Product Description As rich media (photos, video, movies, music) continues to devour your storage capacity, you need a solution that allows you to easily manage, protect, and scale storage for your PC or Mac. For you, we've created Drobo, the first fully automated storage robot to take the pain out of keeping your important digital content safe. This Data Robotics DR04DD10 Drobo enclosure accepts up to 4 internal storage SATA hard-drives (drives are not included) that you set up as an array for both primary and backup storage. Add Drobo, get 4 drives and download at will. Unit Dimensions - Width 6.3 Inch x Depth 10.7 Inch x Height 6.3 Inch Storage Controller Type - Serial ATA (SATA) Includes Power adapter Voltage Required 100-240V AC, 50/60 Hz Data Robotics - 1 Year Limited Warranty Hard Drive Type used - Internal Drobo utilizes a revolutionary storage technology that makes it simple for anyone to use, yet is powerful enough for business. Once you experience the power of Drobo, the idea of keeping multiple external drives or a RAID 5 array will seem as antiquated as that 28.8Kbps modem in the back of your closet Windows, Mac, Linux - Drobo works with all three major operating system platforms and their native file systems Drobo allows you to purchase as much or as little storage as you like up front. Since you can expand at any time, Drobo is the right solution for your budget
Performs as advertised, but not quietOctober 9, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I own both 1st and 2nd gen drobos, so I can do direct A-B comparisons. Note that I've set up both models with the identical hard drives: 3x 1TB WD green 5400rpm. These hard drives are ideal for the drobo: They are plenty fast enough, but spin at 5400 rpm and so are quieter, consume less power, and produce less heat than typical 7200 rpm drives. (Putting 7200 rpm drives in a drobo is pointless.)
The drobo has so far done everything it is supposed to do. I've even yanked out a drive when it's turn on to test the raid rebuild. It rebuilt fine, and I lost no data. The rebuilt on a 2TB volume took almost 1 day, but it did work.
Apart from the slow speed of USB and even Firewire compared to in internal raid array (which is something a lot of people complain about unfairly, since it is not data robotics' fault!), I have just one complaint: The device is loud. Don't believe their marketing materials that say that the 2nd gen drobo is quieter and cooler than the 1st gen. They don't provide any dB measurements, or anything quantitative. I can tell you, qualitatively, that both 1st and 2nd gen drobos are quite loud. The appear to use the same crappy fan, which is probably the culprit. When the fan is off, even with all drives working, the device is silent (those wonderful WD green drives are soooo quiet). But as soon as the fan turns on, the fan noise is annoying. I may be forced to void my warrantee by spending $20 on a proper fan. Whey didn't they fix this problem in the 2nd gen model? It seems like a big mistake to me.
If you aren't putting this device in a quiet room, then I have only positive things to say (so far!). If you're putting it in a quiet room, then it'll probably work but will probably annoy you a bit. I don't think there's a better alternative product out there, though, so I give 4/5 stars.
To Data Robotics: Please, please, please put in a good quality fan. And never turn the fan off: Run it at 1000 RPM at all times, and ramp up the RPM with the temperature. It's such a simple thing to fix!
No ComplaintsOctober 7, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Easy setup. Silent. Fast. I bought mine with four 500gb hd's to use as a media server. It makes watching movies streamed to my 360's and numerous macs a breeze. I have nothing bad to say about it so it deserves the five stars in my opinion. I read about cheaper alternatives but the all had drawbacks. This "just works!"
Disappointed with DRISeptember 30, 2008 1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Having done a ton of research before purchasing a RAID system, I felt pretty confident when my FW800 Drobo turned up with four 1TB disks from the Drobo Store a week ago. Everything worked as expected, I knew that I would lose disk space for the RAID requirement, so that didn't bother me and I transferred all my data across from my iMac and external HDD...nice and secure. Itunes library, video's, RAW files, the works...streaming to Apple TV no problem.
And then the dreaded 1.2.4 firmware update that happened on Friday. Once installed, my Drobo has been constantly rebooting and the dashboard software doesn't recognise it...consequently I've been without my data for five days now (as DRI do not offer support over the weekend) and it appears, according to their technical support call service who finally answered my call last night after waiting for nearly an hour, are not likely to resolve my problem under a week due to the increased volume of calls as a result of the firmware update.
