Posted by Kalin Wilson on August 21, 2007 at 5:40 PM
I'm researching components for a new system I'm going to build soon and came across this in PC Magazine.
It's a self-managing, redundant storage array called DRobo. Check out the videos on the site. I'm still looking into it, but if it works as claimed it could be a great solution to the external drives piling up on my desk (and trying to find an open USB port).
For us photographers dealing with multi-megabyte files, seems like a nice appliance, even if a little pricey.
If anyone is using one of these please let us know what you think!
I checked them out about 2 months ago and thought it looked like a great idea. I currently am ok regarding external storage, but when my current drives start to fill up, I'm considering this option as well.
Posted by David A Bliss on August 22, 2007 at 6:09 PM
Thanks for posting this. This is something that interests me, especially since I am running out of space and (knock on wood) don't have everything backed up!
Posted by Kalin Wilson on August 23, 2007 at 12:18 AM
Most of what I've come across is positive. There are some issues to be aware of, heat and noise, but those are likely driven by the drives you choose not the drobo. There are a lot of comments on some of the blogs/reviews about how this unit competes with RAID/NAS boxes but is more expensive. But from what I can tell, none of the NAS boxes have the flexible management. You normally need same-sized drives and you have to manually configure and reboot if you fail a drive. The USB interface takes a hit due to throughput but there are rumors of an ethernet version at some point. Still the USB interface means you can hang this off of your laptop, something you probably wouldn't do with similar solutions.
I'm pretty interested. We'll have to see what my budget comes in at for a new system (read 'bonus').
Take the plunge Kalin!!! I am intersted as well, but the cost of entry is a bit high. $500 before you pop in any drives is steep, but I guess you can start small with your HDs. I'm sticking with my RAID setup in my desktop for now, with backups to external drives for redundancy. I was interested in one of the Western Digital 1TB eBook drives at first, but then you only have 500 gigs if running RAID, and that is it. An Ethernet version would be sweeeet, and maybe the USB version would go down a bit in price.
Discussion
4 repliesIt's a self-managing, redundant storage array called DRobo. Check out the videos on the site. I'm still looking into it, but if it works as claimed it could be a great solution to the external drives piling up on my desk (and trying to find an open USB port).
For us photographers dealing with multi-megabyte files, seems like a nice appliance, even if a little pricey.
If anyone is using one of these please let us know what you think!
Kalin
I'm pretty interested. We'll have to see what my budget comes in at for a new system (read 'bonus').