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Drobo's USB-C drive array is tailor-made for your new PC
You haven't had a whole lot of options for very high-capacity external drives on computers with USB-C ports. How are you supposed to archive the video projects from your MacBook? Drobo wants to help: it's launching the Drobo 5C, a five-bay self-managing drive that, unsurprisingly, plugs into your system's USB-C port. You won't gain a speed advantage over a USB 3.0 box (it averages 250MB per second if your drives are fast enough), but that's not the point. This is about giving you future-proof storage that you can upgrade at any time. As with other Drobos, you just have to swap in a new disk if you're running low on space or encounter a failure. There's no need to shuffle files or configure a RAID array.
Get all the flash storage you could ever want with the new Drobo Mini
If you're a creative type who needs a ridiculous amount of storage, there's a good chance you're already familiar with Drobo storage arrays. With today's launch of the Drobo Mini with SSD, the company is upping the speed of its compact storage offering in a big way, with a price to match it. The new SSD-equipped Drobo Mini boasts a performance increase of up to 80%, according to the company, and comes in three sizes, starting at 1TB. 2TB and 4TB options are also available, and prices come in at US$1,199, $1,799, and $2,999, respectively. For Mac users, a big draw for the new Mini is its dual Thunderbolt ports -- along with one USB 3.0 -- which would seem to make it the perfect companion for something like a new Mac Pro. Of course, if you happen to be a MacBook devotee, the Mini's portable nature would also make it a fine option.
Drobo's venerable 4-bay array gains USB 3.0 speed boost
Drobo's products have come a long way over the years. The company started with a 4-bay BeyondRAID array with a FireWire connection that was sold in one form or another for quite a few years, and has expanded the product line with everything from the mini (with 2.5" drives, Thunderbolt and USB) to the rack-mounted B1200i (12 bays and quad gigabit Ethernet ports). Now Drobo has updated the original 4-bay array (US$349.99) with USB 3.0, so let's see how this box of storage works. Specifications Dimensions: 5 in wide x 6.3 in high x 10.7 in depth (152.4 x 160 x 271.8 mm) Weight: 6 lb, 11.3 oz (3 kg) without hard drives, power supply, or packaging Connectivity: 1 USB 3.0 port Capacity: Up to four 3.5" SATA II/III hard drives. With four 4 TB drives installed, the device has 10.89 TB of available storage space (one drive redundancy). Time Machine compatible, and Drobo Dashboard now allows user to select the size of the Time Machine backup volume so that Apple's OS X backup software doesn't take up all of the available drive capacity. Power Fail Protection: In case of a power failure, all data in memory or cache is protected by being moved to onboard flash, where it resides until power is restored and it can be moved to your disk drives. OS X Compatibility: Requires OS X 10.7 or higher Design Highlights As with the previous incarnations of this drive array, the Drobo 4-bay comes in a solid black box with a magnetically-attached door that covers the drives. There's no need for drive "sleds" -- the drives simply slide right into the slots and lock into place. There are blue LEDs along the bottom of the drive that indicate percentage capacity during startup, as well as a status LED for each drive. Power is supplied by a "brick" with a six-foot cable. Setup is quite easy; I simply inserted the drives into the bays, plugged in the power, and turned on the drive. Once it went through its startup routine, I plugged the USB 3.0 cable into an empty port on a MacBook Pro, where it was recognized quickly by the Drobo Dashboard utility. The drive array was formatted using Disk Utility. So why would you want a Drobo instead of just purchasing a regular drive for backups? Expandability, for one -- you can replace smaller drives with larger ones in the future, just by popping out one of the existing drives and sliding in a new one in its place. RAID arrays also provide redundancy, so if one of your drives fails, your data is still safe. A Drobo array can be set up with dual drive redundancy, meaning that two drives can fail simultaneously and your data is still safe. Setting the array up this way reduces the available capacity quite significantly, though. One final note about design. The Drobo has a large cooling fan inside that is very quiet. If the device is installed on a desk or table near you, you might hear the slight noise of the fan as well as the occasional "rattle" of the drives. I found the sound from the Drobo to be quite acceptable when it was placed under my desk. Benchmarks The Drobo BeyondRAID drives are designed so that you start out "small" with whatever drives you have on hand or can afford, then swap them out with drives of larger capacity as time goes by. The review array was shipped with two 1 TB drives and two 2 TB drives for an out-of-the-box working capacity of 3.63 TB. For the purposes of testing external drives and RAID arrays, we