So, I've really no way of knowing how good this product is, as I've only had it up and running for a few days and then it failed on me. I hope my data is okay and intact, but who knows until DRI can get the thing working again. Bottom line is that their technical support is deficient and if you want reliable access to your data, then my recommendation would be to purchase an additional RAID array for RAID0 backup of the Drobo, this would allow you not to lose data if your Drobo goes down, would allow fast rebuilds of the Drobo if a drive did fail, and would allow you to swap out disk sets for off-site storage for additional protection. I actually think DRI recommend this approach anyway, but the need has been hastened by failure of their product.
Seriously thinking of returning it and getting two RAID0 arrays and use Mac Disk Utility to manage the RAID...none proprietary and redundant. The Drobo has the makings of a great product, but seriously needs to be better supported by their technical support group, including better testing of their firmware updates and faster resolution of technical issues, especially those created by DRI in the first place.
I will update my review once I have my Drobo back online and hopefully can increase the score.
Safe and sound at lastSeptember 30, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought the Drobo as a primary storage solution for my iMac. All of my data (iTunes library, iPhoto library and EyeTV library), which totaled close to 700gb worth of data were stored on a single 1TB external hard disk. My data was only on a single disk and if that disk failed I would be losing data that has taken years to accumulate, not to mention photos that could never be replaced.
Once the Drobo arrived, I put in two 750gb disks plugged it in via Firewire 800 on my iMac and copied over all of my data from that external disk. There's no setup and it worked like any other disk, except now my data is stored safely on two disks.
I then took apart my 1TB external disk which was a SATA drive and put it in the Drobo and expanded my space even further and now my data is spanning 3 disks.
So I have gone from data being stored on a single disk to three disks and I can expand that disk space by simply adding another drive. My data is safe and I no longer have to worry about it. Not only that but it took no time at all to migrate my data opposed to setting up a RAID array and spending the time to build a custom setup. Drobo has a small footprint on my desk and I can see how much free space I have at a glance. It's a beautiful piece of technology and if you're at all serious about your data, the Drobo could easily be the best investment you make for it.
Unreliable product sold by not trustworthy people - think twice before you buy!September 28, 2008 0 out of 3 found this review helpful
I've reviewed it a while back, but now I have to revise my original rating and review. I strongly advice you to think twice, before you make your purchase, as I am now sitting in the mess of trying to recover my data! The company making Drobo refused to offer any support.
[Latest update 09/27/2008] DROBO CRASHED AND I LOST MY DATA!
They lied about Linux support on their web site. Someone got Linux working with this device, and they started putting up Linux "Support" on their product web site. The truth is: THEY DO NOT SUPPORT LINUX AND REFUSE TO PROVIDE SUPPORT FOR PROBLEMS.
The worse thing is that they don't provide support for Linux. I am extremely disappointed because they advertise Linux support on their web site, but when problems appear, they shied away and told me they don't "officially" support Linux. They sent me to their "community" web site filled with advertisement, where I finally learned the Linux support is "experimental" at the moment. Now I am on my own.
I felt I was cheated. They are not trustworthy. Now they don't even want to take that thing back! So my advice - think twice before you buy this product, I would not trust what they put up on their web site.
[Original review] This is an interesting product, which is really easy to use. I have not got a chance to try out the recovery feature, but from what I've read so far, I would expect it to work as advertised. I've considered building a RAID 5 array myself, but with the amount of work involved, I have always hesitated. This product solved this problem, although the downside is the price tag and being dependent on their proprietary data format. I guess if my Drobo fails, I'd have to buy another one immediately.
I got the USB version, so far I am getting around 10-20MB/sec throughput. It's quite low, but good enough for my purpose as mass storage primarily.
Another issue I have had was with the fan, when it on it's quite noisy. This happens after I've accessed the drobo for a while. I've not observed a lot of heat even when the disk has been active for a while. Another nice thing is that the disk goes to standby after being idle for a while, so this is good for the disks' lifespan.
The spin up time I've seen is around 10-20sec, I guess it's also dependent on the disks I am using.
Overall, this is a useful product that suites my needs. For me, the downsides are the price tag and the fan noise. 4-star is the best I could think of for now.
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