http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/ Engadget Comments for 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/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/
It seems cool though.]]>Jun 5th 2007 1:37AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/
That's false. Video editors (such as myself) need a firewire connection for video editing. USB2 is faster in theory, yes, but it is only in burst speeds. Compare this to the constant high-speed of firewire which will keep our editing programs from slowing to a crawl.

It would be nice to use a Drobo on an editing project and then be able to back it up later to a regular ol' backup drive. The current project at least would have backup all the time in case something happened in the middle.]]>Jun 5th 2007 2:15AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 5th 2007 2:23AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/]]>Jun 5th 2007 3:36AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 5th 2007 9:49AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/
http://www.infrant.com/products/products_details.php?name=ReadyNAS%20NVPlus

$546 with no drives...]]>Jun 5th 2007 2:30AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.infrant.com/wiki/index.php/FAQ#What_is_the_advantage_of_using_X-RAID_over_RAID_5.3F

Seems pretty clear, though, that Infrant is not stating X-RAID is RAID as we all know it.]]>Jun 5th 2007 2:36AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 5th 2007 2:46AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 7th 2007 2:00AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 12th 2007 8:56AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/
Regardless, I use software to mirror most of my drives. Every morning the software copies any changed or new files from the source to the destination. I also have it set up to keep shadow copies (previous versions) of files in an archive folder. Then, once a week, the files are uploaded to an online backup service (Mozy.com - $5 a month for unlimited space). This way if my apartment building burns down I am not screwed.

A setup just like mine could cost as little as $200 for 1TB worth of USB drives and $30 for secondcopy (the software I use). Using the Drobo would make some things a little easier (like adding additional disks), but I don't think it’s worth $500.
]]>Jun 12th 2007 2:56PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 5th 2007 3:18AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 5th 2007 3:44AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/
One important advantage of software RAID setups is that there's no need to rely on any single hardware manufacturer.]]>Jun 5th 2007 4:37AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 5th 2007 4:35AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/
I will never buy one until I see that. Oh - and until it gets a better interface - USB2.0 is not acceptable.]]>Jun 5th 2007 5:51AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/
Quiet. Good power management, sleeps when I put my computer to sleep or turn it off. Decent performance for the general file storage and backup stuff I'm using it for.

A little pricey but I had a $25 coupon that helped a little. If your looking for a low maintanence solution it's the way to go. ]]>Jun 5th 2007 8:17AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 5th 2007 9:59AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 5th 2007 10:20AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 5th 2007 12:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 8th 2007 1:38PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 5th 2007 11:42AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/
"which worked fine other than the wire inside which game loose and ground up against the fan, making a hideous noise"

game should be came, unless the wire was playing a game with the fan?
]]>Jun 5th 2007 12:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.lsi.com/storage_home/products_home/external_raid/6998_storage_system/index.html and you can see what this company and others are trying to accomplish at the consumer level.]]>Jun 5th 2007 10:56PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 5th 2007 1:37PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 5th 2007 5:10PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/
"At this point in the came it's not unfair to expect your storage array to be smart enough to serve its own content..."

]]>Jun 5th 2007 1:40PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/
"At this point in the came it's not unfair to expect your storage array to be smart enough to serve its own content"

I'll trade you my C for your G . . . ;)]]>Jun 5th 2007 2:05PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/
Also, there doesn't appear to be any software to actually monitor the health of the disks or the disk array. It would appear that one has to monitor the color of the lights next to each drive, which is hard to do if the box is not visible. Again, this seems like an easy thing to provide by having a simple application that runs on the OS to provide info about the box.]]>Jun 5th 2007 2:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 5th 2007 2:19PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/
The 2TB size is set at the USB maximum so that you don't have to reformat when you add more drives. Formatting sets aside a used/unused table (like the FAT in FAT32) that is dependent on the size of the drive. There are programs that will do this when they resize a partition, but the 2TB feature means you'll never have to do that.

