After Drobo launched the Drobo S a few months ago there was a forseeable hole in the company’s line up. Officially the Drobo Share, the device that connects the Drobo to a network, was not working with the new unit (unofficially it did work), but there was no immediate replacement. This just changed.
(more…)

Today Data Robotics presented a new device that power users always wanted from the Drobo: a really fast interface to connect the external storage to your workstation. I’m speaking about eSATA which makes the new Drobo S much faster. These higher speeds, that also apply to the Firewire 800 and to a negligible degree to the USB 2.0 interface, also come – according to Data Robotics’ Director of Product Marketing Jim Sherhart – as part of a new processing unit and upgraded memory. The company says the data rates should tick in at about 80 MByte/s for eSATA and 60 MByte/s for Firewire 800 respectively. The Drobo S now also has a 5th hard drive slot. How these speeds will apply to the real world is something only benchmarks will be able to tell.
(more…)

It feels like it was just yesterday that Data Robotics launched their latest product, the DroboApps which are available with the combination of the Drobo and DroboShare. Actually quite some time passed since that. But today we got some news from the Bay Area, home of the Drobo. The newest device is called DroboPro and aimed at Small Businesses (SMB) with 1-99 users.
(more…)

As I’m typing this I’m waiting for a conference call with Data Robotics, maker of Drobo and its companion DroboShare, which makes Drobo a NAS device. The news today: DroboApps are here, officially. Some of you already might have heard about DroboApps. The first few apps are available from their website. Be warned, you’ll need both devices for most of these tools which is no surprise, since most of the apps are meant to be used remotely, which requires DroboShare’s Ethernet port. (more…)

The short version:
This had to happen and thank god it did!

The long version:
When I (and several other people) had the chance to review the first gen Drobo we all came to the conclusion that USB on a device like the Drobo was just a bad idea since USB is too slow for this. The people at Drobo just said that they are listening to the customers (and reviewers). Today they kept their promise and released the second gen Drobo with Firewire 800.
(more…)