traditionally use the Intech SpeedTools QuickBench 4.0 app to run multiple cycles of read/write tests. The Drobo was directly connected to a MacBook Pro with Retina display using the provided USB 3.0 cable. To ensure accuracy in testing, I performed a 100-cycle complete test. This subjects the drive to sequential and random read and write tests with file sizes from 4K to 100 MB, then graphically or textually displays that information to show the "sweet spots" for a specific drive or array. For example, if your work involves shuffling around a lot of very large files, you'll probably want a drive that has peak read/write speeds for files around your average file size. Here are the test results, compared to a Drobo mini running on USB 3.0 (our full review of the Drobo mini can be found here): Sequential Read: 97.030 MB/Sec (72.593 MB/Sec for Drobo mini via USB 3.0) Sequential Write: 75.976 MB/Sec (112.456 MB/Sec for Drobo mini via USB 3.0) Random Read: 31.969 MB/Sec (62.968 MB/Sec for Drobo mini via USB 3.0) Random Write: 49.505 MB/Sec (70.996 MB/Sec for Drobo mini via USB 3.0) Large Read: 227.036 MB/Sec (220.192 MB/Sec for Drobo mini via USB 3.0) Large Write: 224.274 MB/Sec (242.503 MB/Sec for Drobo mini via USB 3.0) Extended Read: 233.445 MB/Sec (184.446 MB/Sec for Drobo mini via USB 3.0) Extended Write: 207.724 MB/Sec (161.916 MB/Sec for Drobo mini via USB 3.0) With smaller files sizes, the Drobo isn't a speed demon. When looking at larger file sizes, the Drobo is as fast or faster than its little bro the mini when running on USB 3.0. However, compared to a Thunderbolt-equipped RAID array like the CalDigit T3 we tested in March of 2014, the Drobo absolutely crawls. It's not surprising that Drobo didn't add Thunderbolt to the 4-bay -- as the Drobo mini benchmarks demonstrate, adding a faster interface doesn't necessarily give a RAID array faster throughput. Conclusion Drobo's namesake product received USB 3.0 connectivity and a much lower price, making the 4-bay BeyondRAID array a bargain for anyone who wants expandable and redundant storage without spending the nest egg. Those looking for speed for video editing and similar requirements would be better served by faster competitors or others members of the Drobo product line. Drobo's product build quality, ease of setup, and amazing management tool (Drobo Dashboard) definitely make this product a standout despite its relatively slow throughput. Rating: 3-1/2 stars out of 4 stars possible
The 3rd Generation Drobo: Faster and less expensive
Drobo announced the 3rd generation of its 4-bay namesake device yesterday, and by any indication the newest member of the Drobo family should be quite popular. Sporting a pair of USB 3.0 ports, the Drobo 4-bay starts at just US$349 for the bare box that you can then begin filling with any 3.5" SATA II/III drives that you may have. As before, Drobo's BeyondRAID technology allows you to mix-and-match drives so that you can start off with smaller drives and replace them with higher-capacity drives as you can afford them. The company announced a new feature concurrent with the release of the new array: enhanced support for Apple's Time Machine. Previously, if you connected a Drobo array to your favorite Mac and used it for Time Machine backups, those backups would eventually eat up the entire capacity of the array. Now you can set aside part of the total capacity of the Drobo array to work with Time Machine, freeing up the additional capacity for day-to-day storage. The new Drobo also features a redesigned architecture that provides speeds about three times faster than those available with the previous generation and array rebuild times about four times faster than before. The company also added battery backup as icing on the storage cake, giving the new box more protection from power outages by temporarily storing in-progress transactions until the array powers up again. If you're a current Drobo owner and want to migrate to the new device, the company is offering $50 one of the new units bring the price tag to a very affordable $299. Just pull your drives out of the old Drobo and stick 'em in the new unit to take advantage of the enhancements. That deal will be available through June 9, 2014 on sales made through www.drobostore.com and some authorized resellers. The devices will begin to ship in late April, and we expect to have a full TUAW review of the 3rd generation Drobo soon after.
Drobo's new storage box is faster, better at Mac backups
Drobo is kicking off its "biggest year" yet with an update to its eponymous flagship. The Drobo Gen 3 gains super-charged internals and Time Machine support that'll banish your bad memories of trying to use Apple's backup utility on older versions of the hardware. Rather than it eating a whole drive, users can now create a dedicated partition in the admin panel without any complicated tweaking. Pre-orders begin from today to ship at the end of April, with the base model setting you back $350 and running all the way to $1,450 if you want a 16TB unit. Unless, that is, you already own a first-or-second-gen Drobo, in which case you'll get a $50 discount if you order before June 9th.
