www.datarobotics.com

Seems like a great device. Very seriously considering it as my external hard drives are taking over my office.

I've been thinking about it for a while - but it's still new and I want to see how reliable it actually is before I try it.

Mike Fulton was telling me about it cause he has one and he really likes it a lot. You basically put in 2 or more (up to four) drives and it sees them as one whole drive. it will then mirror data in separate locations and if one drive fails data will not be lost. this is all similar to a raid1 setup but its just the ease of letting the drobo format the drives for you and do the work.

bump

+1 to hear opinons.

I have been looking at the Netgear ReadyNAS series - it is a NAS (network attached Storage) so I can stick it on the network and not have to share it (DROBO is only USB?)

drobo looks simplier for people who just want to plug and play

Hi Jessica,

Yes, we have one. We have two sets of drives for it. One set is in the drobo, the other set is stored off-site (lest our home burn down, etc.). We swap the sets once a week.

I'm currently running 3 500GB drives, and will have to add a 4th 500GB drive (1 for each set) after this coming weekend.

The unit is a bit noisy, but it's the drives, not the drobo itself. It's USB, so it is indeed slow, but who cares? For an unattended backup solution, speed doesn't much matter, IMO.

-TM

Hi

If you would like to get $100.00 off a drobo you can use coupon TIME4DROBO it can only be used at the Drobo Store
The price will come down to $399.99

Hope someone get some use out of this before it expires.

Chris

ordered it about 5 minutes ago. Got the drobo and 4 1TB drives. Thats should do for a while.

Um, yeah.

What software will you be using to do the backup? You do know that the drobo doesn't come with backup software, right?

-TM

WHAT!? from what I understood this thing was the whole shebang.

I use the Buffalo 2TB station for about double the price of the drobo. I love mine, and have been eyeing the drobo. I have almost filled up my 2TB this summer alone. It's been getting great reviews.

No, it's just a large storage device. I use Backup Magic. It's $25, and it mirrors your PC's hard drives onto the drobo. I'm assuming you're using a PC, not an Apple computer. Is that correct?

PM me if you want help setting up Backup Magic. Other folks might have other suggestions for backup software, but I love it!

-TM

The drobo will be replacing my ext hds. I do not keep any of my info on my pc drive at all. I load all pix to 2 seperate externals. I plan to do away with externals. This won't be my "second copy" this will be my drive system. I will keep one 500gb ext for editing purposes but will move the finished projects to the drobo.

Hi Jessica,

I'm afraid that might not work as well as you would like. The drobo is not very fast. It's great for backup, but I wouldn't use it as a primary storage device.

If you use external drives for primary storage, you would be best served by eSATA drives, as they are MUCH faster than USB or Firewire. Drobo doesn't even saturate the USB connection, so even if you're using USB external drives, you may find the drobo to be slower than what you're used to.

Speaking of backup, what is your current backup solution?

-TM