The Drobo FS Network Storage Enclosure takes the Drobo approach to data storage and applies it to network file sharing. The powerful device connects to your network via its Gigabit Ethernet port, allowing any computer on the network to access media and other files stored on it.
The Drobo FS sports five bays compatible with all SATA hard drives. As you add hard drives, information stored on the Drobo is spread out across the discs redundantly, so in the event of a hard drive failure, your valuable information remains intact while you replace the failed drive. The unique enclosure supports hot-swapping hard drives, letting you upgrade your setup on the fly, based on your increasing storage needs.
| Interface | Gigabit Ethernet Port |
| Data Transfer Rate | Not Specified by Manufacturer |
| Drive Types Supported | 3.5" SATA I/II Drives Up to 4TB |
| System Requirements | Windows 2008 Server, Windows 2003 Server, Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7; Mac OS 10.5 or later; Linux |
| Power Requirements |
AC 100-240V 50/60Hz Consumption: 56W (Typical - 4 Drives Installed); 12W Idle |
| Dimensions (WxHxD) | 5.9 x 7.3 x 10.3" (150.3 x 185.4 x 262.3mm) |
| Weight | Without drives: 8 lbs (3.6kg) |
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Most Liked Positive Review
EASY to set up and use!
My situation: Wife runs home based business and I have a growing photographic library. This Baby Boomer is not an IT expert at all, but I do like gadgets and if I have something...Read complete review
My situation: Wife runs home based business and I have a growing photographic library. This Baby Boomer is not an IT expert at all, but I do like gadgets and if I have something explained to me, I pick this stuff up pretty easily.
I had recently set up a backup system comprised of a 2 TB external HD connected to my wireless network (Mac.) It took several trips to the Apple Store Genius Bar and quite a lot of research to try and figure out how to backup my three Mac wirelessly. I would've thought this would be an easy thing to do, but as I found out, it wasn't. After a lot of searching I found the answers on the Apple Support forums (from Users, not the Mac folks). (My stumbling block was that I could not use the WD drive 'as is' out of the box - I'd have to 'reformat' the drive from the default Windows to the Apple HFS configuration. Not hard to do, but I didn't know that was an issue. Then I had to 'repartition' the drive for my 3 computers. Mac people enjoy being able to open the box, plug it in, and go.)
I had a sense of relief that the Macs were backed up, but the 2 TB drive did not have enough space to add the 1.5 TB of digital media I have. Since my photography and video library continues to grow, when the Drobo FS was recently announced, this seemed like the perfect choice for me.
What I ideally wanted to do was backup my three Macs and 1.5TB photo library (on a separate external hard drive) over my home wireless network. And I wanted to use Apple's Time Machine utility to do the backup. I am a very cautious buyer, so I looked at a variety of possibilities before going with the Drobo. For sure, there are less expensive options out there. I looked into them, and for me, they required too much maintenance - moving data files, setting up RAID, installing drives, repartitioning, moving data back - all of this was more than I wanted to do. The Drobo FS does all this for you. I love the idea that I basically plug it in, put in the drives, and with less than five minutes of set up (including installing the software!) I was ready to go. I love the idea that it tells you when to look at it, or when to install new drives. I LOVE the idea that if one of the hard drive disks fails, I have not lost my data. I LOVE the idea that I have LOTS of room to grow, so as the photos and videos continue to grow, and the home bizness grows, I won't be needing to do anthing more than add hard drives. (Right now, I use 3 1.5 TB drives - the Drobo FS has 5 slots, and 2TB drives are fairly cheap, so I don't think I'll be replacing this Drobo for a while. I feel that this was money well spent, and I sleep a little more soundly at night knowing my important digital life is backed up in a way that makes sense to me. For me, reliability and ease of use were worth the premium price and I have no regrets.
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Most Liked Negative Review
Initially Impressed
So far I'm quite impressed and in love.
I've been looking at this for some time with several bouts of research, weighing of pros and cons, and I had even ad...Read complete review
So far I'm quite impressed and in love.
I've been looking at this for some time with several bouts of research, weighing of pros and cons, and I had even added to my cart without checking out once before. A recent brush with data loss finally compelled me to pull the trigger.
The Drobo has not disappointed. I quickly had my 3 computers wirelessly backing up to it. Setup is easy and intuitive. The backup software included is competent if not the most powerful I've seen. Data transfer is quick though when backing up 1/2 TB of data nothing seems fast enough. The Drobo itself is attractive enough and has a reasonable footprint. I do wish it were a tiny bit quieter and that the lights would dim more, especially when not in use (being accessed).
The biggest drawback is the price. If I had only a single computer to back up an external drive would've been sufficient. Realistically I knew that I would not regularly back up 3 different computers and that I was on a path to certain data loss. Since almost all my data is personal pictures and movies I've been able to justify the price but until the price comes down I will not recommend this to more casual users or those on a budget.
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Reviewed by 96 customers
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Comments about Drobo FS Network Storage Enclosure:
The perfect product for photographers needing "mucho" backup in a simple to use system. Highly reliable and great support service.
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Comments about Drobo FS Network Storage Enclosure:
The drive is very well made. The manual and software are very well written and very clear. I like this version of the drive better than my Firewire 800 version because of the flexibility and ease of access for my computers. I have had the Firewire 800 version for 5 years without any problems. It is a solid back up solution. I would recommend the Drobe FS if you are backing up more than one computer or want remote/mobile flexibility.
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Comments about Drobo FS Network Storage Enclosure:
Great Product- I want more automated tools to configure automatic backups
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Comments about Drobo FS Network Storage Enclosure:
This is great deal, fast setup, no brainer and it is neat that you can put any size drive in the bays. It is fast and I really like it. It was worth the money and I expect to use it for years to come.