Drobo 5N: Easy, inexpensive network-attached storage
Over the past few months TUAW has highlighted some of the storage products made by Drobo. First, we took a look at the five-drive Drobo 5D and found it to be a fast and very capable storage device. Next, we had a look at the Drobo mini, which uses four 2.5-inch drives to provide a compact and still speedy solution for those who want expandable redundant storage at a decent price. Today, we'll be looking at a Drobo network-attached storage solution, the Drobo 5N (US$599.99, available online for about $515). Specifications Dimensions: 5.9 x 7.3 x 10.3 inches (150.3 x 185.4 x 262.3 mm) Weight: 8.5 lbs. (3.86 kg) without drives or power supply Power: External AC Adapter, AC Input -- 100-240VAC~2A, 50-60Hz; DC Output -- 12V, 12.5A, 150W max Interface: Gigabit Ethernet (1 port) Capacity: Varies depending on the capacity of drives inserted into the five bays and whether single- or dual-drive redundancy has been enabled. Amazon Buyer Ratings: 3.9 out of 5 stars with 112 reviews RAID capabilities: Uses Drobo proprietary BeyondRaid setup. Can be set up for either single- or double-drive failure redundancy Enclosure Specifics: Not rack-mounted, the Drobo 5N is a self-contained unit Design As we've noted in earlier reviews of Drobo equipment, the company's BeyondRaid technology makes it simple to set up a RAID mass-storage device. Drives don't have to be of the same capacity or even made by the same manufacturer -- instead, you can pop out older, smaller drives when you want and put in newer, faster and larger-capacity drives to keep increasing the capacity of the array. Setting up the device with dual-drive redundancy limits the available capacity of the Drobo 5N, but definitely gives it the ability to withstand multiple drive failures without a hiccup. It's that extra bit of insurance against data loss in those one-in-a-million cases that seem to happen more frequently than that... This unit looks identical to the Drobo 5D with the exception of the back -- where there are multiple interfaces on the rear of the Drobo 5D, here there's just a single Gigabit Ethernet port. You can use that to connect directly to a Mac (that's what I did) or to a wired network. For those situations where you want to share data with others in an office, you'll want to connect it to your fast Ethernet network. Like the Drobo 5D, this unit has an easily accessed slot on the bottom of the device for adding an mSATA SSD for caching purposes. Like the other Drobo family members, the Drobo 5N uses the Drobo Dashboard application to allow configuration and setup of the device. The app recognized the 5N almost immediately, and allowed me to set up shares and users easily -- that's another difference with this NAS device that is not available with the single-user devices. The other big difference with the Drobo 5N is that it can run apps that have been written specifically for the device. Some of those apps include CrashPlan (back up locally and in the cloud), Elephant drive (cloud backup), FireFly open-source media server for iTunes, Modoboa Mailserver, MediaTomb (free UPnP media server), MySQL, Plex media server and Transmission (BitTorrent client). Functionality/Benchmarks Setup of the Drobo 5N was a piece of cake. Without reading the directions (yes, I do have previous experience with Drobo products), I was able to install the three 1 TB, one 2 TB and one 3 TB drives into the carrier-less drive bays, plug it into my Ethernet router and fire it up. The variety of drives used shows you how the Drobo design makes it easy to mix up drive capacities and even manufacturers. The Drobo Dashboard app was already on my MacBook Pro from previous reviews, and it found the array quickly. The Drobo 5N supports CIFS/SMB, but more importantly, it supports Apple Filing Protocol (AFP). For the purposes of testing external drives and RAID arrays, we traditionally use the Intech SpeedTools QuickBench 4.0 app to run multiple cycles of read/write tests. In this case, both the Mac that was running QuickBench (MacBook Pro with Retina display) and the array were connected via Gigabit Ethernet. The MacBook Pro was using an Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet adapter; the Drobo 5N has built-in Gigabit Ethernet; and the two were connected via a Linksys Gigabit Ethernet router. The Drobo 5N did not have the optional mSATA SSD installed for caching, so the benchmark results you see here are on the low end of what the device is capable of doing. To ensure accuracy in testing, I performed a 100-cycle complete test. This subjects the drive to sequential and random read and write tests with file sizes from 4K to 100 MB, then graphically or textually displays that information to show the "sweet spots" for a specific drive or array. For example, if your work involves shuffling around a lot of very large files, you'll probably want a drive that has peak read/write speeds for files around your average file size. Here are the test results: Sequential Read: 48.452 MB/Sec (140.504 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D connected via Thunderbolt) Sequential Write: 12.398 MB/Sec (93.245 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D connected via Thunderbolt) Random Read: 51.344 MB/Sec (116.435 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D connected via Thunderbolt) Random Write: 21.866 MB/Sec (70.410 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D connected via Thunderbolt) Large Read: 109.947 MB/Sec (341.327 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D connected via Thunderbolt) Large Write: 71.205 MB/Sec (282.060 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D connected via Thunderbolt) Extended Read: 107.690 MB/Sec (255.953 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D connected via Thunderbolt) Extended