Data Robotics pulls two new Drobo models out of the hat just in time for the holidays
When I got the call about a week ago from Mark Fuccio Sr. Director Products & Markets about some new products that Drobo was about to announce, I must say I was not too surprised. In my book they have been consistently setting the bar higher for themselves when it comes to backup storage, and beyond raid solutions. For full disclosure purposes I need to say that Drobo has been an advertiser on the show in the past, however currently I have not financial agreement with Drobo.
Data Robotics yesterday announced the new Drobo S and Drobo Elite models to take the already highly successful Drobos to the next step. These new models give us more storage, faster performance, and even more security.
The new Drobo S kicks it up up a notch and introduces a solution for the Small Office \ Home Office (SoHo) market as well as creative professionals. With more storage capacity and faster speeds this will be a great solutions for anyone wants a faster Drobo then past consumer\prosumer offerings
To me the big deal about the Drobo S is eSATA connectivity. This will provide faster speeds and give even more flexibly for those who want more than just a FireWire 800 ports and a USB 2.0 port. In addition the Drobo S has another trick up it’s hard drive sleeve. There is an additional drive bay making that a total of five (5) versus the consumer model which offers four (4). This will give you up to 10TB of storage (if you use five 2TB drives).
In my discussion with Mark we spoke about what this speed bump means. Data Robotics claims that the Drobo S is 50 percent faster than the current four drive Drobo, while offering 90 percent of the performance of the Drobo Pro. I don’t have a Drobo S review unit to test right now, but I did just get a Drobo Pro review unit which I will review on the podcast in December.
If the claim that the Drobo S will offer 90 percent of the performance a Drobo Pro is true, then the Drobo S should be a screamer. According to Data Robotics they say averages of about 80 megabytes per second with the Drobo S . Can you say wow?
One of the features discussed in my press briefing was the “Data scrubbing” feature. This enables the drive to read every block of data and repair any data corruption it finds. This self-healing magic is just what a small business owner or a creative professional needs to ensure that their data is safe. If that’s not enough for you, the Drobo S also adds dual drive redundancy. This means that if two drives fail, you’re still covered.
Data Robotics announced another product yesterday for the small or middle size business that is bound to shake things up in IT budgets for 2010. The Drobo Elite, provides multi-host support with LUN affinity for consolidating storage across multiple servers.
They have added an additional dual gigabit ethernet ports which will provide additional reliability and throughput. The new Drobo Elite also works with multiple workstations, enabling the use of Drobo at the same time.
The Drobo Elite has a faster processor than the Drobo Pro, and offers an eight drive capacity with single or dual drive redundancy. This means the Drobo Elite can have a storage capacity of up to 16TB.
The Drobo S without drives is priced at $799; but can be bought with five 2TB drives for $1799. The Drobo Elite in its basic configuration sells for $3499; but if you want it ready to work out of the box you can pick it up with 8, 2TB drives, it’s $5899. Here is a link to the full Drobo line of products.
The Drobo brand in my opinion continues to lead the way in making solutions for consumers, creatives and small businesses. They won’t break the bank when compared to their peers in traditional “Raid” or “Sans” solutions, but they do offer up a real alternative for these market segments. . For more information visit Data Robotics.
Have you ever discussed the issues of their proprietary solution, so if the device fails and is out of warranty you are screwed and must purchase another drobo unit to just get your data off the drives you bought to hold your data so close and dear?
Comment by Fred Rubel — November 26, 2009 @ 1:53 pm
and also, 10TB of drive space storage will in drobo's case only give you about 7.26 TB of drive… http://www.drobo.com/calculator/drobo-s/index.php
Comment by Fred Rubel — November 26, 2009 @ 2:02 pm
Fred I would imagine that like with any data, having it only in one place is not the best stradegy. I think the Drobo is like any device, some will fail and I think that because of that anyone that owns a
Drobo also needs to have their data (if it's that important) in three places. No device is perfect and the Drobo is not perfect either. I guess I've been lucky in that none of the two that I've tried have not failed. Sorry if you had a different experience. Thanks for the comment as all opinions are welcome when they are provided in a professional manner.
