Drobo gets dev community and SDK beta: run UPnP, BitTorrent, and any other servers you want

Looks like Data Robotics just started up their Drobo Developer Community (DDC) and SDK program, kicking off on their eventual goal to let users develop their own apps and servers for their Drobo storage device. For the first "DroboApp" and proof-of-concept, they've already whipped up a working UPnP / DLNA server for streaming audio and video content directly from the Drobo to compliant devices (like the Xbox 360 and PS3, for example), and they hope the early beta offering will spur the community into developing drop-in servers for things like iTunes music and AFP, Rsync, FTP, web, BitTorrent, and anything else you can think up. (One Linux developer has already ported the Drobo Dashboard app to Linux using the SDK).

The DroboApps themselves are compiled for Linux, stored on the Drobo, added via drag and drop into a simple directory on the file system, and run on the Linux-based DroboShare hardware (meaning you won't be able to take advantage of DroboApps with a bare Drobo). Exciting stuff for the storage geeks in the house, especially those looking for some of the extensibility of Microsoft's Windows Home Server platform

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 3rd 2008 1:44PM]

If you need user-level sharing (I'd wager most households don't), hook the Drobo up to a PC and share through that.

I'm not sure what you think RAID has to do with file-level security, either (hint: it doesn't).

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 3rd 2008 2:04PM]

Ahh ... but without being tied to the "Drobo" you get this functionality and a whole lot more using the home server software from http://www.amahi.org

[Fanfoot Posted Jul 3rd 2008 7:54PM]

I've got a Drobo at home and a Drobo for work, and while I think they're great, I won't be going near something like this until its more integrated. The USB interface limits your drive sizes to 2TB (so 4 x 1TB gives you two drives, and you have to manage them). And the USB interface plus the Drobo overhead means its not really that fast. Nowhere near internal drive rates. You'd have expected both an eSATA interface in a v2, and a separate SAN version with Ethernet directly on the box, plus wizards for setup, extensive help for firewall configuration etc (i.e. targeted at the Drobo customer) would be available by now.

As a general purpose box though, that can handle tasks like backup, rsync, torrent downloads, media serving (with format conversions even), the price for this starts to seem like less of a problem. Its then competing against stuff like HP's Home Server ($580 for 500GB on Amazon vs. Drobo+Share at $664).

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 12th 2008 1:33PM]

It maybe nice to see a v2 but it would be even nicer to have the v1 work every day...........

As some know the drobo user forms have been locked, allowing only customers with a valid serial number.

So possible customers cannot see problems with v1.

V1 reliability for several users is dismal. One day you see everything, then data files are not found. The drive shows the correct number of folders/files but will not reflect the content of anything other that the first level folders.

Seems to see those require a robo power off/on cycle.

Add that to the inability to delete files because they are set as read only and it becomes a very unfriendly storage device.