Write: 46.833 MB/Sec (262.864 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D connected via Thunderbolt) As you'll note, the results are slower across the board for the network-attached Drobo 5N than for a Thunderbolt Drobo 5D -- but that's quite expected as these are two different animals. The Drobo 5N is all about sharing data, and in that it excels. The drive can act as a "poor man's server" for small offices, complete with the ability to set permissions and users. Through the use of Drobo Apps, the device can be an email or database server as well. Sure, a Drobo 5N doesn't provide all of the many capabilities of a "real" server, but for a small business, the combination of large, expandable and redundant storage, security and apps could be a relatively low-cost and easily supported solution. I didn't mention some of the other publicly supported Drobo apps, but the ability to run MySQL, PHP and Apache as well could make this an excellent WordPress server for a serious blogger. The bottom line? If you need large, fast storage for one person, then the Thunderbolt-connected Drobo 5D is an excellent solution. But if you want an easy-to-setup, easily supported network-attached storage solution, the Drobo 5N is the device you want to buy. Price-wise, you're looking at a really reasonable solution, too. At Drobo's online prices, a 5N with five 2 TB drives (7.26 TB of usable shared capacity) runs US$1,099. Buy the same device on Amazon at $490 and add five Western Digital 2 TB NAS hard drives for $98.95 each, and you're looking at less than $1,000. Drobo offers a standard two-year warranty for the device, with a 3-year extended warranty and enhanced support available for a fee. Conclusion Drobo's product line has matured, and for the better. We've tested all three of the professional line -- the Drobo Mini, the Drobo 5D and now the network-attached Drobo 5N -- and all of the devices are stoutly built, easy to install and relatively fast. While the Drobo 5N won't break any speed records as an Ethernet-attached device, it's still quite speedy and a very reasonably priced NAS solution. The addition of Drobo Apps adds a level of flexibility that makes the Drobo 5N a no-brainer for small business shared storage. I honestly don't know how any vendor can make network-attached storage more simple to set up or inexpensive to buy than Drobo has with the 5N. Rating: 3-1/2 stars out of 4 stars possible
Drobo Mini rocks storage and speed in a small package
Take the ever-expanding storage capabilities of Drobo BeyondRAID storage, throw in some Thunderbolt, and put it all into a small box and what do you have? Drobo Mini (US$649 MSRP, available for much less online). To pack a lot of RAID-protected storage in a small space, Drobo chose to use 2.5" SATA laptop drives as the standard. There are four bays for drives in the Drobo Mini -- it comes empty, and you add drives of any capacity to fill 'em up. You can mix and match capacities, or even drop 2.5" SATA SSD or hybrid drives into the box for more speed. At this point, those 2.5" drives only come in capacities up to 1 TB, but as capacities increase in the future you'll be able to easily hot swap the "old" drives for more storage. The Drobo Mini won't take up a lot of room on your desktop, unlike its larger siblings. Size-wise, it's 7.3" wide x 1.8 " tall x 7.1" deep (187.2 mm x 44.6 mm x 180.0 mm), and weighs 2.2 lbs (1 kg) without the power supply and drives. As with the Drobo 5D I tested last month, the Drobo Mini comes with a separate slot on the bottom in which an optional mSATA SSD drive can be installed. The company calls it the Accelerator Bay, and the test device came without that drive installed. About the pricing: although the suggested retail price of the Drobo Mini is $649, it was available a few days ago on Amazon for just $318.99. Setup Setup of the Drobo Mini is incredibly simple. If you already have the Drobo Dashboard software installed on your Mac, you simply unpack the drive, remove the front door, slide in your drives, close the door, plug in the Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 cable and power, and then turn it on. After a quick format of the drive array, you're ready to roll. That entire process, including the formatting, took me about four minutes. The four drives I installed were 1 TB WD "Blue" drives. Set up with single disk redundancy (one drive can totally fail and be rebuilt without compromising the array), that provided 2.72 TB of storage with .91 TB used for protection of the array and 4.88 GB taken up for overhead. If I had set that up with dual disk redundancy (two drives can fail, be replaced, and be rebuilt without problems), I would have 1.81 TB of storage, 1.82 TB being used for array protection, and 3.25 GB chewed up for overhead. The device has two Thunderbolt connectors, but can also be used with USB 3.0. Cables are included in the box, so it's literally a plug-and-play storage solution. The two Thunderbolt ports are perfect if you wish to daisy-chain Drobo Minis and add in a couple of monitors. Benchmarks Benchmarking of the Drobo Mini was done with Intech Software's SpeedTools QuickBench 4.0 software. To ensure accuracy in testing, I performed a 100-cycle complete test. This subjects the drive to sequential and random read and write tests with file sizes from 4K to 100 MB, then graphically or textually displays that information to show the "sweet spots" for a specific drive or array. For example, if your work involves shuffling around a lot of very large files, you'll probably want a drive that has peak read/write speeds for files around your average file size. The tests were performed both with Thunderbolt and USB 3.0. Using Thunderbolt, the standard test results (nine different file sizes between 4 KB and 1024 KB) showed average speeds as follows: Sequential Read: 95.734 