Drobo video review

This video review of the Drobo was produced on January 22nd, 2008. In this review I looked at the new Drobo unit I'd just bought for myself and tested it out pretty thoroughly by populating it with disks, copying data onto the unit and then removing disks while continuing to access the files. Everything went very smoothly and the Drobo was extremely easy to setup and use. There are no drivers to install. It just connects by USB and behaves like a regular USB external hard drive. You can install up to 4 SATA drives of any size. They don't even have to be similar sizes. Drobo figures out the best way to use all the available space while always keeping at least 2 copies of any files always on separate disks. In the event that a disk fails Drobo alerts you about which disk has the problem but your files remain fully available. And if your drive ever gets full Drobo tells you which disk is smallest so you can upgrade it, giving yourself more space - all without even shutting down your computer.

Drobo really is a data security device that your grandma could manage. It's incredibly easy and incredibly secure. I've been using my Drobo now since when I first made this video and I've never been anything less than delighted with it. I'm sure you'll love it too.

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Drobo for photographers

The drobo unit is ideal for photographers wanting a safe, reliable and extensible storage solution for their photographs. There's an old saying - "A file doesn't exist unless it exists in at least 2 places". Well with Drobo that's exactly how your photos are secured. As long as there are at least 2 drives in your Drobo it'll always keep copies of every file on at least 2 separate hard drives. If a disk ever fails you'll still have access to the file and Drobo will alert you through the coloured lights on the front panel so you can see where the problem is and fix it.

Drobo makes an excellent backup drive. If you have a photos folder or drive on your computer, why not attach a Drobo and setup a scheduled nightly task using something like Microsoft's free tool SyncToy to duplicate all your photo data onto your secured Drobo drive? That way your photos are always in 3 places. This is exactly the system I currently use for my own pictures.