{"id":12551,"date":"2007-11-12T12:04:45","date_gmt":"2007-11-12T12:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.adobe.com\/jnackdev\/2007\/11\/drobo-storage-a-go-go.html"},"modified":"2007-11-12T12:04:45","modified_gmt":"2007-11-12T12:04:45","slug":"drobo_storage_a_go_go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/12\/drobo_storage_a_go_go\/","title":{"rendered":"Drobo: Storage a-Go-Go"},"content":{"rendered":"

"Every once in a while," enthuses my fellow Photoshop PM Bryan O’Neil Hughes, "a piece of hardware comes along that is truly a must-have; within days of using it, you suddenly wonder what you ever did without it.  I can’t imagine not having a TiVo, an iPod or a Web-enabled cell phone\u2026and now I can add my Drobo<\/a> to that list as well."  I’ve included the rest of Bryan’s review as a guest posting in this post’s extended entry<\/a>. –J.
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So what is this thing I’m carrying on about?  Drobo (see demo<\/a>) is a small (size of a shoe box) USB 2.0 device that gives the user a place to store all of their files safely<\/u><\/strong>.  I know what you’re thinking: that’s called an external hard drive or a RAID<\/a> (Redundant Array of Independent Drives).  The Drobo is different. Understanding that all drives eventually fail and that a RAID solves that problem, but at the cost of added complexity and price, Data Robotics has provided a solution that is simple, powerful and yet inexpensive ($499 for the box; you add the drives).<\/p>\n

Like a lot of people, I’ve found myself with several thousand digital photos and a series of old computers \u2013 all holding precious data.  Up until recently, my back-up system consisted of a very large, single external drive.  As I’ve learned, placing all of my files in one location with no thought to fragmentation, corruption or drive failure is not a great idea.<\/p>\n

Thanks to David Herington at Data Robotics, I’ve been enjoying my Drobo since I lifted it from the box (a very Mac-like experience) .  The Drobo houses all of the smarts to move your data between up to four drives (you provide whichever brand, size and speed of SATA drives you like), all of which are controlled by a very straightforward dashboard application.  In my case, it has been as easy as making one master folder from each of my old machines and dragging that onto the Drobo (the 3 SATAs I have installed appear as one volume on my desktop).  Drobo swaps redundant versions of my data amongst drives, all the while watching out for trouble and keeping me informed with a clear system of lights; in other words, once I drag my files onto Drobo, I get to rest easy.<\/p>\n

Useful links: <\/p>\n