The free version of the software will allow the Drobo owners to access their Drobo device from anywhere in the world, but won’t allow audio and video streaming. Users that want to be able to stream video or music from their device to any computer in the world need to license the software for $29. The software is unlimited and can be put on as many computers as the user wants.

There are no file size restrictions or limitations with the Pogoplug software. This turns the Drobo devices into little personal cloud storage systems. The new feature will also allow the user to automatically back up what they have on the Drobo device at home to the cloud.

There’s support for Microsoft Exchange, Sharepoint and other business applications, as well as file-sharing and offsite backup, server virtualization and VMware. As well as the twelve internal bays, there are three iSCSI ports on the back for attaching external arrays.

Redundant power supply support and a new business-oriented dashboard round out the main specs. The Drobo B1200i will arrive in Q2 2011, price tba.

Press Release:

Drobo Means Business

New Drobo Business Line Delivers ‘Big Storage in a Small Box’ – Unprecedented Combination of Technical Sophistication, Ease of Use and Affordability for Small and Medium Businesses

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Feb. 8, 2011 – Drobo, makers of the award-winning data storage products for businesses and professionals, today introduced a new line of sophisticated yet easy-to-use and affordable storage solutions for small and medium businesses (SMBs). Designed specifically for customers who need critical business storage capacity without the complexity and price of legacy storage solutions, the new Drobo business systems are optimal as primary and secondary storage for Microsoft Exchange®, Sharepoint®, and similar business applications, as well as departmental file-sharing or offsite backup, and server virtualization deployments including those using VMware solutions.

“VMware recognizes the importance of affordable storage alternatives for firms implementing virtualization as they continue on the path toward IT as a service,” explained Parag Patel, vice president, global strategic alliances, VMware. “Like larger organizations, SMBs are looking for ways to improve productivity and lower IT costs. Drobo streamlines VMware-virtualized storage for SMBs by delivering storage that is simple, scalable and automated – all with an affordable price tag.”

With more than 150,000 customers worldwide, Drobo has been embraced by individual professionals and small businesses globally. The new Drobo business systems up the ante with improved system performance and redundancy, a new business-oriented dashboard and control panel and upgraded business support options – all while maintaining Drobo’s breakthrough ease-of-use and the BeyondRAIDTM data protection capabilities that define the Drobo brand.

“A complex quote, full of techno-babble and corporate speak, wouldn’t represent Drobo fairly,” said Mark Peters, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. “Now available for SMBs, Drobo is what it has always been – surprisingly advanced and scalable storage, packaged and priced for people who don’t need to have doctorates or second mortgages to have easy, functional and sophisticated capabilities at their fingertips.”

“Our customers aren’t shy; they have tried Drobo for themselves and are now demanding more units for the rest of their business,” said Tom Buiocchi, CEO at Drobo. “Our new Drobo for business family continues to meld even more big technology and Drobo ease-of-use for the best storage experience ever.”

Today’s announcement covers a new Drobo family of products designed with business in mind. These products include:

8-bay file sharing Drobo with remote backup (Available now)
8-bay SAN (iSCSI-attached) Drobo (Available now)
12-bay SAN (iSCSI-attached) Drobo with expanded redundancy features, support for thin provisioning and deprovisioning and new data-aware tiering technology (Reserve now, shipping Q2-11)
Drobo’s new business line also includes performance enhancements, new management software and extended business support and services, in addition to the existing ease of use, affordable capacity and storage features that set Drobo apart from any other storage product on the market. The systems are based on the patented BeyondRAIDTM technology and are certified for VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Exchange and Symantec backup. Prices start just above $2K. The new line of business products is available for purchase at http://www.Drobo.com.

Drobo also announced its new Business Premier partner program and customer milestone of 150,000 sold. Both press releases can be accessed online at http://www.drobo.com/news/press_releases.

About Drobo
Drobo makes award-winning data storage products for Small and Medium Businesses and Individual professionals that provide an unprecedented combination of sophisticated data protection and management features, affordable capacity, and ease-of-use. Based on the patented and proven BeyondRAIDTM technology, Drobo�s ability to deliver “Big Storage in a Small Box” creates the best storage experience ever for small and medium businesses and hundreds of thousands of individual professionals worldwide, who use it to support their file backup and media archiving, server virtualization, and email application needs. To learn more, visit http://www.drobo.com or follow us on Twitter @drobo.

Meanwhile there’s also Drobo Sync, included free with the DroboPro FS (i.e. the networked version of the DroboPro), which supports simple off-site backup. It’s worth remembering, though, that it seems to require another DroboPro FS at the other site, which could end up expensive.

The new Drobo S v.2 will go on sale today, priced at $799 for the base unit (with no drives); alternatively it will be available with 5TB, 7.5TB or 10TB of storage pre-loaded, for $1,299, $1,549 or $1,799 respectively. It will also be available through HP from November 18.

Press Release:

Drobo Continues to Fuel Exceptional Growth with Advanced New Products and Channel Expansion to Include HP Small Business Direct

Drobo Introduces Most Expandable USB 3.0 System and World’s Easiest-to-Use Remote Backup

SANTA CLARA, CA – November 16, 2010 – Data Robotics, Inc. (“Drobo”), the company that delivers the best storage experience ever, today announced a major new product, breakthrough data protection capabilities and channel expansion to include HP® Small Business Direct, HP’s online store focused on small businesses. These announcements come on the heels of record sales of the Drobo product family to small and medium-sized organizations worldwide.

“Today’s announcements will serve to further accelerate what our customers and partners fondly call the ‘Drobo Invasion,’” said Tom Buiocchi, chief executive officer, Drobo. “Our quest to provide the best storage experience for small and medium-sized businesses just progressed significantly with today’s new product advancements and our growing partnerships in the industry.”

