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Hands On: Data Robotics Drobo FS NAS

By on August 23, 2010 in Network Attached Storage, Network Attached Storage Reviews, News, Reviews

Data ROBOtics = Drobo = Storage.  Since coming on the market in June of 2007, Data Robotics has made a name for themselves in the storage arena.  First in Direct Attached Storage (DAS) units, and onto Network Attached Storage (NAS) units and iSCSI devices.

d1 thumb Hands On: Data Robotics Drobo FS NAS

Today, I get to take a look at the Drobo FS,

d2 thumb Hands On: Data Robotics Drobo FS NAS

which is a 5-bay NAS device.  In the case of the Drobo FS, Data Robotics defines N.A.S. literally: Network Attached Storage.  Why do I say that?  Well, before I go into that and the rest of product review, I like to take this opportunity to give you an idea of who a company is, so this is

Data Robotics

About Data Robotics, Inc.

Data Robotics, the company that is changing the way the world stores digital content, develops automated storage products designed to ensure data is always protected, accessible and simple to manage. The award-winning Drobo® storage arrays are the first to provide the protection of traditional RAID without the complexity. Data Robotics revolutionary BeyondRAID technology frees users from making the difficult and confining choice of “Which RAID level to deploy?” by providing an unprecedented combination of advanced features and automation, including single and dual disk redundancy, instant expansion, self-monitoring, data awareness, self-healing and an easy-to-understand visual status and alert panel.

Since the launch of the first Drobo array in June 2007, the product family has received critical acclaim from leading industry publications, technology executives, noted bloggers, analysts and digital media enthusiasts. Drobo has received over thirty prestigious awards, including Editors’ Choice awards from PC Magazine and Macworld, among others. Data Robotics, Inc. received Gartner’s “Cool Vendor in Storage, 2008” Award and Fast Company’s, “Fast 50 Reader Favorite Award” in 2008.

Data Robotics is privately held and headquartered in Santa Clara, California. Company Web site: http://www.datarobotics.com.

   

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About Jim Clark

Hello. I’m from the heartland of the U.S. Lots of corn and beans, although Iowa is a lot more than just farmland. It also has a few computer enthusiasts (no, not me!). I’ve been around PCs since I got my 1st PC XT aloooong time ago. WGS is one of the first sites I found centered around WHS. And the best. Every once in awhile, I do get away from the KB and enjoy time with and my wife and our 4 kids. And I do have a day job.
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  • boggy4062

    As much money Microsoft dumps on different acquisitions, I have never understood, why not on Drobo technology (specially, after the WHS launch). Drobo used to be USB 2.0, and finally they got other interfaces. The performance still does not thrill. Microsoft would have enough money and resources to tweak that part.
    What a shame…Just my 2 cents.

    • Jim_Clark

      I sure do not disagree about WHS/Drobo… :)

      • boggy4062

        Couple of thoughts on Data Robotics. There was a time that they were much more open. One could get access to their user forum, to get a feeling how the product REALLY works from the real users.

        Today?…. No such thing. Forums have disappeared from the company website, only glitzy knowledgebase and FAQ's. This doesn't pass my smell test…. if you know what I mean. The company has changed and is hiding something from potential new customers (product problems, customer support level problems,etc.)… as far as I can tell.

        Reputable companies usually are not afraid to show what real day-to-day customers think about their products. Why Data Robotics follow the industry standard?

        Not good. I am waiting for WHS v. 2 and will probably replace my old HP ex475.

  • http://www.RandomnessPhotography.com Dustin Finn

    Mr. Boggy certainly has a point and its something that has been bothering me severely. I have had so many issues with my 2 Drobo's that my complaints about Drobo on Twitter got me blocked from their Twitter account. It's really weird all the changes that have happened over there and as soon as I can get rid of my drobo's I am DONE with them.

  • Carl

    It's not all black and white, you know.

    The whole Droboshare business was their big mistake. A premature product that led to many mac-using customers losing data. And, as a consequence, closing of the forum (which of course still exists but is limited to Drobo owners). However, since then Data Robotics seem to have found the right track again, product-wise. The Drobo S and Drobo FS are great products, the FS is a vast improvement over Droboshare.