MB/Sec (140.504 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D) Sequential Write: 92.657 MB/Sec (93.245 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D) Random Read: 86.858 MB/Sec (116.435 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D) Random Write: 63.816 MB/Sec (70.410 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D) For the large test -- transfer sizes between 2 and 10 MB -- the average results were: Large Read: 242.674 MB/Sec (341.327 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D) Large Write: 283.218 MB/Sec (282.060 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D) And for the extended test -- transfer sizes between 20 and 100 MB -- the average results were: Extended Read: 198.521 MB/Sec (255.953 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D) Extended Write 207.001 MB/Sec (262.864 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D) For USB 3.0, the results were Sequential Read: 72.593 MB/Sec (99.533 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D) Sequential Write: 112.456 MB/Sec (111.509 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D) Random Read: 62.968 MB/Sec (94.895 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D) Random Write: 70.996 MB/Sec (80.605 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D) Large Read: 220.192 MB/Sec (217.975 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D) Large Write: 242.503 MB/Sec (219.885 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D) Extended Read: 184.446 MB/Sec (198.243 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D) Extended Write: 161.916 MB/Sec (228.985 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D) These results are all much, much better than what we saw for the first-generation Drobo Pro under FireWire 800. For those tests, there were only two results -- write and read speeds -- and they weren't that good. Write speed was 29.3 MB/Sec, while read speed was 46.0 MB/Sec. The Drobo Mini is much faster than the old Drobo Pro, especially when using a Thunderbolt connection. As you can see, most of the read and write speeds for both Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 are lower than they were for the Drobo 5D. However, the 5D tested had an mSATA drive installed for caching, while the Drobo Mini did not. If you need a really fast drive array, the Drobo 5D is probably more up your alley; if size is a constraint, consider the Mini but be sure to get an mSATA drive to install in the Accelerator Bay. Conclusion The Drobo Mini is a delightful compact update to the creative professional storage solution. It retains the ease of use and setup of the original Drobo products, but brings a surprising amount of speed to the game in a size that won't take over your desk. Stay tuned for our final review of a new Drobo product -- the Drobo 5N NAS array -- in the next week or two. Pros Easy setup and configuration Easily expandable storage; as drive capacities increase, drives can be replaced with higher capacity gear Can be set up for single or double-disk redundancy Drives are hot-swappable Dual Thunderbolt ports for daisy-chaining New, lower pricing Has accelerator bay for adding cache via mSATA SSD Cons May not be fast enough for video professionals Slight fan and drive noise (louder than the Drobo 5D) Who is it for? Anyone with a need for relatively fast, expandable, and reliable mass storage in a small physical footprint
Drobo 5D: Speedy, expandable Thunderbolt storage for professionals
Data Robotics (now Drobo) was the first company to make expandable RAID storage easy, and with the current Drobo line of BeyondRAID devices they've now made the devices faster through the use of Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 connectivity, as well as the Drobo Accelerator Bay's ability to use an mSATA SSD for fast caching. In this TUAW review, I'll take a look at the Drobo 5D (US$664 on Amazon), a five-bay device designed to give creative professionals fast and inexpensive RAID storage. Setup Setup of the device is simple -- I didn't even use the instructions, since from past experience I know that you basically just hook up power, install drives, and connect the device to your Mac. Well, that was fine, but my OS X Mavericks-equipped MacBook Pro did't want to see the Drobo until I re-installed the Drobo Dashboard software a second time. After that minor annoyance, it was time to use the Drobo Dashboard app to format the drive. Drobo provided three 1 TB drives, a 2 TB unit, and a 3 TB drive to fill the bays in the device. The device also contained an mSATA SSD in the Drobo Accelerator Bay (below). Once formatted, the device had 7.27 TB of storage capacity, of which 4.47 TB was available for data. 931.50 GB was set aside for expansion (if I decided to put, for example, three more 3 TB drives in place of the existing 1 TB drives), and 1.88 TB was used for protection. What's great about Drobo's BeyondRAID technology is that it's possible to replace failed drives or hot-swap different drives without fear of data loss. I used to own a Drobo Pro, and found it simple to add drives and replace small capacity drives with larger ones at will. The device not only has Thunderbolt connectors (two), but can also be used with USB 3.0. Cables are included in the box, so it's literally a plug-and-play storage solution. The two Thunderbolt ports are perfect if you wish to daisy-chain Drobo 5Ds and add in a monitor or two... One last comment, although it really doesn't have anything to do with setup -- the new pricing on the Drobo products is a refreshing sign. It will put the expandability and safety of RAID storage into the hands of many more professionals. Benchmarks Benchmarking the Drobo 5D was done with Intech Software's SpeedTools QuickBench 4.0 software. To ensure accuracy in testing, I performed a 100-cycle complete