One interesting thing that turned me off is that if you've got more than 2TB of storage available, it'll appear as multiple 2TB drives. Apparently this is due to a limitation in the USB specification... why didn't USB-SIG make the spec either outrageously large (and, no, 2TB isn't outrageously large. 2^64 blocks is), or make it inherently extensible (first byte=# of bytes used to make up the address). Anyway, I'm looking forward to a network mode, but I'm awfully tempted to put this behind an airport extreme.]]>Jun 5th 2007 7:41PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 5th 2007 3:02PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/"posts". Additionally, using a comma to separate two complete
thoughts is incorrect. In some cases a semicolon will suffice.
However, in this instance I believe a two sentence approach would be
better. Finally, apostrophes are missing on your use of the word
"don't". This may be a literary style choice*, so it would not
necessarily be wholly incorrect.*Cormac McCarthy frequently makes use
of this in his works (most notably his two National Book Award
Winners)]]>Jun 5th 2007 3:33PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 5th 2007 3:41PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/
Example: Wildcharge.com - induction charging for cell phones, ipods, etc.

Big splash in Jan (on Engadget & numerous others) w/ "coming in March". Now the only point of contact gets a returned email response.

This happens again & again & I see things every day I think, "wow. that's neat," but there's no way to really keep track, follow up or later buy the item (if it ever moves from concept to reality).]]>Jun 5th 2007 4:09PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 5th 2007 3:35PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 5th 2007 3:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/
" "which worked fine other than the wire inside which game loose and ground up against the fan, making a hideous noise"

game should be came, unless the wire was playing a game with the fan?"

WHO CARES I am pretty sure that unless you are a mouth breathing retard you can understand the context. In fact I kinda feel hypocrytical typing this because it is so far off track and has nothing to do with the artical.

So just to make up for that I will say that I think this device is kinda neat and the idea is promising, it just doesn't seem like its ready for prime time yet. Especially with all of the other storage options out there with more(albeit different and possibly weaker) features. Now WHS that is something I would like to see a full review of. :)
]]>Jun 5th 2007 5:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/
You can just keep adding drives (internal or external) and WHS adds it to the storage pool. There is an option to eject a drive and it automatically reallocates the data so it is safe to remove. You can choose whether folders have redundancy or not. Not to mention you interface through the network, not USB2 so gigabit ethernet would be much faster.

This reminds me of my NSLU2 (which can mirror only 2 disks). A single purpose device that ends up being limited in use.

No clue on how much the WHS os will cost, but for $500 you could build a decent pc to install it on, the system requirements are very modest.]]>Jun 5th 2007 4:11PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 5th 2007 5:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/
Still, for people who don't want to plunge into building their own NAS or RAID array, it seems to be a nice option. Mdadm DOES drive me nuts, after all.]]>Jun 5th 2007 8:31PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 5th 2007 8:32PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=508
This review gives a more detailed explaination of how the array works by using multiple RAID tiers. It also gives more specifics on performance characteristics.]]>Jun 7th 2007 2:06AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Oct 5th 2007 11:09AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/
With four drives running at this speed, as the data is spread across all four drives (with one drive holding redundancy information) the data throughput should be 3x this speed of an indivudal drive which should be close on 2000Mbps. This is 5 to 6 times the throughput speed of the USB interface.

IMHO, the next interface to be supported should be eSATA. However, the USB interface is a great start for this product as it makes it available to the largest market and in general for the majority of users the data throughput speed shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Like some others, I too do video editing and processing. I have large fast internal SATA drives to handle this. Once done, it is then moved onto an external storage medium that supports redundancy.]]>Jun 14th 2007 4:36PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 12th 2007 6:09PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 12th 2007 8:41PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/
Decided to take advantage of the money back guarantee... that was a royal hassle.. took a month to finally get my money after numerous phone calls.

overall result... not worth consideration.
]]>Jun 14th 2007 2:16AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/Jun 17th 2007 9:09AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/drobo-review/
USB is slow, of course. Don't use this version of the Drobo for anything that requires massive speeds. I have it connected to my home Mac that is mainly used as a file server. It also backs-up my photos, songs, etc. so that I know they're safe.

All-in-all, this is much better than my old RAID array. Very easy to use and fast enough for just about everything I've needed it for. I'd love to see a Firewire version or NAS, but that will probably come.]]>Aug 20th 2007 10:49PM