Drobo Review

Drobo Review

I was recently asked to come up with a way to have lots of storage with redundant data backup. Automatically I thought of setting up a computer with RAID 5. I wouldn't have to be a powerful computer it was just going to be a file server and all the other NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices were as much if not more then a cheap computer system with a RAID 5 setup. However the client did not want to have to login and have to meddle with the file server, so I did some more research and found DLINK has a 4 Bay Drive NAS that does RAID 5 but the reviews for the device were less then encouraging and given that the client works with a Macintosh computer I thought I would look around some more. Then I came across this device called drobo. Drobo has firewire 800 and USB 2.0, for connecting the device to a computer and apparently did redundant data back similar to that of a RIAD 5 without the problem of backing everything up and redoing the RIAD array with Larger Drives. I did some more research and found the product reviews for the device to be outstanding and that is is very reliable. There are 2 issues I have with the drobo is that unless you buy the drobo share it doesn't work through apple talk but you can use SAMBA to share the device. The drobo also doesn't have e-sata so you are missing out on 3gbits/s data transfer as compared to Firewire 800's 800Mbits/s data transfer. The drobo is basically maintenance free and apparently can go up to 16TB of hard drive space if drives get that big using the SATA format. Would I recommend a drobo to anyone? Yes I would I even want one but at $600.00 it is a bit hefty a price with no hard drives but well worth it. It is great for everything and I would encourage anyone looking for a NAS style device but it doesn't have to sit on the network or to hook it up to a router with hard drive support to look seriously at the drobo. It is compatible with Apple, Microsoft and Linux Operating Systems. For the Simplicity and convenience go with the drobo.

Here are some reviews for your reference:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/
http://reviews.cnet.com/external-hard-drives/drobo/4505-3190_7-32470303.html
http://www.raoulpop.com/2009/hardware-review-second-generation-drobo/
http://www.macworld.com/article/59534/2007/08/drobo.html