Drobo still took a while to incorporate the "new" drive. I suspect it's a safety feature to always wipe an inserted drive to ensure that there's no conflicting data between the drives.

$500 is a lot for an empty external drive bay. I understand that there's smart hardware and software contained within that housing, but I strongly hope there is another price drop down to $200 or $250 in the near future. As it stands, $500 will only appeal to a particular audience. At $200 or $250, I'd buy a Drobo for each PC in a heartbeat.

I want to emphasize that Drobo works exactly as advertised; that it is an effortless plug & play solution. My data is being backed up as changes happen, crashed drives can be replaced without any computing knowledge, and I never have to turn off Drobo or otherwise lose access to my data. Even better, I can increase Drobo's storage space by inserting additional drives. The fact that this can be done while Drobo is in use is tremendous.

A lot of smart engineering went into Drobo, and not just in their not-a-RAID algorithm. The metal enclosure is sturdy and sleek. The drive bays are exactly the right size for a 3.5 SATA hard drive. The nearly-opaque faceplate is easy to attach/remove, and does a great job at muffling drive chatter. The indicator lights are effective and intuitive. Drobo includes a small battery so it can quickly finish writing your data during a power outage. The optional software (Drobo Dashboard) is clean, communicates messages in plain English ("I cannot currently protect your data against a single hard drive failure."), and plays well with your OS. (And the Drobo Dashboard software is an optional install - Drobo works plenty well without it!)

Drobo's real worth will become apparent when one of the drives crashes. Instead of being hosed by data loss or requiring a tech-head to swap drives, Drobo keeps chugging along as if nothing happened while average Joe pulls out the dead drive and replaces it with a random SATA drive from the local computer store.

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Description of Drobo Fully Automated SATA Robotic Storage Array 4 Bay USB 2.0

Drobo the first fully-automated storage robot that takes the pain out of keeping your important digital content safe. The Drobo combines up to four hard drives (sold separately) into a big pool of protected storage. You can upgrade capacity on-the-fly by adding drives at any time. You can mix and match capacities, brands, and speeds with no downtime, data migration, or waiting to access new capacity. Just connect Drobo to your Mac or PC and it does everything for you so you won t have to worry about RAID levels, management or configuration. Drobo does everything for you, keeping your data safe and accessible.

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