    • boggy4062

      Carl: I will assume you are responding to my criticism of Drobo, so… you are wrong. It IS very black and white in this case.
      I do care how, and if a company is trying to deal with criticism. It is actually a norm for a good, honest company to disclose to a potential new customers of any limitations, problems. Once they get your money, what is the incentive to behave? Creating a website with a "I hatedrobo.com" or "drobosucks.com"?

    • boggy4062

      … continued:

      Guess what? Data Robotics must be aware of their customers' general dissatisfaction level…. They already OWN drobosucks.com.xD… Don't y you see a problem with it? I certainly do.

      BTW, very foolish approach in the age of Internet, blogs, twitter,etc. They can block you from their twitter account, but … can they stop you from twitting all day long about sucky Drobo / Data Robotics experience? Can they stop you commenting on every relevant website or blog? Yeah …. sure…:wink::wink: ;)
      I am not mean person, but one could start a domain list of possible variations, which reflect a general displeasure of this product….Will Data Robotics buy out EVERY one of them? What is it going to do to their marketing budget expenses….hmmm B). Simply silly. Does CEO of this company realize how childish this game can become..?
      Again, my 2 cents on the subject.

  • Ross

    Thank you so much for this in-depth review. I was looking for a detailed review of the Drobo FS.

    Would you recommend the Drobo FS over an HP MediaSmart EX495?

    I run my own freelance design and visualization studio out of my house and really need to upgrade my data storage.

    My needs are:
    - File serving to PC(3), Macbook Pro, Xbox 360
    - Remote Access over Internet
    - FTP Client
    - Backup 4 computers
    - Ability to swap drives out in case of drive failure
    - Share a printer across the network (optional)
    - Need between 8-10TB of Storage

    • boggy4062

      OK… For Microsoft environment, even current Microsoft solution is hands down THE Best solution for you: much faster (make sure to implement 1Gb network), much more flexible, provides support for ALL of your needs and some (like… support for UPS graceful shutdown in case of power trouble).
      It does similar drive redundancy as Drobo, actually IMHO better, since you CAN exclude certain directories from duplications.
      HP implementation of WHS v. 1 allegedly supports Apple TimeMachine…. I cannot say anything about it. Microsoft has introduced Mac support native for Vale (version 2 of WHS) which is dues soon (????).
      Drobo may have a easier support for disk swap (hot disk swap) whereas current WHS does not (you have to reboot the box).
      So… one way (if you want sexy, easy and flexible) you could go with a combo. WHS + Drobo (eSATA, or Gb iSCSI only); forget USB This will cost your pretty penny.
      Personally, I would not go with either of them. Both HP (can't buy replacement for power supply/ motherboard; VERY disappointed!) and Data Robotics (see my remarks above) play the proprietary game WAY to much. My Vale machine is going to come from somebody else, or custom build.

  • GMA

    As a Mac user, and owner of an HP Mediasmart 490EX, I can tell you that I am very unhappy. The Time Machine implementation is very poor. As an example – my primary drive is 1TB, and I have a 1.5TB in the second bay. My backup job from my iMac is 1.3TB. It won't work. As much as data spans across the server as a general pool of drives…it will NOT backup unless the job is equal to or less than the available space on the primary drive. It took me months to get to this conclusion after struggling with it. I also had great hopes for WHS as far as a Tivo server with their plugin. This has also dissapointed me due to all of the hands on management of the media (mainly due to Tivo, not WHS). As much as I want to love it…and do for many things it can do, I can't recommend it due to the Time Machine limitation using Macs. I think I'm going to eBay it and go Drobo FS…unless somebody can concvince me otherwise with a workaround. The simplicity of just adding drives, in any order, pulling small ones out and slapping in larger capacities with no data loss is pretty incredible to me…

    • boggy4062

      Just one question – as you do your backup, do you use share duplication for you backups? If you do, it all makes sense….

  • Don

    Hi I am new to all of this can I use this together with my Whs? I have to many external
    Hard drives hooked up to Whs now. The reason I ask this is because I read some thing
    that Drobo Fs could not be used with whs.
    Regards
    Don

  • Yeorwned

    The device has great hardware but is made for the absoutely dead minded user. Once you put the device on a different subnet, you can no longer manage the storage appliance. So wonderful…