Comment by typicalmacuser — November 26, 2009 @ 2:08 pm
Bah, just bought a Drobo a few weeks back. But I have to say, I love the product.
And as to what Fred says, I think that's actually the case for any type of hardware RAID controller ! If the raid controller fails and is out of warranty, you will have to buy a new one or your disks are useless. You will have to set up your raid again the way it used to be before you'll be able to access the files !
At least, that's what I heard
Regards from Belgium
Stefaan
Comment by StefaanLesage — November 26, 2009 @ 2:39 pm
Correct Stefaan it's one of the flies in the ointment of any type of Raid solution and Drobo is no exception. I love mine and they keep getting better in my opinion.
Comment by typicalmacuser — November 26, 2009 @ 2:57 pm
Qustion, Victor… just to make sure I have this right.
If I have a 4 bay Drobo, and that unit fails, I just move the drives to a new Drobo, power it up, and the new unit should just see everything fine (ie, my data will be there)?
Can I move drives from a 4 bay unit to the 5 (or 8)?
Can I move drives back to a smaller unit (natuarally, there can only be the smaller number of drives in the larger unit) and keep the data?
I'm just curious.
Comment by Philip from Australia — December 3, 2009 @ 4:40 pm
f I have a 4 bay Drobo, and that unit fails, I just move the drives to a new Drobo, power it up, and the new unit should just see everything fine (ie, my data will be there)?
Yes but if you move from an older model to a newer model then you can't go backwards. I would contact Drobo to make sure of this but that is my understanding.
Can I move drives from a 4 bay unit to the 5 (or 8)?
Yes , my you can do this but again you can't go back once you do.
Can I move drives back to a smaller unit (natuarally, there can only be the smaller number of drives in the larger unit) and keep the data?
This I don't know the answer to. I would contact Drobo to find out for sure. I'll write them and find out.
I'm just curious.
Comment by typicalmacuser — December 3, 2009 @ 7:09 pm
Hi Philip,
This is Mark Fuccio from Data Robotics.
If you have a 4 drive Drobo and in the unlikely event something fails in the chassis, you can simply transfer the drives to another 4drive chassis, or the the new Drobo S, or even the DroboPro. Our products are designed to let you move the drives from a 4 drive to a five drive or 8 drive model.
Many of the initial buyers of DroboPro were Drobo owners who wanted more capacity & performance — for them moving the drives to a new system was painless. I did it in upgrading from a gen 1 USB only Drobo going to a DroboPro.
You can move the drives from an older generation unit to a later generation, but you can't go in the other direction, e.g. 5 drive back to 4 drive.
There is more information about this on our website at http://drobo.com/migration/
Mark
Comment by markfuccio — December 3, 2009 @ 9:26 pm
Thanks Mark for replying and letting us all know. I wanted to give accurate information but there is nothing like hearing it from the source.
Comment by typicalmacuser — December 3, 2009 @ 9:39 pm
Thanks for that info, Mark.
That is what I thought. Pity you cannot go back, but the logistics would be horrid. But at least you can move, should the unit fail. Which is good.
A Drobo is on my wish list. But am waiting for the current time machine volume to fail first. (it's a RAID 1 drive, so all eggs not in one hard drive). But until that happens, it's a tough call to justify one of these babies. And the Pro is way out. Probably the Drobo S.
Comment by Philip from Australia — December 5, 2009 @ 12:35 am
Thanks for that info, Mark. nnThat is what I thought. Pity you cannot go back, but the logistics would be horrid. But at least you can move, should the unit fail. Which is good. nnA Drobo is on my wish list. But am waiting for the current time machine volume to fail first. (it’s a RAID 1 drive, so all eggs not in one hard drive). But until that happens, it’s a tough call to justify one of these babies. And the Pro is way out. Probably the Drobo S.
Comment by Philip from Australia — December 5, 2009 @ 7:35 am
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