For a low-cost, easily expandable, redundant storage solution, the Drobo seems pretty great.

But is it fast enough to edit to/from? I don't see why it wouldn't be. We regularly edit from inexpensive, Lacie and WD portable drives and never have problems. However, I've read some vague comments here and there while searching that suggested it may not be fast enough to handle editing HD footage. Thoughts?

Anyone who has experience with the Drobo - I'd be grateful for your input.

thanks,

Brett

The DroboPro, with an iSCSI connection, I think is fast enough for HD editing if you have the device set for single drive failure instead of double drive failure. I've also read somewhere that if you take your DroboPro and connect it to your network you can access it via iSCSI on your computer as if it were directly connected... but don't quote me on that...

I have a DroboPro (8-bay) at work and a regular Drobo (4-bay) at my home office. Both are not used for editing but for archival storage and backup. I find using a RAID 0 to edit fast enough for me. I'll capture my footage to the internal RAID and copy it to the Drobo for safety. If the RAID crashes (God forbid!), I can rebuild it and backup from the Drobo. That's the easiest way for me anyway!

Bob,

Thanks for the input.

Yea, I'm beginning to think that a raid drive at each editing station, backing up to a drobo periodically might be the way to go.

B