DroboApps go live, they grow up so fast

Data Robotics launched the Drobo dev program in beta back in July, and it looks like things have worked out swimmingly -- the company just officially launched the first set of DroboApps, including an iTunes server, DLNA server, BitTorrent client, and FTP server. Over 100 developers have joined the Drobo Developer Connection, and there are more than 20 apps available now -- a number Data Robotics expects to grow quickly. You'll need a DroboShare NAS adapter to take advantage of the new apps, of course -- a $199 toll we'd like to see integrated into a future unit. We'll see how it goes, though -- we see a lot of potential in this sort of NAS / server hybrid.

[tservo24 @ Oct 21st 2008 2:56PM]

Awesome. I have the Firefly iTunes music server up and running on my DroboShare with 455GB of music and it's working really well. I had downloaded some of these apps from the Drobo Developer Community at www.drobospace.com/ddc a couple of weeks ago and they work well. The Time Tamer app is also sweet even if you don't own a Drobo or DroboShare for limiting how much space Time Machine uses on your external hard drive. I am glad to see they now have it all featured on drobo.com/droboapps

I really hope someone does AFP next.

[freebsdgirl @ Oct 21st 2008 4:53PM]

You're welcome. ;)

[DrJimmy @ Oct 21st 2008 2:59PM]

I'm confused, what exactly does this do, and what is it for?

[mattszafir @ Oct 21st 2008 3:09PM]

this thing is pretty hawt. It makes the Drobo which is a DAS into a NAS (which it should have included anyways and I suspect future models will have this functionality built in).

[fuma @ Oct 21st 2008 3:01PM]

still not down with having a "layer" on top of a proprietary format. Sorry Droblow.

[Microdot @ Oct 21st 2008 4:33PM]

what he said ^

i still havent understood what all the hype is about on these things. they are HORRIBLY overpriced, and featureless. all of the "wonderful new apps" that are spoken about here, are all things ive had for the last 3 years on my qnap nas.... which is open source (runs nix), and less than half the price. (the ts-201 that i have sells for $299). they update the kernel and packages regularly (about once a month or so).

[FatherStorm @ Oct 21st 2008 7:24PM]

all the apps are nice and all. what makes Drobo the must-have is that there's absolutely no loss of access while recovering a bad disk. When you're doing anything mission or time critical, is when a drive is guaranteed to go bad. Just ask Murphy. I've had it happen when a client was at my house doing as we worked on his album cover. I never lost a moment. That's the value.

[Iain MacLeod @ Oct 21st 2008 3:14PM]

Why would you pay all this money when you can use FreeNAS. It has a UPNP media server, a DAAP server, a Webserve, Bittorrent client and much more.... it's free and open-source!

http://freenas.org/

[TheClassic @ Oct 21st 2008 4:06PM]

What I like so much about Drobo is that the ease of using "RAID 5" (note the quotes). The price is almost worth my time and pain in the ass when it comes to setup, replacing, and adding drives. I'd love to see a larger version that allows more drives (6 or 8) at essentially the same price. Better yet, I'd love to have an open source equivalent to Drobo. I'm not aware of anything that allows mismatched drives and the easy upgradability of Drobo, but if I'm wrong please correct me.

[Apreche @ Oct 21st 2008 3:15PM]

The only thing that keeps me from buying a drobo is that is isn't a NAS. Network cards cost $5 at retail. How can they charge $200 for one that happens to work with their device? It's ludicrous. Put a CAT5 hole on that drobo, and an eSATA for emergencies, at no significant extra cost and I'll buy one tomorrow.

The apps are exciting, though. How cool would it be for the Drobo to also do DHCP and DNS? Also, with the price of 1TB drives these days, it's pretty insane.

[tservo24 @ Oct 21st 2008 3:20PM]

Dr. Jimmy,
This is for Drobo, which is an external storage device that you can directly attach to your computer or put on the network. Engadget has had stories about Drobo before which is where I first saw it. These new apps (finally!) allow you to do all the fun NAS things like iTunes server and BitTorrent...which I've been waiting forever for. I am totally psyched about this. Drobo is really popular with semi-pro and professional photographers and videographers. I take a lot of photos and that's why I need two Drobos. I also rip all my DVDs to digital and need somewhere to store and serve them from in my home.

fuma,
Check your facts...All RAID 5 systems have a proprietary element. See what happens when you take a RAID 5 disk pack out of your LaCie and put it in your Buffalo Terastation...umm...not gonna work and you may lose all our data. Drobo is no more or less proprietary. I checked into this a lot before I bought the two that I own. I even called Drive Savers before I bought mine and asked them if they could recover data off of it in the event of a fire, flood, earthquake etc. and they said it was no different for recovery than any other RAID 5. So it really is no more proprietary than any RAID 5 system...

I love the two that I've got and really have no complaints. I run Time Machine direct attached with one Drobo using the Time Tamer application which limits it to 400GB of space and I use the the other Drobo on a DroboShare with Firefly iTunes Media server and FUPPES UPNP / DLNA server and also sync my music and photos to it using Super Duper! It's actually a sweet setup since I have 1.7 TB of data. Not sure anything could beat it. My first generation USB 2.0 Drobo was a bit too noisy for my liking, but the new second-generation Drobo with FireWire 800 is much faster especially for Aperture and it is totally quiet, pretty much 100% silent.

