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EXPENSIVE, But "Drobo" May Succeed

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  • #1

    EXPENSIVE, But "Drobo" May Succeed

    Drobo, the "world's first storage robot"
    http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/09/drobo-the-worlds-first-storage-robot/
    Managing all of your data can be a little intimidating, especially if you need to keep adding more and more storage capacity without breaking the bank or running into technical snags. Well the engineers over at Data Robotics figure the solution to all of your storage needs is, of course, a storage robot. Affectionately named Drobo, the four drive array connects via USB and employs "intelligent" software to handle all of the data management and disk swapping: one drive goes down? No problem, Drobo's already on it. Wanna swap out drives while you listen to music? Drobo keeps the tunes going even when you're down to one disk. At $700 it is a little steep -- especially considering the lack of any "starter" drives bundled in -- but we suppose that in the long run, that's a small price to pay if it truly does deliver the data management nirvana we've been seeking[Via eHomeUpgrade]


    The four drive array connects via USB and employs "intelligent" software to handle all of the data management and disk swapping: one drive goes down? No problem, Drobo's already on it. Wanna swap out drives while you listen to music? Drobo keeps the tunes going even when you're down to one disk. At $700 it is a little steep...
    Jerry Jones
    jonesgroup.net - Domain Name For Sale | Dan.com
    http://www.jonesgroup.net
    I found a great domain name for sale on Dan.com. Check it out!
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  • #2
    If it doesn't connect by SATA, Firewire, SCSI or optical cable it's too slow for video.
    Dr. Mordrid
    ----------------------------
    An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.

    I carry a gun because I can't throw a rock 1,250 fps

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    • #3
      like usb ever reached anywhere near the theoretical speeds
      If there's artificial intelligence, there's bound to be some artificial stupidity.

      Jeremy Clarkson "806 brake horsepower..and that on that limp wrist faerie liquid the Americans call petrol, if you run it on the more explosive jungle juice we have in Europe you'd be getting 850 brake horsepower..."

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Dr Mordrid View Post
        If it doesn't connect by SATA, Firewire, SCSI or optical cable it's too slow for video.
        I have several external hard disks that I connect to my laptop.

        Most are Firewire/USB 2.0 and I usually choose the Firewire connection.

        In addition, I have a USB 2.0 drive and it works fine for DV .avi editing.

        Jerry Jones
        jonesgroup.net - Domain Name For Sale | Dan.com
        http://www.jonesgroup.net
        I found a great domain name for sale on Dan.com. Check it out!

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        • #5
          Not at the bitrates I use
          Dr. Mordrid
          ----------------------------
          An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.

          I carry a gun because I can't throw a rock 1,250 fps

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          • #6
            And maybe for single stream DV's not multi-layer timelines like I do, sometimes I hit 4 layers of DV with 3-4 layers of graphics/titles. That's when you need the disk speed/bandwidth as well as CPU.

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            • #7
              Not true here.

              I do lots of multistream DV .avi editing using my USB 2.0 drive.

              Not sure why it wouldn't work for you.

              Jerry Jones
              jonesgroup.net - Domain Name For Sale | Dan.com
              http://www.jonesgroup.net
              I found a great domain name for sale on Dan.com. Check it out!


              Originally posted by Elie View Post
              And maybe for single stream DV's not multi-layer timelines like I do, sometimes I hit 4 layers of DV with 3-4 layers of graphics/titles. That's when you need the disk speed/bandwidth as well as CPU.

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              • #8
                Agreement from other Matrox users:

                http://forum.matrox.com/rtx100/viewtopic.php?t=22298&sid=02c55bfff83bc477b22cfc16c387b98f


                Jerry Jones
                jonesgroup.net - Domain Name For Sale | Dan.com
                http://www.jonesgroup.net
                I found a great domain name for sale on Dan.com. Check it out!

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                • #9
                  Expanded information on Drobo:

                  The skinny on the Drobo storage array device
                  http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/10/the-skinny-on-drobos-new-storage-array-device/
                  While not quite a robot as we here at Engadget typically think of them, there's no doubt that Data Robotics's Drobo storage array / external enclosure is making some interesting propositions with this new storage device. Here's everything the storage-minded need to know about the company and its forthcoming product: The device will come drive-free, and cost $700. It will launch in the summer. It does not use RAID of any kind. Instead, it uses pooled virtualized storage. Unlike RAID 5, which requires 3+ drives of the same size, users can add disparate SATA (I or II) drives of any size. The storage pooling impact is estimated as the size of the largest drive. So if your largest drive is 500GB, that will be the maximum amount of space lost from the storage pool for redundancy. With four 1TB drives you would get 3TB addressable storage, and ~2.7TB after formatting. The device can address an infinite amount of storage, limited only by file systems and drive capacities. All drives are hot swappable; new drives are instantaneously available. The device is block-aware and makes use of a "virtual hot spare", meaning that if a drive is pulled or lost and there's enough free space on the drives, data will be double-copied and made redundant again. Data has corruption protection as well; if data is corrupt on one drive, the device will intelligently find another copy of the data which is not corrupt. For lack of necessity, the device does not support FireWire 400 / 800 or eSATA; its internal data speeds are not fast enough that those interfaces would benefit performance. The device will only format NTFS and HFS (PC and Mac); it may be updated to support other file systems. It features NVRAM and a battery backup so even non-journaled file systems will be protected against corruption during loss of power. It will monitor drive health by its own system of metrics, and pre-emptively predict drive failures. Data Robotics plans to launch higher capacity Drobos with more drive bays. There will also be an open API for interfacing with the Drobo. Hopefully that should answer a few questions about this thing -- got any more? We'll and find out. So, kinda high price aside, you as stoked about this thing as we are?%Gallery-2507%


                  Lots of negatives, apparently.

                  Jerry Jones
                  jonesgroup.net - Domain Name For Sale | Dan.com
                  http://www.jonesgroup.net
                  I found a great domain name for sale on Dan.com. Check it out!
                  Last edited by Jerry Jones; 10 April 2007, 17:35.

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                  • #10
                    Someone made a good point about putting a Drobo on a network. There are routers and whatnot that support USB based storage devices. So they configure their Drobo on their computer and then connect it to the router. Smart...
                    “Inside every sane person there’s a madman struggling to get out”
                    –The Light Fantastic, Terry Pratchett

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