test. This subjects the drive to sequential and random read and write tests with file sizes from 4K to 100 MB, then graphically or textually displays that information to show the "sweet spots" for a specific drive or array. For example, if your work involves shuffling around a lot of very large files, you'll probably want a drive that has peak read/write speeds for files around your average file size. The tests were performed both with Thunderbolt and USB 3.0. Using Thunderbolt, the standard test results (nine different file sizes between 4 KB and 1024 KB) showed average speeds as follows: Sequential Read: 140.504 MB/Sec Sequential Write: 93.245 MB/Sec Random Read: 116.435 MB/Sec Random Write: 70.410 MB/Sec For the large test -- transfer sizes between 2 and 10 MB -- the average results were: Large Read: 341.327 MB/Sec Large Write: 282.060 MB/Sec And for the extended test -- transfer sizes between 20 and 100 MB -- the average results were: Extended Read: 255.953 MB/Sec Extended Write 262.864 MB/Sec For USB 3.0, the results were Sequential Read: 99.533 MB/Sec Sequential Write: 111.509 MB/Sec Random Read: 94.895 MB/Sec Random Write: 80.605 MB/Sec Large Read: 217.975 MB/Sec Large Write: 219.885 MB/Sec Extended Read: 198.243 MB/Sec Extended Write: 228.985 MB/Sec These results are all much, much better than what we saw for the first-generation Drobo Pro under FireWire 800. For those tests, there were only two results -- write and read speeds -- and they weren't that good. Write speed was 29.3 MB/Sec, while read speed was 46.0 MB/Sec. The Drobo 5D is much faster than the old Drobo Pro, especially when using a Thunderbolt connection. It might just be the fast connection, but I'm willing to bet that the addition of the SSD accelerator bay has also provided a boost to performance. Physical Attributes In terms of the physical size and weight of the Drobo 5D, it's barely larger than the original Drobo with four bays. The 5D measures in at 10.3 long x 7.3 high x 5.9 wide, and weighs just 8.5 lbs without drives and power supply. I have to admit that one thing that used to drive me nuts about my original DroboPro was the sound of the device. I could constantly hear the hard drives chattering away. The Drobo 5D appears to be much quieter, as I could barely hear the device even when it was in the middle of read/write testing. Since each bay can be filled with an SSD if you have the money and the inclination, you could really have a silent and fast BeyondRAID array working for you. Conclusion Having used a DroboPro for several years, the new Drobo 5D is a refreshing update to the creative professional storage solution. It retains the ease of use and setup of the original Drobo products, but brings an amazing amount of speed to the game. TUAW will be reviewing some other Drobo products in the near future, including the Drobo 5N NAS network-attached storage product and the Drobo Mini. Pros Easy setup and configuration Easily expandable storage; as drive capacities increase, drives can be replaced with higher capacity gear Can be set up for single or double-disk redundancy Drives are hot-swappable SSD caching provides amazing speeds Dual Thunderbolt ports for daisy-chaining Quiet operation New, lower pricing Cons May not be fast enough for video professionals Who is it for? Anyone with a need for relatively fast, expandable, and reliable storage in vast quantities
Transporter Sync turns your external hard drive into a personal, secure cloud locker
The folks at Connected Data made a splash back in May with Transporter v2.0, and they've just announced their second foray into the wonderful world of cloud storage with the Transporter Sync. Like its slightly larger predecessor, Sync offers Dropbox-like functionality without users having to shackle themselves to costly subscription fees. However, unlike its elder, which has a 2.5-inch drive inside, the Sync lets you use whatever external HDD you like, as long as it's no larger than 4TB and connects via USB. This new Transporter option comes courtesy of consumer feedback: folks wanted to pay less, have more storage and be able to use their existing HDDs in their Transporter network. So, Connected Data set to work, swapping in a new chipset to facilitate connecting drives via USB, lopping off all the extraneous bits formerly needed to mount a drive in the device, and making the necessary firmware tweaks to make it work As its name indicates, this compact storage unit synchronizes with a variety of devices, so you can transition between working on your computer, smartphone or tablet with the aid of the Transporter iOS and Android apps. What makes Transporter, old and new, stand out is an emphasis on privacy, a word that's become all the rage in an increasingly wary consumer market. All of your data is saved locally, and by circumventing the need for a public cloud, the company claims that your precious files are as safe as houses. Sync will be available for $99 in the US or £89 in the UK in the next few weeks.
Plex app now available for Drobo's media-savvy 5N NAS
With its quad-core ARM processor, the Drobo 5N is capable of much more than just storing files, and you can now grab a Plex app to help it live up to that potential. Once installed, it'll turn the NAS into a full blown media server to distribute up to 16TB of protected media to any of your Plex- or DLNA-supported SmartTVs, handheld devices, Mac or PC computers, set top boxes and gaming consoles. Plex said that the Drobo, while not capable of performing real-time video transcoding, will be able to demux multiple video and audio streams and transcode multi-channel audio to stereo AAC in real-time. If you already shelled out $600 for one of the speedy boxes -- on top of the drives to populate it -- the free cost of the app is probably a relief. You can grab it from your Drobo Dashboard.
