Earlier today, Data Robotics released the new Drobo FS. Drobo is a hard disk RAID family that I like a lot. Last week, I had a chance to talk with Mark Fuccio, Senior Director of Business Development for Data Robotics about the new unit.

First, some background. I’ve been reviewing Drobo systems since they first released a FireWire-attached device about a year and a half ago. In fact, the Drobo FS will be the fifth unit I’ve looked at from them.

* You can read my review of the initial
FireWire Drobo here.

* You can read my review of the Drobo Pro here.

* You can read my review of the Drobo S in the latest issue of my newsletter.

* And, I’m impressed enough with them that I asked Data Robotics to loan me a Drobo Elite to serve as the main storage system for all our NAB coverage which starts this Saturday. I’ll have a review of the unit in my next newsletter.

So, when Mark called to tell me about the Drobo FS, I was interested.

The reasons I like Drobo systems are that:

* They are expandable, without having to transfer all your data off the system first.
* They work with any number of differently sized drives, hard disk sizes don’t need to match.
* They provide full RAID 5 protection for your data, lose a disk and you don’t lose your data.

The reason I like what Mark told me about the Drobo FS is that it also:

* Attaches to your network via Ethernet
* Doesn’t require a server
* Is accessible to all the computers on that network
* Requires zero customization, plug it in and it’s done
* Has it’s own AppStore — called DroboApps — so you can customize what this does.

I’m hoping to get my hands on a review unit in May. In the meantime, I wanted to tell you about it. Click here for more information.

As always, let me know what you think.

Larry

I posted this a couple of days ago to the Latest News section of the Digital Production BuZZ, but this is a big enough deal that I wanted to mention it here.

When Data Robotics first announced Drobo, it was intriguing because for the first time we had a RAID with expandable storage. All other RAIDs can’t be expanded without reformatting and losing your data. But the first version of Drobo, though cute, was way too slow for any serious video work.

With the second release, Drobo stepped up to FireWire. While this version was still slow, it was usable for a variety of tapeless formats where data safety was more important than hard disk speed. This was the version I wrote a review about — which you can read here.

The styling and expandable storage were very nice, but it was still too slow for video editing. Until this week, when DroboPro was announced.

As the Drobo press release states:

DroboPro delivers a radically simplified storage experience enhanced by advanced self-monitoring and self-healing functionality that enables small and medium businesses (SMBs) to maintain uptime in the face of constant data growth — including protection against multiple concurrent drive failures and no-downtime capacity expansion.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with the Data Robotics crew during the development of this project. I kept stressing the need for more speed and with the DroboPro, they are now claiming data transfer speeds, using iSCSI, that can reach upward of 70 MB/second. This is more than enough to support most popular video formats.

Drobo has several key benefits:

• The ability to expand in size at any time without losing or reformatting your data.
• Full data protection – lose one, or even two disks, and your data is still safe
• Double the maximum capacity of the earlier Drobo
• iSCSI, FireWire, and USB interfaces
• Smart styling and a very helpful user interface, called Drobo Dashboard.

I have not yet had the opportunity to test one of these new units. So everything I know comes from my conversations with the people at Drobo. However, they will be showing the new version at NAB, and shipping shortly thereafter. If reasonable speed, data safety, low noise, and great looks are important to you, take a look at DroboPro.