During GestalIT TechFieldDay, myself and the other bloggers were introduced to the new Data Robotic’s product called the Drobo FS.
About the Drobo FS
The revolutionary Drobo FS was designed with one purpose in mind: to deliver the best file sharing experience ever. From the moment you plug it in and see it instantly appear on your desktop, you’ll know there’s nothing like it. The all-in-one Drobo FS is perfect any connected home, home office, or small office environment needing a simple, safe device for sharing and backing up files over the network.
Drobo FS Specs
BeyondRAID
All of the Drobo products run on a proprietary RAID system called BeyondRAID. BeyondRAID offers all of the of the main advantages of traditional RAID systems, whilst leaving all of the limitations behind. For a more in-depth details about BeyondRAID please click here.
So where does the Drobo FS fit?
This is the question I have been asking myself since Data Robotics demo’ed the products to myself and the other delegates. If I’m honest, I’m still not sure.
To purchase the Drobo FS without any disks you would need to fork out approx £450. For a home NAS system I would personally consider this to be quite expensive. Yes it has the BeyondRAID system and the ability to offer up to 10TB of storage space, but as a home user, do I really require this? Some would argue that yes it’s needed, but I would argue that there are cheaper ways to get a RAID’ed storage solution to house your films, music and family photos.
So if it’s not for home use what about in an office of an SMB? Personally, I wouldn’t use it. Not because I fear for the safety of my data, I am impressed by the BeyondRAID system and I believe it offers better data protection methodologies than a standard RAID'ed NAS. It’s purely from an availability point of view that I am a little weary. The Drobo FS only offers a single Gbit NIC and a single PSU. There isn't the option to add a second of either. From what I can tell, if either the NIC or the PSU were to fail, you would need to purchase a whole new base unit as you can’t just swap out the individual modules. I know that the chance of these modules failing are slim, but imagine if the Drobo FS was storing your companies Shared data. How would this effect your companies ability to continue working? You could be without data for at least a day as you would have to order in a new base unit. I maybe being a little picky? What do you think? Would you use this at home or in the office?
If your thinking about using the Drobo FS as a shared storage device for VMware vSphere 4, think again. Drobo announced that the Drobo FS would not be added to the VMware HCL even though other Drobo products are supported on ESX3.5.
DroboApps
One thing I did find quite interesting was the introduction of DroboApps. DroboApps aren’t dissimilar from Iphone Apps. It allows 3rd parties to write their own applications/plugins to run directly with the Drobo FS. Here is an example of a few DroboApps that are currently available.
Although I think the concept of the DroboApps is good, I also get the feeling that there might not be a large amount of apps created. Most companies who decide to create an application to run on their Drobo would probably heavily customise it for their needs. Because of this I don’t think many applications will be published. Drobo did state that they have employed a team just to create DroboApp’s so watch this space, If I’m wrong there could be some useful tools being created.
Summary
So as you can see, I’m neither here nor there when it comes to the Drobo FS. I think the BeyondRAID System behind it is really really good, but I feel restricted by the lack of hardware redundancy and put off by the high start-up price. If you have spare money to burn and you need a new NAS, then definitely give the Drobo FS a look. Likewise if you need a NAS for the office but don’t necessarily require high availability, the Drobo FS could be for you.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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View Comments
The DroboPro seems to make more sense for a business. The prices there are pretty competitive for similar rack mountable NAS devices.
This one seems to be competing with something like a Windows Home Server. I would take the Home Server. There are a ton of nice "apps" that offer additional functionality for home server. Backup, file sharing, media sharing, controlling your lights, the list goes on. Plus since its based on Server 2003, you can literally install whatever you want to enable other features, such as PlayOn to stream Hulu to a wii, ps3, or xbox360. I just dont see the community getting behind DroboApps when Home Server already does it better.
Hi Jamie, It's always difficult to get people to create applications for others to use, especially if they are going to be available for free.
I agree with what your saying. I've not seen the Home Server before, but if it's based on a Windows OS it makes it a lot more appealing to many home users.
IMHO, Drobo devices are made for non-technical folks with excess money to spend who don't care about performance. There's nothing wrong with that, but there are cheaper methods to have access to 8GB of protected storage without redundant NICs or PSUs.
If you want to go really cheap and already have a Linux box running (or an old grey box from 5 yrs ago), you can build an external eSATA or infiniband connected array and either use a quality RAID cards or Linux software RAID for excellent performance at a lower cost point. The trade off is you will want to be comfortable with Linux and RAID. Most home users aren't. I put together an external array a few years ago for home use and have been happy with it for much less money. I chose to match all the disks, but with Linux SW RAID, I could go larger over time. What keeps me from upgrading to larger disks in the RAID set is the easy/cheap ability to backup the current data I have stored there. If I can't back it up, I don't need the primary storage either. I wrote an article on this and what I'd do differently a few years ago here: http://jdpfu.com:82/2007/08/20/Build-Your-Own-R.... It is still relevant.
Obviously, using a Linux host as the storage server adds some complexity, but it also opens up nearly unlimited software possibilities. Running miniDLNA or MediaTomb will let you stream audio and video content to any DLNA devices. There's Mythtv, xbmc, boxee, and other solutions too. Drop in samba and all the systems in your home can share disk storage for many different uses. You know all this.
I'm certain you are aware of the other "options" that leverage ZFS and allow mixing and matching disks. When I was looking for a solution, the limits on storage for the non-commercial version were too low for me. They aren't anymore.
If you are a business and need a SAN, some of Sun's Open Storage devices or even a Dell iSCSI SAN/NAS could make sense for a more money, but you get lots more redundancy. I suppose that can be said about any storage solution.
ReadNAS+ is a direct competitor to Drobo stuff. A few technical friends have these devices for home use, are happy with the performance and generally like it. However, the ReadNAS does have specific disks that are certified for use and some popular brands ARE NOT on that list.
Windows Home Server is an impressive product for the 100% Windows Household where redundancy isn't important at all, but an easy GUI-driven backup method is desired with all the CALs included. Not for me, just like the Drobo isn't for me, but many people will find value in either OR both solutions.
I really love the Space Used Indicator but I guess it wouldn't works with VMFS (for the pro version).
Anyway, the VMware Ready label is a really nice idea for those home product (homelab here we come !)
I have a Drobo (original) which I use for home use of mp3s, photos, videos, etc. Although I'm thoroughly vested in RAID technologies & storage solutions, I just wanted to K.I.S.S. for home use. I had too many stand-alone drives in the past, & I find the RAID0/1 solutions wasteful on cost/storage. I don't want to be spending my time worrying about monitoring the array or re-arranging the array as I added more drives. Of the briefness that I've read about their BeyondRAID, it seems very similar to NetApp's RAID-DP & RAID6.
As a generic basic storage solution it's the best IMO, but it's not quick enough for guests or video editing. (I use scratch or local) disk for that use.
btw, I have it connected at 1394b to a dual core 3.0ghz system w/ 4gb memory