Connected Data announces Transporter v2.0, focuses on user experience and mobile apps
It's been an exciting couple days for the folks at Connected Data. After entering into a merger agreement with Drobo yesterday, the company's just announced Transporter v2.0 -- the latest software for its cloud-aware NAS. To jog your memory, Transporter is a device that lets you share data online, Dropbox-style, without a subscription fee. It was launched on Kickstarter last year and priced at $199 for the basic hardware (BYO hard drive), $299 for 1TB and $399 for 2TB. Version 2.0 brings major user experience improvements on Mac and PC thanks to better integration with Finder and Windows Explorer, including right-click and drag-and-drop functionality. Users can now easily share links to their files and choose how their folders are synced (locally or remotely). The update includes new mobile apps which provide remote Transporter access and management from any iOS or Android device. Connected Data also made firewall support more robust for users regardless of their network environment. Transporter v2.0 will launch sometime in June -- hit the break for the full PR.
Connected Data to merge with Drobo, bring Transporter features to Drobo products
Connected Data, maker of Transporter, just announced that it's entered into a merger agreement with Drobo. As a refresher, Transporter is a cloud-synced file sharing appliance that provides Dropbox-like functionality without the recurring subscription costs. Drobo's best known for its Ethernet, Thunderbolt, FireWire and USB-based multi-drive storage devices which offer seamless expandability. Presumably we'll start seeing some of Connected Data's file sharing features in upcoming Drobo products. The two companies have 30 days to finalize the merger process and perhaps even come up with a clever new brand -- we vote for DroboPorter ourselves. PR after the break.
Drobo adds Copy cloud syncing and Plex media server apps for 5N owners
Drobo has long had an apps platform to extend the usefulness of its smart drive enclosures, but there's been limits to what it can do in the cloud and mobile spaces. The company is widening that support this week, and it's inaugurating the effort with a pair of apps for the Drobo 5N. For us, the real highlight is Plex support, which turns the 5N into a high-capacity, redundant media server that can boost its storage as the content library gets bigger. The more pragmatic among us will like Barracuda Networks' Copy, which offers unlimited file syncing and sharing that will seem familiar to Dropbox aficionados. Copy is already available for free, while Plex should also be gratis when it's ready in April -- the only real hurdle will be justifying $600-plus for a living room video hub. [Thanks, Jack]
Drobo's new 5N is a speedy $600 NAS for when you need files, stat
Tragically, we only learned about Drobo's new 5N after we'd hired a warehouse the size of an aircraft hanger to store our latest, 12 million page novel. If you want to avoid our mistake, then the company's latest NAS might end your own storage woes. The new hardware is part of the same family as the 5D and Drobo Mini, except this one ditches the Thunderbolt connection in favor of a single gigabit-ethernet port. Inside, there's space for five 3.5-inch drives, giving you a maximum capacity of 20TB. An mSATA slot for an SSD drive will let you make use of Drobo's "data-aware tiering" feature, which gives applications like Adobe Lightroom and iTunes faster access to your NAS-stored files. The base model will set you back $600 and will be available in "mid December," which we impatiently hope is a euphemism for "tomorrow."
Ask Engadget: What's the best way to store my media collection?
We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, then here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is from Michael, who is suffering from a storage crunch. If you're looking to ask one of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com. "I'm a bargain-basement kinda guy, and I've picked up lots of DVDs cheaply during the sale season(s). I was planning to rip my collection with Handbrake so I could watch them on my iPad, but my 1TB HDD is already close to being maxed out! Is there a better solution out there than just buying a 2TB HDD now, waiting a year and buying a 3TB HDD when the prices come down? Is there a cheap RAID-style system that plays nicely with my iTunes? Please help!" You can pick up a standalone 3TB external HDD for between $150 and $200, Or you could take the leap and set up an iTunes home server, perhaps using the cheapest Synology DiskStation, which is $200 plus the cost of the drives. That way you can get a 4TB iTunes server for just under $400. You could also snag a Drobo that'll give you the same storage options with significantly increased expandability, up to 16TB in the future. That said, perhaps our friendly readers know a way to tame this man's ever growing media collection, so if you've already set up your own system, why not share your knowledge in the comments below?
Thunderbolt-equipped Drobo 5D and Drobo Mini storage devices now up for pre-order
Hankering for a Drobo with Thunderbolt? They're here... almost. Starting today, consumers far and wide can place their pre-orders for the Drobo 5D and the Drobo Mini. As a refresher, the former is a BYOD desktop solution with a pair of T-bolt ports and a lone USB 3.0 connector; just bring up to five 3.5-inch HDDs, and your RAID adventures are cleared to begin. The latter is a bantam option that promises the "power and flexibility" of the 5D, but in a miniaturized package that works with the 2.5-inch drives that typically find themselves within laptops. The 5D is listed at $849, while the Mini comes in at $649, and you can find the entire list of authorized partners in Drobo's blog post below.
