Data Robotics unveils Drobopro

[Ivan Snoeckx]

DATA ROBOTICS UNVEILS DROBOPRO, THE FIRST SMB DATA STORAGE SYSTEM THAT MANAGES ITSELF
Scalable BeyondRAID Platform Eliminates Capacity Over-Provisioning and RAID Lock-In

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – April 7, 2009 – Data Robotics, the company that is changing the way the world stores and protects digital content, today introduced DroboPro, the first business class storage array that manages itself. 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. Built on the company’s award-winning BeyondRAID™ virtualized storage platform, DroboPro provides enterprise-level business continuity features—including protection against multiple concurrent drive failures and no-downtime capacity expansion with thin provisioning—while eliminating the lock-in of traditional RAID configurations.

Read more on: Data Robotics, Inc.

Data Robotics, Inc. | DroboPro

[Erik Daniel]

I bought the standard 4 drive Drobo casing and it works great with 4 1TB Western Digital Caviar drives. If anyone decides to buy this, a post about its performance would be much appreciated! Because I will for sure pick one up.

[Ivan Snoeckx]

Hi Erik,

Are you editing video on your Drobo? Or are you only using it for making back-ups?

[Harrison Murchison]

Ok it's great that we have 8-bays and iSCSI support but once again the processor behind the Drobo is a mystery.

Also it appears from their diagrams on this page

Data Robotics, Inc.

That there are limitations to their iSCSI configuration. The multiple DroboPro to one host config says this

" If you would like to attach multiple DroboPros to the same host, but that host only has a single free Ethernet port, you can connect the DroboPros via a switch as shown below. This will work as long as the switch is isolated from the network and DHCP or similar is not operating over the switch.
"

I know of no other iSCSI device that asks you to buy a separate switch to run their device. The raison d'etre of iSCSI is that it uses "existing" IP infrastructure.

Also there is no NAS functionality that can been seen. No mention of CIFS or NFS support for filesharing.

So while the bare drive looks good at $1299 it appears to have limitation. In fact they do not show the DroboPro hooked up more than one computer.

Now compare that to the QNAP TS-809

QNAP Systems, Inc. ( TS-809 Pro Turbo NAS ) - Quality Network Appliance Provider

Core 2 Duo processor running at 2.4Ghz (that's faster than my Mac at home)
8-bays and iSCSI support and the ability to run as many apps on the device as the Drobo
and more. 2GB of RAM for more performance.

You'll find it at places like Newegg for $1699. I believe it's worth the $400 premium over the Drobo. It uses industry standard RAID sets and is binary compatible with many PC apps.

Drobo's great if you are a perfect client for "Disks for dummies" but anyone who's been around the block and actually "prefers" to manage their storage would be better suited with a more full featured NAS/SAN with better performance. The TS-809 writes at greater than 80MBps and reads at almost 120MBps

[Erik Daniel]

Originally Posted by Ivan Snoeckx

Hi Erik,

Are you editing video on your Drobo? Or are you only using it for making back-ups?

Ivan, good question. I really only use it right now as a tertiary back-up for editing data. I have edited video off of the drives before without any issues, but the intended use from the get-go was simple storage.