[Nick @ Oct 21st 2008 3:33PM]

I didn't realize they had finally added Firewire. I had blown it off due to USB, but now I will definitely take another look as it will be more viable for storing edited video.

[Fanfoot @ Oct 21st 2008 9:21PM]

Interesting how they are adding firewire just as Apple, the maker who pushed it into public consciousness, is abandoning it on its latest Macbooks...

They should have done eSata...

[simplisticton @ Oct 22nd 2008 3:49PM]

Better check with Data Robotics about DriveSavers' claim that they could restore your Drobo in the event of a fire, because the algorithm the Drobo uses is *not* just like "any other RAID 5". It's not RAID 5 at all. I wouldn't go so far as to say the Drive Savers rep lied or didn't know what he was talking about, but... he lied or didn't know what he was talking about!

[grunthlox @ Oct 21st 2008 4:02PM]

drobo *is* more proprietary, in many ways, but for the most important reason that it isn't actually raid at all. raid properly requires an array of same-sized disks; it's simple n-1 math for sizing, unlike the drobo secret formula, and the striping is uniform.

Not that the drobo isn't cool... but it's definitely its own format.

but for my money anyway, qnap does all this stuff and more, very competitively, and very reliably.

[KyleK @ Oct 21st 2008 4:11PM]

I've been using my DNS-323 as Bittorrent machine and web server for about a year now, works flawless and I wouldn't know what to do without the little energy-saving server thingie.
That said, I like the main feature of the Drobo where you switch drives however you see fit. If it would be a real NAS (with integrated Gbit) I'd consider buying one.

Let's hope such a version comes out sooner rather than later.

[freebsdgirl @ Oct 21st 2008 4:21PM]

I got my Drobo about 5 months ago. One of the reasons I got it was for the hacking possibilities. It's running busybox linux on an ARM chipset, and one of the first things I did was port ftp/nfs/firefly/bash/rsync and a few other things I haven't yet posted to DroboApps.

Yes, there are other NAS devices that offer firefly functionality. Maybe they even offer NFS. But I got this because I enjoy hacking at stuff - and because the guys at Data Robotics are awesome. I sent them an email asking them a few technical questions (and a bug or two that I found), and a few days later they had invited me to their office where I got to sit down with their engineers and pick their brains. These guys are incredible, and there is *no* NAS I would recommend over a Drobo. I would headhunt these guys for the company that I work for, but I love Drobo too much to take their talented engineers away from a product that is so incredible. I can't wait to see what their 3rd version looks like. They recently sent out a survey to Drobo owners asking us what we'd like to see in the next gen, and based on the questions they asked, I'm really excited to see where they take this.

Also, the ability to SSH into your NAS? Winnar.

[b @ Oct 21st 2008 4:31PM]

You guys should look into thecus.

[MikeK @ Oct 21st 2008 6:22PM]

It's too bad that Drobo's first outing (the USB-only model) had such poor performance. I bought one, thinking that it was a great idea. But I can't reliably stream music from it (connected to a computer) while also writing backup data to it. That's pretty pathetic. Even more pathetic is the quality of their customer support, with 2-week reply times common. Then, they came out with a faster model 8 months after I bought mine, but offered neither a trade-up program, nor even a return policy that would allow me to try it and return it if the performance still wasn't there.

I think they have a good idea, but given the way they've treated me as an early customer, I won't be buying again.

[tservo24 @ Oct 21st 2008 7:16PM]

Eight months? Ha. Let me try returning or trading-in my just two month old MacBook Pro and see if Apple will offer a full return or trade-up program for the newer generation faster one. I mean really...let's be realistic. That's just not how technology works.

QNAP and Thecus are both pretty sweet. I agree with freebsdgirl. The reason I dig my Drobo is that it is easy to use and especially because I can start with just two or three drives and pop in a new drive at any time to expand the array. I can also mix and match drive sizes which allows me to save money by reusing old drives in my extra Drobo. For photographers like me this is great. I don't think the Drobo is that expensive either...it's a helluva a lot cheaper than a ReadyNAS...seriously cheaper and at least you can direct or network attach a Drobo and DroboShare.

I just thought of a good idea...someone should port CUPS for DroboShare so I can also use it as a print serve. That would make my day.

[John @ Oct 21st 2008 8:48PM]

I looked at Drobo and decided on CS-407 from Synology.com much better nas box, with network and many of the "drobo" apps built in from the start.

[Charles @ Oct 22nd 2008 9:17PM]

There's a couple things folks should know before giving Drobo money.

They have still not been able to figure out how to make Drobo use FireWire 800 on Windows, even though I spent upwards of 15 hours working through BSODs and several FireWire interfaces to help their support folks make it work. (FWIW, USB works well, and FireWire 400 works okay except for the disk checks it forces every time you reboot.) Based on how Mac-biased they appear to be, I assume they have little to no ability to help Linux users either.

Also telling is that their support forums are private until you buy a Drobo, and only then can you see the problems (and apparent lack of support) people are experiencing with their product.

[viktor @ Oct 29th 2008 5:36PM]

woow! 20 applications with 100 developers? that is amazing!!!!
You must be kidding me , rigth?