Drobo has unveiled its new Drobo S system to provide a number of industry firsts and breakthroughs by leveraging USB 3.0 technology. The company is also announcing the immediate availability of Drobo Sync, the world’s easiest-to-use remote backup for small and medium-sized businesses, which is available with the company’s new DroboPro FS system. All Drobo systems feature patented BeyondRAID ™ technology which enables greater ease-of-use, data safety, affordability, and expandability for organizations who rely on digital storage but who do not have deep storage expertise.

Breakthrough Features and Benefits Delivered by New Drobo S
The Drobo S is currently the most expandable USB 3.0 product in the market, with “industry first” support for multiple storage volumes and capacity of up to 32TB and beyond
The accelerated performance of the Drobo S is up to 10X faster than existing USB 2.0 solutions
The new Drobo S also features enhanced backwards compatibility with USB 2.0 systems (laptops, PCs and servers) to provide further investment protection and “future-proofing”

“When USB 3.0 was released, many storage vendors simply added a basic connector to their systems, but that precluded small and medium-sized businesses from taking full advantage of its promise,” said Mark Peters, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “In contrast, by specifically engineering the Drobo S to incorporate USB 3.0, Drobo has been able to optimize performance and ease-of-use, both of which being characteristics that such businesses will appreciate.”

Simple but Powerful Remote Backup
Drobo also announced the immediate availability of Drobo Sync, the easiest to use remote backup software, for its new DroboPro FS product family. Drobo Sync can be configured in just minutes with a few mouse clicks, and is included free of charge with all new DroboPro FS models to provide small businesses, resellers, and service providers with a cost-effective alternative to cloud-based solutions for backing up terabytes of data.

Pricing and Availability
The new Drobo S is available at a starting price of $799 MSRP with multiple configurations up to $1,799 MSRP for a 10TB bundle. Drobo Sync is included for free with the purchase of any new DroboPro FS and is available as a free software upgrade to existing DroboPro FS customers. The DroboPro FS is available at a starting price of $1,999 MSRP with multiple configurations up to $3,299 MSRP for a 16TB bundle.

Both products are immediately available from select partners worldwide and will be available from HP Small Business Direct online store (www.shopping.hp.com/deals/drobo) starting November 18. For a complete list of partners, please visit www.drobo.com/where_to_buy.

Additional Resources
• Review the specifics on the new Drobo S and learn more at http://www.drobo.com/products/drobo-s.php
• Review the specifics of DroboPro FS with Drobo Sync capabilities and learn more at
http://www.drobo.com/products/drobopro-fs.php
• Follow Drobo on Twitter http://twitter.com/drobo
• Follow Drobo on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Drobo/54443011765

About Data Robotics
Data Robotics, Inc., the company that delivers the best storage experience ever, develops the award-winning Drobo family of automated storage products that are designed to ensure data is always protected, accessible and simple to manage. Based on the patented and proven BeyondRAID technology, Drobo provides an unprecedented combination of advanced data protection features and ease-of-use. For more information, visit Data Robotics at www.drobo.com.

As with other Data Robotics products there is single or dual drive redundancy using the company’s BeyondRAID system. There’s also a new Drobo Sync application for automating backups across multiple machines, while the DroboPro FS supports simultaneous off-site replication to a remote unit as well.

The basic unit starts at $1,999 without drives, but various preconfigured packages will also be available.  These will top out at $3,299 for a full 16TB unit made up of eight 2TB hard-drives.

Press Release:

DATA ROBOTICS CONTINUES INNOVATION FOR SMALL BUSINESS WITH BREAKTHROUGH FILE SHARING AND OFFSITE BACKUP SOLUTION

New DroboPro FS Leverages Proven BeyondRAID Technology and Drobo Sync Backup Application to Deliver Unprecedented Ease, Affordability, and Data Safety

SANTA CLARA, CA – October 5, 2010 – Data Robotics, Inc. (“Drobo”), the company that is changing the way the world stores and protects digital content, today introduced DroboPro FS, the newest member of the Drobo family of automated storage products. Building on the success of the award-winning Drobo FS (introduced in April, 2010), the DroboPro FS with the newly integrated Drobo Sync application is tailored to enable small businesses to deploy network storage and offsite backup without complexity. DroboPro FS is ideal for any small office environment that requires a simple, safe, and affordable device for sharing and backing up files over the network.

“There is a significant need for simple, expandable storage solutions that address the relentless data growth happening within personal and small to medium business markets,” said Liz Conner, Senior Research Analyst, Storage Systems and Personal Storage at IDC. “Data Robotics has had success in addressing the personal and SOHO storage market with its Drobo FS. The company is aiming to meet the increasingly rigid requirements for data availability with its DroboPro FS by enabling off-site backups while preserving its simple-to-use nature that can scale with the capacity needs of its users.”

“We are reinventing storage solutions that meet the specific requirements of small business owners,” said Tom Buiocchi, chief executive officer, Data Robotics. “Your typical small business needs data storage and protection, but has limited budget and technical resources. We provide the smart alternative to the overly complex and expensive solutions being offered. The DroboPro FS delivers ease of use, functionality, and affordability that many small businesses did not know could exist in a single solution.”

DroboPro FS Features and Benefits

BeyondRAID Technology for The Best Storage Experience Ever: Like all Drobo products, the new DroboPro FS is based on patented BeyondRAID technology, which provides unprecedented and unmatched ease of use, affordability, self-healing data protection, and expandability.
Pay-as-you-Grow Storage Capacity – Small businesses with growing storage requirements can easily and affordably add data capacity by simply inserting a new SATA hard drive or by replacing the smallest drive with a larger one, even when all eight drive bays of the DroboPro FS are full.
Network File Sharing: The DroboPro FS connects directly to any Gigabit Ethernet network for a true plug in and share set-up experience, supporting Microsoft, Apple, and Linux computer systems.
Automated Backup: Every DroboPro FS includes the new Drobo Sync application that will automatically backup (locally or remotely) all data to another DroboPro FS. Drobo Sync is both efficient and flexible, only transmitting portions of files that have changed and allowing backups to be conveniently scheduled.
Redundant Network Connections for High Availability: DroboPro FS provides two Gigabit Ethernet ports with network protection mode to ensure the highest data availability over the network.
Automated and Continuous Thin Provisioning: Unlike any competitive storage system in the market, the new DroboPro FS provides automated and perpetual thin provisioning to customers, allowing users to further stretch their storage investment and utilization.

