Aside from the flexibility to plug almost any type of peripheral, one of the promises of the Thunderbolt 3 connector that Intel and Apple are pushing is speed. Taking advantage of the increase in data transfer bandwidth, Drobo is launching its new 5D3 RAID storage solution that not only keeps your data safe and intact, it can also charge your laptop or even be your computer's connection to a 4K or 5K monitor.
People produce and amass a staggering amount of files these days, and we're not talking about those who create media files for a living. From office documents to personal projects to family home videos, homes, and especially small to medium businesses, have a greater need for a secure and reliable way to store and access those files. The Drobo 5N2 was designed just for that very purpose, giving home users and SMBs the same peace of mind as professional NAS solutions, but in a smaller and more affordable form.
Despite the prevalence of cloud storage, not everything can be safely tucked away on the nebulous Internet. Sooner or later, hard, local storage will be needed. The problem with these is that most don’t offer the same resilience and reliability that professional cloud storage services offer. Of course, there are RAID storage solutions, but those are commonly difficult to setup, much less expand. Not so Drobo’s newest product, the Drobo 5C, which does all the heavy lifting and worrying about setups and maintenance so that you won’t have to.
Drobo drives are finally getting the fix to one of the more frustrating annoyances they've suffered from: rampant Apple Time Machine backups chewing through every HDD in your array. A combination of sizable storage in the local and network-shared drives, as well as Time Machine's limited controls over how much space it can earmark for its own purposes, had meant that backups could run wild and occupy every last gigabyte.
Drobo has pushed out a new preconfigured external drive, the Drobo Mini with SSDs, slotting up to 4TB into a portable form-factor aimed at mobile media pros. The drive can muster read rates of up to 300 MB/sec, Drobo says, and write writes in excess of 225 MB/sec.
The latest Drobo Gen3 has been revealed, adding USB 3.0 and boosting speed of the Connected Data quad-bay external drive, as well as improving support for things like Apple's Time Station. Cheaper than before, at $349 without drives, the third-generation Drobo sees an entirely updated system architecture used, for what Connected Data claims is a threefold speed increase over its predecessor.
If you've ever had the need to store terabytes of data and have those accessible to any and all of your devices, then you had probably taken a look at some services like Dropbox and its kin. However, if you are on a tight budget or are quite conscientious about privacy issues, then the Transporter Sync might offer a better choice.
Personal cloud provider Connected Data has announced version 2.0 of its Transporter, the bottle-shaped desktop drive that raised more than $260k on Kickstarter, as well as news of merger discussions with Drobo. The updated Transporter functionality - which will be pushed out to existing owners courtesy of a software upgrade - pares back the interface for easier link-sharing and drag'n'drop file management, as well as more granular control over which files are synchronized.
If backup and external storage had a hope of ever being fashionable, then Drobo would probably be the industry icon. Trying its level best to make data devilishly interesting since 2007, the company's primary claim to fame from its glossy black obelisks is their packaging of drive redundancy to an audience who either doesn't understand, or who doesn't want to be bothered with, RAID definitions. Now, there's the Drobo Mini, a compact version intended to take four drives mobile and give them a shot of SSD speed along the way. Read on for our full review.
Drobo has revealed its latest storage and backup device, the Drobo 5N, targeting consumers looking for a new network-attached system with a burst of added speed. The 5N follows in the metaphorical footsteps of the Drobo 5D, announced back in June, with five regular drive bays and an extra nook for slotting in a chunk of solid-state storage to speed up data access, but throws in ethernet connectivity.
This week a Kickstarter project has been initiated by the name of Transporter, a device that its creators are saying is both an online yet off-cloud storage solution for personal use. If you're a family member who wants to share massive amounts of photo and video content but you don't want to hassle with the less-than-secure solutions out there at the moment, you're one of the many, many different types of people who may very well benefit from the simplicity of the Transporter. This project is being worked on by several folks responsible for "designing and manufacturing products from Drobo, Handspring, Sling Media, Snap Appliance, and TiVo."
Drobo has teased its latest model, the Drobo 5N, adding ethernet connectivity to the storage technology in the Drobo 5D and Mini. Replacing the Drobo FS, the new 5N is "very close" according to CEO Tom Buiocchi, and described as "a close sibling to what we already have" making it likely a slight reworking of the five-bay Drobo 5D (pictured) announced back in June.