Drobo announces Thunderbolt-enabled storage devices
Drobo has been manufacturing easy-to-use BeyondRAID arrays for quite a few years, but one common complaint of users has been that the devices have been relatively slow in comparison with traditional arrays. Today the company is introducing the US$799 (empty) Drobo 5D with Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 ports to provide performance-hungry users with fast, reliable and expandable storage. The new Drobo isn't available for purchase yet, but the company is letting potential buyers add their names to a notification list. The 5D has five drive bays and some new features that should keep users excited. First, the drive has dual Thunderbolt ports so that it can be daisy-chained with up to five other Drobo 5D arrays -- that's up to 96 TB of storage. The new device also has a Drobo Accelerator Bay that allows the user to add an optional mSATA SSD to accelerate the performance of the storage array. Of course, each drive bay in the device can also be filled with SSDs for maximum performance. Drobo has also built in a new battery that protects data on the way to the drive. In case of a power failure, the battery allows the data to be written to non-volatile storage where it's safe until the power is back on. The company has also added a tuned variable-speed cooling fan to make the Drobo 5D quieter than previous models. The company also announced the new $599 (empty) Drobo Mini, which takes up to four 2.5" drives. This new device makes carrying up to 3 TB of protected storage a snap, perfect for road warriors with a need for storage. The Drobo Mini also uses Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 ports, and includes the other new features of the Drobo 5D. Both drives are scheduled to ship in mid-summer.
Drobo debuts a duo of Thunderbolt drives: the 5D for desktops and the Mini for road warriors
Drobo's been delivering quality desktop storage for businesses and prosumers for awhile now, but previously, the company hadn't dipped its toe into Thunderbolt waters. But that's about to change with its two new units. The 5D is a BYOD desktop offering with two Thunderbolt ports and one USB 3.0 socket for connecting up to five hot-swappable, 3.5-inch drives to your Mac or PC. It also has an mSATA SSD for data-caching quickness and a variable-speed fan to keep things cool and quiet. We don't know exactly when the 5D will go on sale -- Drobo's not telling until July -- but it'll cost under $850 when it does, and that price includes a Thunderbolt cable.%Gallery-158786% Meanwhile, the Mini is the first Drobo meant to be taken on the road. It packs up to four 2.5-inch drives in its front bays, plus, like the 5D, there's an mSATA SSD nestled in its underside that serves as a caching tier to speed up your main storage -- all in a 7.3 x 1.8 x 7.1-inch package weighing three pounds when fully loaded. All the drives are hot-swappable, a process made simple and easy with a trick, spring-loaded mechanism (patent pending) that lets users swap drives as they would SD cards. As for connecting the thing to your computer, dual Thunderbolt ports (for daisy chaining) and one USB 3.0 port reside round back along with the power plug and two vents for the Mini's variable-speed fans. Ringing the front face of the Mini are five LED strips that serve as drive indicators and capacity meter to let you know when a drive has failed or you're running out of space. Intrigued? Well, we got a sneak peek at the Mini and a little history lesson about its origins at Drobo HQ, so join us past the break for more.
Pogoplug lets Drobo into its Cloud, offers 10GB of 'public' storage to sweeten the deal
Do you use a Drobo for your RAID storage needs? Wish you could access that data from wherever your travels take you? Well then, wish no more! Today the company has a announced a partnership with Pogoplug aimed at getting your Drobo hooked up to the cloud. So long as you've got an internet connection, you'll now be able to use Pogoplug software to privately access your data and multimedia from wherever you may be. Better yet, Cloud Engines is also throwing in 10GB of free off-site storage on its recently minted -- and Dropbox-like -- Pogoplug Cloud service. Curious for info on getting started? You'll find details in the press release after the break along with a cringe-inducing "demo" video reminiscent of The Office to further explain it all.
Deals hot off the grill: Memorial Day sales roundup
This weekend is the unofficial start of summer in the Northern Hemisphere and as to be expected, there are many deals to be had. We'll be updating this list throughout the weekend as news of more sales emerge, so be sure to check back between your BBQs! • Aspyr is offering $10 off some of their most popular Mac games over the holiday weekend. From the Mac App Store the games include Star Wars: Empire at War, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and Civilization IV. Aspyr is also offering many other games for sale at its GameAgent website. • The MacGameStore is offering Sally's Spa for free over the weekend. • iPhone battery pack maker Mophie is offering up to 60% off select items plus free shipping on orders greater than US$100. • Griffin is offering 25% off almost everything in their store with the exception of Col. Littleton products and GriffinDeal products. Use code "MEMORIAL12" in their store. • Drobo is offering dramatically lowered prices on their most popular Drobo simplified RAID arrays. Use the code "DOUBLEDROBO" in the Drobo store to get the following prices on these Drobo products: Drobo (4-bay USB / Firewire): $298, Drobo FS (5-bay Gigabit Ethernet File Sharing): $598, Drobo S (5-bay eSATA / USB / Firewire): $698, Drobo Pro (8-bay iSCSI / USB / Firewire): $1398.