“Our SMB customers are looking for a cost-effective storage product like the DroboPro FS that combines key features including instant expansion, self-healing technology, and offsite backup and recovery. Data Robotics clearly understands the needs of SMBs and we’re excited to be the preferred launch partner for the DroboPro FS”.

Pricing and Availability

DroboPro FS is currently available from select partners worldwide, including preferred launch partner CDW (www.cdw.com) at a starting price of $1,999 MSRP and multiple configurations to $3,299 MSRP for a 16TB bundle. For a complete list of partners, please visit www.drobo.com/where_to_buy.

In fact, according to his benchmarks, while the second-gen Drobo scored 34.3MB/s read and 29.5MB/s write, the Drobo FS only edged ahead in read speed, at 39.7MB/s, while write was actually slower, at 27.3MB/s.  That’s when both units were using empty 1TB Seagate 7,200rpm HDDs; when 60-percent full, the second-gen Drobo fell to 14.3MB/s read and write, while the 40-percent full Drobo FS maintained a healthier 39.1MB/s read and 26.7MB/s write.

That’s considerably slower than a Core i7 iMac Timon benchmarked against, but that isn’t so surprising.  The real benefit is Data Robotics’ BeyondRAID drive mirroring tech, and that’s something that many users prioritize above raw speed.  Still, if you’re looking for the fastest network backup system, you may want to look beyond the Drobo FS, too.

Video demo after the cut

While the hardware has changed, the software is also much tweaked to take advantage of the network connectivity.  The Drobo FS supports media streaming – using the DLNA and UPnP protocols – and can act as your central iTunes store, as well as a standalone BitTorrent downloader and remote-access. That’s because of DroboApps, a new platform of community-created and community-supported applications that can be loaded onto the Drobo FS.

As for pricing, the new Drobo FS will go on sale – drive-free – for $699, with Data Robotics selling it with up to five 2TB drives for $1,449.  It’s expected to hit virtual shelves today.

[flv]http://www.drobo.com/videos/drobo-fs/drobo-fs-demo-video.flv[/flv]

Press Release:

Data Robotics Delivers Breakthrough Solution for Easy File Sharing

New Drobo FS Leverages BeyondRAID Technology and Customization via DroboApps to Deliver the Best File Sharing Experience for Small Office and Connected Home Users
SANTA CLARA, CA – April 6, 2010 –Data Robotics, Inc., the company that delivers the best data storage experience, today introduced Drobo FS, a breakthrough Drobo designed for simple, expandable file sharing. By providing network file sharing capabilities along with automated data protection, the Drobo FS greatly simplifies shared storage for connected home, home office and small office users. Based on the revolutionary BeyondRAID technology and a flexible platform for adding features and capacity as needed, the Drobo FS can quickly and easily be customized and scaled to meet current or future storage requirements.

“Adding to Data Robotics’ offering of self-managing storage solutions, the Drobo FS offers users the ability to share data between computers quickly and easily,” said Liz Conner, research analyst for IDC’s storage systems and personal storage device & systems. “More than ever before, home users and small offices want to access and share a growing amount of data, but they don’t need a large, expensive system that requires specific expertise or extensive management. With the Drobo FS, Data Robotics addresses a need for which many Drobo users have been looking forward.”

With Drobo, Five Guys Enterprises is able to backup essential corporate data and ensure that it remains accessible even in the event of simultaneous hard drive failures. Using disk-to-disk backup, all of the company’s media and backup files are stored entirely on a Drobo solution for fast, reliable data protection.

Drobo FS extends automated data protection across connected systems using Data Robotics’ award-winning BeyondRAID virtualized storage technology. Drobo FS features a one-click toggle between single- and dual-drive redundancy and provides protection against up to two simultaneous drive failures. In addition, the Drobo FS enables users to add storage on-the-fly without ever losing access to data.

“We have been using Drobo solutions to store our data for almost three years and continue to be happy with their performance and simplicity. With four computers on our network, we also needed a solution that would allow us to share data between users. Typical shared storage devices were complicated or too expensive, so we’re thrilled that Data Robotics has created the Drobo FS,” said Seth Resnick, Co-Founder at D65. “Drobo FS comes with just the functionality we need, so it is easy to use while still providing the automated data protection that comes with BeyondRAID. The additional DroboApps allow us to add new features as we need them, which is really unique.”

Drobo FS Features and Benefits

Plug-In and Share – The Drobo FS connects directly to any Gigabit Ethernet network for a true plug in and share set-up experience. Supports standard data transfer protocols including Apple File Protocol (AFP) and Microsoft Common Internet File System (CIFS).
5-Drive Capacity and Instant Expansion to 10TB and Beyond – Customers with growing storage requirements can easily add data capacity by simply inserting a new hard drive or replacing the smallest drive with a larger one, even when all five drive bays are full. With Drobo FS, expansion is automatic, instantaneous, and access to data is always maintained.
Single- and Dual-Drive Redundancy – The Drobo FS dual drive redundancy option protects against the simultaneous failure of up to two hard drives. Customers can engage this option with a single click without ever losing access to their data.
Self-Healing Technology – With BeyondRAID, the Drobo FS continually examines data blocks and sectors on each drive to flag potential issues. The preemptive “scrubbing” helps ensure data is being written only to healthy drive areas and automatically keeps data in the safest state possible – even when a drive fails.
Customizable Storage – Utilizing the growing library of DroboApps, including media and web applications, users can customize the Drobo FS to further enhance their sharing experience.
“This is the decade of being connected, no matter where you are or what kind of data you are storing. The Drobo FS was designed to best serve the needs of our customers with file sharing needs – from small offices and home offices to connected homes. By reducing the complexity of data sharing and providing a truly flexible platform for adding capacity and features, the Drobo FS is ideal for users that have the need to share ever increasing amounts of data,” said Tom Buiocchi, CEO of Data Robotics.

