http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/ 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/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 8:32AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 8:38AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 10:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/
iphones aren't "meant" to be jailbroken, but loads of people still do it.

Just because something isn't meant to do something doesn't mean it won't do that thing and do it well.]]>Apr 7th 2009 10:37AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 4:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 8:40AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 8:41AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/]]>Apr 7th 2009 8:42AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 2:14PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 8:45AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 9:02AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 8:45AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Little boxes, spinning useless data,
Little boxes, in the rack mount,
Little boxes, all the same.

There's a black one, and a black one,
And a black one, and yes a black one,
And they're all just spinning useless data,
And they all look just the same.]]>Apr 7th 2009 11:52PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 8:45AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/
RAID (or proprietary sudo-RAID in this case) IS NOT a backup solution. Incremental backups are a backup solution. RAID protects against hardware failure only.]]>Apr 7th 2009 8:50AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/
No one said it was a backup device, no one even said "backup" but ..... if one was to use it as storage to place a backup (eg: a time machine target) then it would be a backup solution... and better than what 99% of homes and small business's do at present.

Repeat after me... stop being so pedantic



]]>Apr 7th 2009 9:04AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/BUILT IN
DROBOSHARE.]]>Apr 7th 2009 8:51AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 11:32AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/
They've obviously got the processing power and technology to build in a droboshare, they'd just like to steal 200 more of your dollars - after you spent $800+ more than a comparable self-built system using freeNAS's multi-level softRAID. the original drobo kind of makes sense in that it makes stuff like this easy for end-users - but the sort of people who use iSCSI and have this many disks are more likely to have an 8-identical-disk RAID 5 array...the Pro seems to be edging too far into a market full of fibre channel and various other technologies.

--neg]]>Apr 7th 2009 11:57AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/
USB 3.0, FireWire S1600 and S3200, and this thing doesn't have eSATA either.

Data Robotics is doing the incremental upgrade thing like Nintendo with their Gameboys. To me, this model is like the Gameboy Color right before the Gameboy Advance. So close, but the next model should really be on top of things.]]>Apr 7th 2009 8:59AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 12:27PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 8:58AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 9:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 9:55AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/
I've got a 4 bay Drobo, and I'm not happy with it.

It's slow, but I can live with that - I wasn't expecting it to be all that performant. But some times it's ridiculous - often it takes so long to respond, applications give up and assume there was a file system error!

Once every week or two, the Drobo just stops responding. I have to physically reboot the device by unplug and replugging it, followed by rebooting the server it's attached to (an old Win2k machine). And even then, the fun isn't done - I then have to physically log into the machine (remoting in via Remote Desktop / Terminal Server isn't enough) so the system can see the Drobo again. A *huge* pain on a what's suppose to be a headless server. And it's a coin toss whether the file shares have to be recreated at this point...]]>Apr 8th 2009 7:28AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/
That is so fricken awesome!

For those on windows check control panel and you'll see MS includes an iSCSI iniator. All you need is a CAT5 cable and a dedicated GIG Nic and you have yourself a interface faster than FW800, and much, much cheaper.

As far as I know this is the first consumer device that features iSCSI.]]>Apr 7th 2009 9:00AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 10:54AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 10:20AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/
I'd like to ask in complete seriousness what one would use this for, until I get some reasonable answers it's being filed in the cool-but-useless-gadget section.]]>Apr 7th 2009 9:05AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 9:16AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/
Expand capacity or replace a failed drive? Plug and play.

As far as uses, a file server for a small office that uses big files (cad, video editing etc...), or a media server for a home theater that wants to keep the 'backup' dvd's as complete files, instead of compressed. Ripping hundreds of DVD's (again) after a drive failure is a pita. ]]>Apr 7th 2009 9:27AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/
Newspapers and magazines... what do they do with all the pictures and video that they take? Throw it away? Nope they keep it. Think about your local newspaper and how many pictures they run each week. Now figure that each of those pictures was part of a one, two, three or maybe four hundred photo series depending on the subject. Depending on the camera thats 2-6GB of data on one shoot. Now think about a operation like the national geographic.

A wedding photographer shoots anywhere from 2000-6000 imgages per wedding. Some wedding photographers shoot with two photographers and shoot two weddings every weekend. They keep all of those photos

What about a production house? A medium sized outfit has to make important "what to keep and what to throw away" decisions all the time. Something like this make those decisions a little easier. Any business has tuns of stuff that needs to be stored and needs to be stored safely.

Its important to remember that this is just an enclosure. When 4TB drives become available, this thing would be able to hold 32TB worth of hard drives. Not everyone needs that but a lot of people do.]]>Apr 7th 2009 9:30AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/
You aren't going to back up files onto non-RAID media, as you don't want a single drive failure to cause loss of backups. I don't need a giant external RAID solution for backups as it isn't cost effective, I only use the "big RAID" for database and web/application/file serving where the performance matters.]]>Apr 7th 2009 11:39AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/


]]>Apr 7th 2009 8:32PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/May 2nd 2009 2:52PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 9:13AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://edge.technet.com/Media/How-to-setup-iSCSI-on-Windows-Server-2008-11-mins/]]>Apr 7th 2009 9:13AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/
It's a clever strategy, to be sure, but I can't see myself paying for this or the 4-bay model because I see behind the curtain. I'm not paying $499-$1299 for software that is nothing more than a dynamic RAID system. Maybe you disagree and *need* it. But I would think that for $1299 you could come up with a NAS and 4TB of storage and money left over for an honest-to-goodness backup system.

Also, the price jump between the 2 models is rick-dick-u-lous. The software is exactly the same, the enclosure has twice as many bays, for nearly TRIPLE the price.

I would love to see them sell this as software only, but then it would probably be pirated on day one.]]>Apr 7th 2009 9:15AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/
--neg]]>Apr 7th 2009 8:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/
I really like the comment about the built in droboshare. that would rule.

Right now, I'm looking at a back up to this "back up". not sure what to get. maybe a Qnap 509.]]>Apr 7th 2009 9:16AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/
Hence, all you people with speed issues. ]]>Apr 7th 2009 9:24AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/
1st gen was great enough for me to to buy second gen. ... but about two months ago, i had a power failure and when it came back online, i lost EVERYTHING. ... it was as if there was nothing on the drives. the drobo didn't do what i paid it to do. (which was backup my computer.)

even though i love the idea. i cannot trust them more than a simple consumer device. i would definitely not pay more for the same technology that is aimed at businesses.

i went to their forum and found that other people have had similar experiences. it's back to a not beyond raid for me.

am still looking for a better, cheaper, more secure system. hopefully one that can fit in my rack! :)]]>Apr 7th 2009 9:25AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 9:57AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/
http://www.lime-technology.com/joomla/

Much cheaper]]>Apr 7th 2009 12:23PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 10:02AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 9:26AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 10:22AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 9:45AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 9:49AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/data-robotics-goes-large-with-8-bay-drobopro/Apr 7th 2009 10:05AM