http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/ Engadget Comments for The skinny on the Drobo storage array device http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Apr 10th 2007 5:35PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Apr 10th 2007 5:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Correct me if I am wrong, but only USB, not Firewire or eSATA, that's just crazy.
]]>Apr 10th 2007 5:45PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/useless, slow and proprietary. all things people need in a new age device.

I'll pass.]]>Apr 10th 2007 5:48PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Apr 10th 2007 5:48PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Apr 10th 2007 5:59PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/
These guys must have went to the same school as the XBOX 360 team. To be charging this much for practically nothing is insane.

Just like charging $179 for 120GB laptop drive. INSANE!!!!]]>Apr 10th 2007 6:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/
Yeah, I do suppose $400 for the best online gaming and media platform qualifies as "practically nothing".
]]>Apr 10th 2007 6:28PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/
I guess at some point (ripping HD DVDs?) we'll need a way to physically archive hard drive storage.

But outside of that, I can't see a reason to choose this solution at this time... ]]>Apr 10th 2007 6:09PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/
How is that possible? To have redundancy, you need to have a copy. Without compression, 3TB does not fit in 1TB.]]>Apr 10th 2007 6:36PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Apr 10th 2007 6:29PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Apr 10th 2007 9:36PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Apr 10th 2007 6:35PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Apr 10th 2007 6:52PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/

that's what your paying for, convinience...]]>Apr 10th 2007 6:38PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Apr 10th 2007 6:48PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/
FOUR 1TB drives - losing some for redundancy = ~2.7TB

I think you misread.]]>Apr 10th 2007 6:48PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Apr 10th 2007 6:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/
Considering something like a Synology 406 or Thecus 5200 is ~$600 empty, this thing trades away NAS for the 'virtual array' technology for like money.]]>Apr 10th 2007 6:51PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Apr 10th 2007 7:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Apr 10th 2007 7:07PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Apr 10th 2007 7:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Apr 10th 2007 7:39PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/
Too expensive though. If it had NAS, maybe.]]>Apr 10th 2007 8:32PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/
Check 'em out:
http://www.lacie.com/products/range.htm?id=10061
http://www.lacie.com/products/range.htm?id=10007]]>Apr 10th 2007 8:58PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Apr 11th 2007 12:19PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Apr 10th 2007 9:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/
Pooled virtualized storage : your data intelligently spread over avaiable, logically partitioned space in your 'pool' : Cool!

Unlike Raid 5: Well but not unlike other true raid systems. Lots of other RAID systems (infrant, others) can grow your array based on the volume you add provided that you pick one of their (probably semi-proprietary) raid systems. Unlike drobo, the other RAID systems can do this while maintaining relatively high performance. : meh

Storage pooling impact: Similar to other raid systems. The fact that the drobo has a lower minimum requirement for drives to perform 'protection' has some appeal but anyone serious about raid would want greater protection anyhow.: meh

The device can address unlimited storage: So can my wife. It is limited to 2TB volumes so as long as you are willing to have your storage cut up into unlimited 2TB volumes then I guess this is okay: double meh

drives are instantaneously available: With most raid systems, growing the storage array does not preclude you from adding more data, its just slower during the process: meh

Virtual hot spare: Well, most RAID systems support hot spares, some support live spares. whatever, having my data made redundant on the same drive that the original data is sitting on is little comfort. I feel better knowing that my data is on a real volume, my parity is on another. I have spares sitting there ready to swap in at a moments notice, this is called 'planning': triple meh

Data has corruption protection: BS. pure and simple. how exactly does that work. I have 500GB of total disk volume, I have two files, each 250GB. i corrupt one. Where is the good one? You have parity bits, if the data becomes corrupted it is detected and repaired through rebuilding from parity. Quit trying to make it sound like something special: Quad meh for marketing dribble

My personal favorite

For lack of necessity the device does not support firewire 400/800 (blah blah): I guess this is a bit of honesty. the overhead of the drobo storage pool virtualization is so high that you cannot approach firewire 400 speeds despite the fact that any one disk in the system could easily hit that rate individually (at peak, if you use fast drives): honesty!

It features NVRAM and a battery backup: Woah. it has enough battery to keep all the drives running long enough to flush out the remaining transactions to disk? really? Or do they mean that the settings won't get corrupted?: suspect

It will monitor drive health by its own system of metrics, and pre-emptively predict drive failures: Smart works, lots of systems support it, not exclusive to drobo but its cool that they support it at this price: cool!

Overall verdict, a kind-o-neat, self contained device that unfortunately is being pushed by too much hype and not enough facts, the marketing (some of which I do enjoy)is a bit over the top for a product that is obviously aimed at the hands off non-technologist, large storage requirements crowd (photojournalists, graphic artists, etc). Anyone technical would probably feel better with a real RAID which has many of these features and more (presumed) performance.











]]>Apr 10th 2007 9:58PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Apr 11th 2007 12:35AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Apr 11th 2007 12:47AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/
So...it does RAID5. Whatever they call it, that's RAID5. Also, if it only formats either NTFS or HFS, that makes it really useless to people who have both Mac and Windows systems. Can't move it from one computer to the other.

And the price...wow. I built an 8-drive fileserver for less than that. This thing is garbage in comparison.]]>Apr 11th 2007 12:56AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Apr 11th 2007 11:13AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/even if it's really expensive.]]>Apr 11th 2007 3:23AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/could you please check your code?
in case you received 20 messages, sorry, but not really my fault. :(

--

hi there.

as you are the guys in the know, could you please post a comparison of the drobo with an infrant readynas NV+
I´m considering buying this nas box for a couple of months already, and really fail to see where the advantage of this drobo box is.
No even the price is better...

TIA Matt]]>Apr 11th 2007 5:00AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/Apr 11th 2007 11:19AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.drobostore.com and be sure to use this discount code "REFPHILS" so you get $100 off. The codes expires on 5/30 though.]]>Apr 12th 2007 10:20PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/
Well, after you're done sweating on Linux with mdadm and lvcreate, or looking at the paucity of similarly priced Mac/Windows solutions that do all this for you, you'll realize how lovely this looks when you want an RAID array that Just Works, and is a piece of cake to administer AS YOUR NEEDS EVOLVE. Or, for a clue without the sweat, read this excellent opinion by an observer with a lot of real-world experience in the storage field:

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/columnItem/0,294698,sid5_gci1246543,00.html]]>Apr 24th 2007 4:19PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/May 5th 2007 7:31AM