Pricing and Availability Drobo FS is currently available at a starting price of $699 MSRP, with multiple configurations to $1,449 for a 10TB (5x 2TB drives) bundle. Drobo FS is available now from authorized partners worldwide and on www.drobostore.com. To learn more about Drobo FS, please visit www.drobo.com/drobo-fs/.

Data Robotics, Inc., the company that delivers the best storage experience ever, develops automated storage products designed to ensure data is always protected, accessible, and simple to manage. The award-winning Drobo storage arrays are the first to provide the protection of traditional RAID without the complexity. The revolutionary BeyondRAID technology frees users from making the difficult and confining choice of “Which RAID level to deploy?” by providing an unprecedented combination of advanced features and automation, including single- and dual-drive redundancy, instant expansion, self-monitoring,data awareness, self-healing, and an easy-to-understand visual status and alert panel. For more information, visit Data Robotics at www.datarobotics.com.

Overview and Features

The original Drobo had four 3.5-inch drive bays and a single USB 2.0 port, and was subsequently updated to add a FireWire 800 port. In comparison, the Drobo S gets five 3.5-inch SATA I/II drive bays – which still don’t require any sort of drive caddy or rails – and throws in an eSATA port as well. Data Robotics have also changed the underlying ARM-based processor, to one reportedly 50-percent faster than in the first-gen Drobo.

In the box you get the Drobo S itself – a shiny black plastic box measuring 5.9 x 7.3 x 10.3 inches – together with an external PSU, all three connection cables (USB 2.0, FireWire 800 and eSATA), printed user guide and quick-start card, and a CD with the Drobo Dashboard application together with electronic versions of the documentation. In its standard form, Data Robotics supply the Drobo S drive-free, which means you’ll also need to factor in the cost of adding storage. Up to 10TB can be accommodated, made up of five 2TB drives.

The Drobo S enters a market filled with significantly more aware consumers than its predecessor did. The Network Attached Storage (NAS) segment has flourished, particularly with one- and two-drive devices that promise plug-and-play shared storage without the headaches of system maintenance a server might demand. While consumers may know them better as media servers, the end result is the same: the ability to share documents, iTunes and other music libraries, video and photo galleries from a central point to multiple PCs, netbooks, consoles and phones, locally or – with a little setup – remotely.

In comparison, the Drobo S lacks any sort of networking functionality out of the box. There’s no gigabit ethernet port for setting it up as a media server or checking on documents you left at the office while you’re at home. Instead, it’s intended to provide data security for a single connected machine (you can’t hook up all three of the ports to different computers simultaneously, only one at a time). Rather than RAID, the various levels of which provide different degrees of duplication across a number of identically-sized drives, Data Robotics use their own “BeyondRAID” technology which has a number of advantages.

The headline feature – and one which makes the Drobo range perhaps so appealing to overworked system admins or out-of-depth prosumer users – is the self-management. Slot in two or more drives of any capacity, speed or brand (you can run the Drobo S with a single drive, but of course you won’t see any data security) and BeyondRAID automatically formats them, works out the maximum amount of storage that can be protected (e.g. if a drive fails, you won’t lose any data) and does everything necessary so that you can merely plug in via USB, eSATA or FireWire and begin copying over files. Start with two 1TB drives, for instance, and the Drobo S will end up offering you around 2TB of potential storage (e.g. the data on one drive is mirrored on the second, so if one should fail you’ll still have a safe copy); add a third 1TB drive – which you could do six months down the line, with the Drobo S already part-full of files – and the available storage leaps to just over 1.8TB. BeyondRAID automatically works out the maximum potential safe capacity, can do so without entirely rebuilding the array, and does so faster than a regular RAID setup since the Drobo S only copies actual data rather than every drive block.

So far, so Drobo, but the Drobo S adds in protection from two potential drive failures. That means, even if two discs in your array decide to break down, the Drobo S has still secured copies of your files. It’s worth noting that there’s a capacity trade-off for this extra protection – you have to manually activate it, with single-drive protection being standard – but unlike traditional RAID if you later decide to go prioritise space over double disc security, you can flip between the two without having to completely rebuild the array. Drives, meanwhile, are hot-swappable, you can continue to access data while a new or replacement disc is being prepared and, even while it’s sitting idle, the Drobo S is checking disc blocks and sectors to pre-emptively spot potential bad areas.

Performance

Data Robotics sent our test Drobo S unit with five hard-drives: three 320GB Western Digital Green, a 1TB Western Digital RE3 and a 2TB Western Digital Caviar Black. Our test machine was a Windows 7 64-bit workstation with an eSATA port, and we used three sample files, sized at 10MB, 100MB and 1GB. The Drobo S managed a 67MB/s read rate and a 71MB/s write rate, while burst speeds came in at around 146MB/s.

In contrast, the first-generation Drobo – using a USB 2.0 port – managed 11MB/s read, 9MB/s write and 17MB/s burst. There’s obviously a significant difference there, primarily because of the connectivity type (our first-gen Drobo is USB 2.0 only, and lacks the FireWire 800 port of the second-gen update); FireWire will be around 25-percent faster than USB 2.0, while eSATA is around 50-percent faster than FireWire. In short, if you’re looking for pure speed – important if you’re hoping to back up large quantities of data, or use the array for regularly-accessed high-resolution media files – the Drobo S’ eSATA connection offers a tangible benefit over its predecessor. We wouldn’t recommend it for I/O intensive applications like writing SQL data, however.

Verdict

The question, then, is for whom the Drobo S is intended. Without ethernet connectivity – while the DroboShare NAS adapter will apparently work with the Drobo S, it’s not officially supported and user feedback since its launch has been patchy at best – this is storage predominantly for a single person or project, unless you’re willing to leave a computer permanently switched on which can share the array over your network. Alternatively there are devices like the Pogoplug and Iomega’s iConnect which can bridge a USB 2.0 drive to a network connection (and throw in simple remote internet access too), but then you’re limiting yourself to the slowest of the three ports on offer.

It’s also considerably more expensive than the standard Drobo, which remains on sale alongside the new S-variant. The 4-bay Drobo is $399 from Data Robotics’ own online store, while the 5-bay Drobo S is $799 (the company will also sell you various pre-configured systems, with drives already installed). While the Drobo Dashboard app allows for status monitoring, there’s no actual backup app provided with either model, which means you’ll need to either use whatever functionality is present in your OS of choice (Drobo is compatible with Apple’s OS X Time Machine, for instance) or factor in the added cost of dedicated backup software. [Update: Data Robotics have highlighted their DroboCopy app, which is part of the DroboDashboard app for Windows and OS X machines. It allows you to set up scheduled backups of particular folders.] Expect a louder, slightly more expensive box to run, too: where Data Robotics say the Drobo draws between 12W and 40W depending on system activity, with up to 24.4dB in normal operation, while the Drobo S pulls up to 56W and 31.8dB. Obviously those figures will depend on which drives (and how many of them) you’re using; an original Drobo stuffed full of performance drives will probably end up louder than a Drobo S with just two eco-friendly drives.

If, however, you’re responsible for backing up a local machine – your precious mail server, perhaps, or a workstation that handles important media – then the Drobo S comes into its own. Unlike a regular RAID array, the Drobo S has the ease of use of a preconfigured system; unlike most preconfigured arrays, however, there’s also the flexibility to upgrade in the future without the cost of overhauling every drive you’re currently using, or a significant time impact in doing so. Double drive redundancy, plus the ability to temporarily switch from it to single redundancy in a pinch (handy, say, if you desperately need the storage space while you wait for new, bigger drives to be delivered) both make for one of the most secure ways to protect your data. The original Drobo found favor with photographers and other digital media professionals, and the Drobo S certainly fits well into that sort of niche.

Compared to an enterprise-class RAID storage system, meanwhile, the Drobo S’ price starts to look all the more competitive. By keeping the Drobo on sale alongside, Data Robotics are sending out a clear message that the new ‘bot isn’t particularly intended for entry-level home users (though the eSATA port has certainly caught their eye). On an enterprise level, then, even factoring in drive costs this is an affordable option, and that’s before you add up the value of BeyondRAID’s extra usability.

Not for everyone, then, and if you’re mainly wanting to share media around the home then there are cheaper, out-of-the-box functional ways of doing so. If reliable local backup is your priority, however, and you’d rather spend your time working with files than wrangling the system that backs them up, then the Data Robotics Drobo S certainly should be high in your shortlist.

Gallery

The Drobo S also has a faster ARM processor than its Drobo predecessor (that will remain on sale alongside it) and overall Data Robotics are saying it’s offering 150-percent the performance of that earlier model.  Storage is up to 10TB (depending on redundancy) and as before the system is self-healing and automatically sets itself up when you throw in a new drive (or replace an existing one).  However it’s not compatible with the DroboShare network adapter.  The Drobo S is available now, priced at $799 sans-drives or up to $1,799 with five 2TB drives in place.

The DroboElite, meanwhile, drops the FireWire and USB 2.0 connectivity of the DroboPro in the pursuit of absolute speed.  Up to 255 Smart Volumes can be addressed, together with up to 16 simultaneous hosts, and a choice between single- or dual-drive redundancy (i.e. a choice between space or data safety).  The DroboElite will kick off at $3,499 sans-drives.

Press Release:

DATA ROBOTICS LAUNCHES NEW DROBO WITH eSATA

Drobo S Delivers High Performance Desktop Data Storage

SANTA CLARA, CA – November 23, 2009 – Data Robotics, Inc., the company that delivers the best data storage experience ever, today introduced Drobo S, a professional-class storage solution designed for Windows, Mac, and Linux users who require high-speed data transfers and reliable data storage. With the introduction of eSATA and a fifth drive bay, as well as enhancements to FireWire 800 throughput, the Drobo S offers 150 percent of the performance of the current four-bay Drobo, making it an ideal storage solution for creative professionals, small offices, and home office users.

Built on the company’s award-winning BeyondRAID virtualized storage platform, which eliminates the lock-in of traditional RAID configurations, Drobo S features a one-click toggle between single- and dual-drive redundancy and provides protection against up to two concurrent drive failures. Drobo S supports on-the-fly capacity expansion along with the flexibility to replace failed drives, add drives, and swap out drives from disparate vendors and of varying sizes without ever losing access to data.

“Data Robotics’ Drobo S is an important addition to the company’s product line because it offers professional users a larger, faster, more reliable data storage solution with all of the automation and simplicity that Drobo fans are accustomed to,” said Brian Babineau, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. “Small offices and creative professionals generate large quantities of data that need to be kept secure for both short and long term storage. With its automatic capacity expansion and self-healing technology, Drobo S is an ideal way for customers to manage explosive data growth without becoming or hiring storage experts.”

Drobo S Features and Benefits:

5-Drive Capacity and Instant Expansion to 10TB – Customers with growing storage requirements can easily add data capacity with minimal effort. To add capacity, customers simply insert a new hard drive or replace the smallest drive with a larger one, even when all five drive bays are full. With Drobo S, expansion is automatic and instantaneous, and access to data is always maintained.
Single- and Dual-Drive Redundancy – The Drobo S dual drive redundancy option protects against the simultaneous failure of up to two hard drives. Customers can engage this option with a single click without ever losing access to their data.
Self-Healing Technology – With BeyondRAID, the Drobo S continually examines data blocks and sectors on each drive to flag potential issues. The preemptive “scrubbing” helps ensure data is being written only to healthy drive areas and automatically keeps data in the safest state possible – even when a drive fails.
Interface Options – Users can take advantage of eSATA, FireWire 800, and USB 2.0 connections for ultimate flexibility.
“Drobo S represents our continued commitment to our customer base of professionals and small and home office users,” said Dr. Geoff Barrall, CEO and founder of Data Robotics. “Significant performance enhancements, the addition of eSATA, increased capacity, and the flexibility of single- or dual-drive redundancy make the Drobo S an ideal solution for this increasingly sophisticated set of users.”

Price and Availability Drobo S is currently available starting at a price of $799 MSRP, with multiple configurations to $1,799 for a 10TB (5x 2TB) solution. Drobo S is available now from authorized partners worldwide and on www.drobostore.com. For a list of partners or to learn more about Drobo S, please visit www.drobo.com/drobo-s.

Press Release:

DATA ROBOTICS INTRODUCES FIRST iSCSI SAN THAT MANAGES ITSELF

Fastest Drobo Ever, DroboElite, Brings BeyondRAID with Multi-host Support to SMBs

SANTA CLARA, CA – November 23, 2009 – Data Robotics, Inc., the company that delivers the best data storage experience ever, today announced DroboElite, the first iSCSI SAN storage that manages itself. DroboElite is a powerful and flexible business class data storage solution that brings Data Robotics’ award-winning BeyondRAID technology to a broader range of small and medium businesses (SMBs). The fastest Drobo to date, DroboElite features a new hardware architecture that includes an enhanced processing engine and dual high-speed iSCSI interfaces for 150 percent of the performance of previous Drobo models. True multi-host support with LUN affinity allows small and medium businesses with limited IT resources to simplify management and reduce costs by consolidating storage across multiple servers.

“We’ve been using Data Robotics storage for several years because it is so simple to use and keeps our data safe. The new DroboElite solution takes Data Robotics’ technology to the next level. It enables us to pool storage capacity across several servers and the Smart Volume technology makes it easy to efficiently provision, reclaim, and re-provision storage across our business environment,” said Tarun Chachra, CTO at KSL Media.

DroboElite delivers automated capacity expansion and one-click single- or dual-drive redundancy for optimal data protection for Windows, Mac and Linux machines. The new system extends the number of Smart Volumes – Data Robotics’ unique thin provisioning that pulls storage from a common pool of drives – so that users can now create up to 255 virtual storage volumes, making DroboElite an ideal solution for companies that require storage solutions that can scale with their infrastructure.

“As SMBs mature they typically deploy multiple servers in both virtualized and non-virtualized configurations, creating a need for storage that is easy to manage but has the flexibility to continually grow as the server mix becomes increasingly complex,” said Benjamin S. Woo, vice president, enterprise storage systems, at industry analyst firm, IDC. “A unique thin provisioning approach like the Data Robotics’ Smart Volume technology gives companies optimal use of their existing storage and allows IT managers to more effectively manage their entire IT network without wasting time and money on storage management.”

DroboElite Features and Benefits

Multi-host Support – Companies with multiple servers can easily add or consolidate storage by connecting the DroboElite into their existing TCP/IP network and utilizing the industry-standard iSCSI protocol.
Fastest Throughput of any Drobo Solution – Enhancements such as multiple stream optimization and dual Gigabit Ethernet interfaces for high-speed iSCSI deliver best-in-class performance.
Tested VMware-ready Features – With dual iSCSI ports and the ability to create up to 255 Smart Volumes, DroboElite can support growing VMware environments and advanced functionality including VMotion, Storage VMotion, snapshots, and high availability.
8-Drive Capacity with Instant Capacity Expansion to 16TB and Beyond – DroboElite ensures continuous data access by automatically expanding data capacity and enabling IT managers to efficiently mix and match drive brands, capacities, and speeds.
Advanced Thin Provisioning – Smart Volumes allow companies to create new volumes in seconds and manage them over time by pulling storage from a common pool rather than a specific physical drive allocation. Smart Volumes are also file system aware which allows deleted data blocks to be immediately returned to the pool for future use.
Simplified Dual-Drive Redundancy – Companies are protected against the simultaneous failure of up to two hard drives without losing access to their data. With a single click, companies can switch back to single disk redundancy if capacity runs out without losing access to their data.
“Data Robotics’ continued success is a testament to our providing the best data storage experience ever. Our products are exceedingly simple and straightforward to use while providing all of the features that SMBs need to keep their data safe and accessible,” said Dr. Geoff Barrall, CEO and founder of Data Robotics. “We can deliver cost savings up to 90 percent compared to other iSCSI solutions by combining cost-effective hardware with robust iSCSI features. The new DroboElite takes our solutions to a significantly higher level of performance and supports our mission of bringing the benefits of BeyondRAID technology to a much greater range of businesses.”

Price and Availability
DroboElite is currently available starting at a price of $3,499 MSRP, with multiple configurations to $5,899 for a 16TB (8x 2TB) solution. DroboElite is available now from select partners worldwide and on www.drobostore.com. For a list of partners or to learn more about DroboElite, please visit www.drobo.com/products/droboelite.php.

Both models have USB 2.0, eSATA, FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 connectivity, and with the RS-4 you can have up to 8TB of total space if you fill it to its maximum.  Of course, there’s no data redundancy in such a setup, so the Frigo drives will let you establish unspecified RAID arrays: we’re guessing at least drive duplication, but Sarotech’s site has no mention of the new products.

There’s no telling if any of Drobo’s management cleverness has been “borrowed” by the Korean manufacturer, or if these are simple dumb RAID enclosures.  They’ll go on sale in a few weeks time in Korea, priced at $311 for the Frigo RS-2 and $433 for the Frigo RS-4.

[via Akihabara]

That means  automatic setup, mixed capacity drives and even hot-swapping: you can pull out one drive at a time when in single-redundancy mode, or two at a time in dual-redundancy.  Even swapping between those redundancy modes is automated, and you can flip either way as often as you like with DroboPro working out all the details.  If you’re very rich and have a lot of data, you can hook up sixteen different DroboPro units (each rocking 16TB) and address them as one common store.

Connections include a USB 2.0 port, two FireWire 800 ports (backward compatible with FireWire 400 with the right adapter) and a gigabit ethernet jack.  The latter is for playing nice with the super-fast iSCSI protocol.  No word on whether the DroboPro will work with the Drobo NAS peripheral.

Of course, this is resolutely a small business device and the pricing matches those aspirations.  An empty DroboPro costs $1,299, though Data Robotics will happily take $1,599, $1,849 or $3,999 off you for a DroboPro outfitted with four 500GB drives, eight 500GB drives or eight 2TB drives respectively.  There are also to configurations (four 500GB and eight 500GB) which include the 3U DroboPro Rack Mount, priced at $1,749 and $1,949 respectively.  The DroboPro is on sale now.

Press Release:

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.

DroboPro with BeyondRAID offers IT managers the unprecedented flexibility to replace failed disks, upsize the capacity of disks, and with one click switch between single and dual disk redundancy without costly downtime. Providing the most straightforward user experience ever designed for business class storage, DroboPro enables companies to devote more resources to business growth and significantly less time and money to managing their storage. With DroboPro IT managers no longer have to make difficult and confining choices upfront about how to provision capacity for the future.

“At many businesses, IT managers are responsible for much more than just storage, let alone having to predict the future of their company’s business and dynamic storage needs,” said David Reinsel, group vice president, storage and semiconductors, at industry analyst firm IDC. “A forward-thinking approach to flexible and highly available data storage, like Data Robotics’ DroboPro, not only should save IT managers capital and administrative costs, but also should provide them more time to focus on managing their front-end applications, such as Microsoft Small Business Server and Microsoft Exchange.”

“It’s critical that our company’s data is always accessible. Devoting time and resources to manage our storage is challenging, especially as our data continues to grow each year. The ability to survive two drive failures and DroboPro’s high-speed iSCSI interface make it the ideal primary storage for our mission-critical applications server,” said Wayne Titus, owner, AMDG Financial. “Because DroboPro manages the RAID levels automatically, we no longer need to buy more storage than we need today in anticipation of estimated future requirements. As our business grows, DroboPro grows with us. We can add additional drives as needed, and the new capacity is instantly available. With DroboPro, we have a high-performance storage solution our business can afford, with the features, functionality, and ease of use that are ideal for any small business.”

DroboPro Features and Benefits

Up to 8 Disks for Instant Expansion to 16TB and Beyond
Customers can grow storage in line with their data capacity needs with minimal effort. To add capacity, customers simply insert a new hard disk or replace the smallest disk with a larger one, even when all eight disk bays are full. Unlike traditional RAID systems, the BeyondRAID technology found in DroboPro enables IT managers to efficiently mix and match disk brands, capacities and speeds, enabling continuous expansion as disk capacities grow. With DroboPro expansion is automatic and instantaneous, and access to data is always maintained.
No Headache Dual Disk Redundancy
The DroboPro Dual Disk Redundancy option protects against the simultaneous failure of up to two hard disks. Customers can engage this option with a single click, without ever losing access to their data. When it runs out of capacity, customers can switch DroboPro back to single disk redundancy with a click. Unlike moving between RAID 5 and RAID 6, there’s no need to reformat or migrate data off of the array, potentially saving hours or days.
The Virtues of Smart Volumes
Smart Volumes allow customers to create new volumes in seconds and manage 16TB volumes over time with ease. The timesaving Smart Volume management technology integrated into DroboPro allows volumes to pull storage from the common pool of disks rather than a specific physical disk allocation. The labor of resizing and migrating volumes is replaced with the simplicity of intelligent engineering.
Triple Interface Featuring iSCSI
DroboPro attaches directly to a server or workstation that requires storage, or to a shared server or workstation on a network that can provide access to multiple clients. Interface options include iSCSI (using Gigabit Ethernet), FireWire 800, and USB 2.0. DroboPro reduces the complexity of iSCSI by introducing zero configuration connection establishment for both Windows and Mac OS X.
Rack Mount Ready, Desktop Quiet
DroboPro fits into a rack mount environment or can sit on a desktop. Dual smart fans automatically manage their speed to optimize both cooling and operating noise. (DroboPro rack-mount sold separately.)
“DroboPro was built on the belief that there is no reason that storage should be complex or expensive in order to be effective. We’ve taken storage to a level that is truly simple and straightforward without losing the necessary features that businesses need,” said Dr. Geoff Barrall, CEO and founder of Data Robotics. “Leveraging the capabilities that are built into DroboPro, businesses can quickly take advantage of this robust, cost-effective storage solution to ease the burden of nonstop data growth.”

Price and Availability DroboPro is currently available starting at an entry price of $1299 MSRP, with multiple configurations to $3999 for a 16TB rack-mountable solution. DroboPro is available now from authorized partners worldwide and on www.drobostore.com. For a list of partners or to learn more about DroboPro, please visit www.drobo.com/drobopro.

Before the holiday saving, the 2TB pre-configured Drobo is down to $749 while the 4TB version is $999.  They both use Western Digital’s 1TB Green Power hard-drives.  After the discount that’s down to $699 and $949 respectively; the second-generation Drobo with both Firewire and USB 2.0 connections is down to $449.

You can get the saving by entering the code HOLIDAY in the coupon field at checkout.  If you’re still undecided about whether Drobo is for you, check out our review of the first-gen model.

The upgraded processor allows Drobo 2 to process data faster than its predecessor. Many features from the first generation of Drobo are still there including redundant data protection, the ability to mix and match different drives capacities and storage expandability.

The second generation of Drobo is available now – priced at $499 for the bare unit (without any hard drives), or $899 for the 2TB edition, and $1299 for the 4TB version.

It doesn’t stop there, though.  Data Robotics are suggesting everything from iTunes music server functionality, through FTP and website hosting, to Eye-Fi support.  Also freshly available are apps to run the Drobo Dashboard monitoring software on Linux and for Windows to show Drobo as its actual size.

The SDK is a free download after registration, and developers can upload their creations to Data Robotics for hosting on their site.  There’s no formal certification procedure, but the company will be checking to make sure everything works so that non-developers (which after all is a big chunk of Drobo’s target audience) should be able to download safe in the knowledge that their painstaking backup won’t be destroyed.

[via eHomeUpgrade]

The resemblance to an Apple Airport Extreme is not just skin deep; the Time Capsule is basically that 802.11n WiFi router with an added hard-drive. That means you get three gigabit LAN ports, one gigabit WAN port, a USB port and WiFi in a/b/g/n flavors. You can choose between the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, which is useful if you already have a WiFi network you want to keep using: set the Time Capsule to 5GHz and while you lose out on backward compatibility with some WiFi devices, you won’t be plagued by interference. When we said the Time Capsule was just an Airport sharing casing space with a hard-drive, we weren’t quite accurate; Apple has packed the power brick in there too, meaning the power cable is just that, a cable.

Aside from the device itself and that cable, the typically-minimalistic box contains an installation disc (with software for both Mac and Windows) and the usual clutch of quickstart and warranty booklets. On the disc is the latest version of the Airport utility, v5.3, and a walk-through setup guide that manages to make installing a new router relatively straightforward. You can also choose to add the Time Capsule as a bridged device on an existing network, if you’re happy with your current router, or should you be replacing an Airport Extreme it’ll clone the old settings.

Windows users (for whom XP SP2 and Vista are catered for) get the short end of the stick: the Time Capsule shows up as another volume in the network folder, ready to have files copied across. You can add a password but that’s pretty much it. It’s when you use the Time Capsule with Leopard’s Time Machine app that things get clever; like the rest of us, Apple knows that it’s not enough to slap a chunk of storage down and expect people to religiously backup to it, you need to make things relatively automatic.

The updated software basically lets Time Machine work with the new, network-attached drive as if it were a local one. As with any fresh backup, the first time you run it takes an age as Time Machine copies everything across to the Time Capsule’s hard-drive. Gigabit is your best option here – we found it took roughly an hour to copy 10GB using the wired connection – as, despite the claimed speeds of 802.11n, it would definitely be an all-night operation carried out wirelessly. Of course, subsequent backups only transfer the changed data; Time Machine kicks in each hour (or sooner if you prod it manually) and squirts the altered files across to the Time Capsule’s storage.

In a sense, that could be the end of the review: Time Capsule sits quietly – there’s a low-noise fan in the base but things still get toasty warm – archiving your data until the fateful day you want to perform a restore. However people expect more from network-attached storage, and it’s here that the Apple device is less comprehensive.

As an all-in-one unit, upgrading the internal hard-drive isn’t really catered for. Yes, 500GB or 1TB should see you happy for a while, but if you’ve a few computers backing up to the Time Capsule the space will eventually dwindle. Thankfully the USB port can handle an external hard-drive, which shows up as a separate volume, and you can even plug in a USB hub and add a number of drives. We had no problem hooking up a USB hard-drive and a flash memory key; they were recognised on all the connected machines, both Mac and Windows. There’s no provision, though, for setting up an impromptu RAID array. You can’t mirror the internal hard-drive to an external one, nor can you address all the free space as a combined volume.

The USB port can also handle a printer, letting all networked computers send documents to the same machine. It’s not a print server, though, and we managed to cause it a few headaches by trying to simultaneously print from a number of computers: while dealing with one, the others bounced back with error messages about the printer not being ready, rather than being queued up. Really, asking the Time Capsule to share a printer is only sufficient for home use where print jobs are sporadic; it’s just plain inadequate in a busier environment.

Unlike many network-attached drives, the Time Capsule won’t act as a media server either. Apple TV units don’t recognise the storage, and although you can move your iTunes library onto it there’s no provision for multiple users to all access it at the same time. Hopefully both of these features could be introduced with a firmware update, as they’d turn the Time Capsule into a true media hub.

Anyone looking for something more for their money right now, though, could find better options elsewhere, whether they’re more interested in RAID redundancy, media servers or advanced drive management. The obvious alternative that comes to mind is Drobo, which has all three – however, it also has a $499 price tag (that’s what you’d pay for the 1TB Time Capsule; the 500GB version costs $299) and that’s before hard-drives or an ethernet interface. A better comparison is perhaps Buffalo’s LinkStation Pro Duo, the 1TB version of which you can currently pick up for around $300.

Shop around, then, and you’ll find similar, not as elegant as Drobo perhaps, but with some of the same functionality, and for the same price or cheaper than Apple are asking for the Time Capsule. The biggest clincher, though, is software support: right now, Time Machine won’t backup to any NAS but the Time Capsule, and despite the hardware being basically the same as that of the Airport Extreme, it won’t see a USB drive plugged into that either. Apple earns a big black mark for that one.

Have Apple failed to sprinkle their magic across backup, then? No, not at all: if you’re a Mac user who is less than organized when it comes to data management, Time Capsule could be ideal. It’s very much a set-and-forget solution, with straightforward setup and the reassurance of Time Machine making sure you never lose your files. Advanced users may sneer, but for the legion of Mac owners who up until now have never bothered backing-up, Time Capsule could be just the medicine.

Rating:

3.5 out of 5 gears

Unboxing video

It features Gigabit Ethernet connection with dynamic or static IPs, Auto-mounting using SMB authentication, official support for EXT3 file system, and two USB 2.0 ports to extend capacity by linking more than one Drobo. You can still switch Drobo to USB mode by making your Drobo off the network.

The add-on will cost you $200, which I personally think its quite reasonable for the convenient NAS brings. Having seven computers at home makes NAS very important to me.