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Comments about Drobo FS Network Storage Enclosure:
Easiest Drobo I've set up yet! I'm using dual drive redundancy to ensure my data is secure
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Comments about Drobo FS Network Storage Enclosure:
easy to set up and use.
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Comments about Drobo FS Network Storage Enclosure:
Recently crashed a hard drive with 1TB of irreplaceable photos. Data recovery cost $2100. The drobo cost less than a $1000 and will double-insure 5TB. Lesson learned (the expensive way.)
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Comments about Drobo FS Network Storage Enclosure:
Makes backing up your computer effortless. A great way to secure your files.
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Comments about Drobo FS Network Storage Enclosure:
Drobo is accessed by PLEX a media server that resides on a new mac mini with HDMI.
Drobo works well on OSX 10.6 but I hear that it is not so good on OSX 10.7
I must say that Drobo Dashboard does not find drobo at times yet is found in finder, all I can say is that the bundled dashboard is buggy.
I use Bonjour mounter 3.0 to take care of mounting the drive as dashboard is hit and miss. Overall it works really well with Bonjour Mounter, full rip dvd's stream with no lag or jitter.
Pretty happy with it, I will not be updating my mac mini to 10.7 untill Bonjour Mounter has version 4.0 ready and tested that will work with osx 10.7
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Comments about Drobo FS Network Storage Enclosure:
This is like the Mac of storage products. Yes you must pay attention to what you are doing, but everything else is done for you. Put your drives in and save your data. The FS (File Storage)is just that. If you want a NAS or something else Drobo offers different products to fulfill those needs. It is simply one big hard drive with built in ability to keep you data safe. It gives you peace of mind about the dreaded hard drive crash where all your precious file are lost to anyone except a professional who deals with that. Yes is is possible, but what could be easier than inserting a new hard drive and get your data back on track.
Transfer rates are good enough for mass storage and backup. The 1080p HD movies I stored playback without glitch or hesitation.
Because it is one large drive, it takes a bit longer to retrieve all your file names than a drive on the computer.
It is network connected meaning anyone on your network, with permission, may access the data.
It is simple and an a large step ahead in data recovery and safety.
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Comments about Drobo FS Network Storage Enclosure:
I use the drobo FS to store & back up all my data files as well as 8 TB of Video & Music which streams to other devices/users on my home LAN. It behaves exactly as advertised. I use Western Digital Green drives and the total device audible noise is negligable. You can mix drive sizes BUT you should make all drives the same size. e.g. a 3TB drive is used as a 1TB drive when mixed with 4 other 1TB drives. The least expensive way that I found to add drives is to buy a WD usb desktop drive and pop it out of its case. It was a net $300 cheaper this way to add 5 3TB drives than to buy the basic drives.(Don't put a high power/high rpm drive back in the green drive case. That spells trouble.) If you require the highest reliability then consider special drives at more than twice the cost.
I have not tried running apache on it yet but the Linux app capability is a great feature.
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Comments about Drobo FS Network Storage Enclosure:
I recommend this to anyone looking for a NAS device. I previously owned a Buffalo TereStation which became outdated with no firmware updates and replaced it with the DroboFS. The performance is good based on 1Gbps connection. The Drobo is used for remote backup (TimeMachine) on one iMac and several others for remote storage access. I especially like the Drobo apps which add additional functionality. Loaded mine with 5 X Seagate 2TB drives.
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Important lessons:
If you delete something from a drobo, your data is likely gone… forever!
If your lucky partial recovery from pro services could cost $7000+
If your Drobo file system gets damaged, do not let windows or any other operating system repair it or you will lose some or all of your data.
The drobo is slow, you can't recover data in a timely manner (if you can recover it at all).
Don't trust the Drobo, as it is only a single device it cannot provide an ultimate solution.
Some kind of distributed private cloud storage setup is strongly recommended.
Drobo is supposed to make data storage simple but if you trust it too much and you will lose all your data. I can't stress how important it is to backup your data to a second device (a spare hard disk, another computer or even another drobo.
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Comments about Drobo FS Network Storage Enclosure:
Everything works as stated, really easy integration with home PC and Mac for cross sharing.
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Comments about Drobo FS Network Storage Enclosure:
I use this product to store a lot of data. It was easy to set up and configure. I did have an initial issue setting up the admin id and pw and getting an ip address but after a code refresh and a reboot it all came together.
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Comments about Drobo FS Network Storage Enclosure:
I purchased the Drobo FS because I liked the two-drive failure support, the idea of being able to interchange different sized disks as my storage needs grew, and the ability to share my data across my network to my different machines.
GREAT THINGS:
-Data redundancy
-Uses mixed sizes of media
-Gigabit Ethernet
-Often about as noisy as a space heater on low
LESS GREAT THINGS:
-Not really fast by Gigabit terms
-REALLY SLOW to access/index lots of small files
-Fussy Dashboard software
-Often about as noisy as a space heater on Hi with five drive heads chattering around inside
I am a new-to-mac home user. After both my pc laptop and desktop died within a month of each other I was able to switch my systems over to a Mac mini and an Air, but I had 1T worth of data pulled from the old machines that needed to go somewhere. Mostly music, documents and photographs. I also was looking to take advantage of Time Machine on the Drobo FS.
And while I have to admit that it does these things- accepts different media, stores data with purported redundancy, works as a Time Machine backup drive- It does them all SLOWLY.
I had read that it's transfer rate was often about 30MB/s. That seemed fast enough for my needs- streaming iTunes media, photographs, etc. But what I never read anywhere is that that is only for large files. When transferring lots of little files the rate can easily drop to less than 1MB/sec.
Backing-up data from my old computers- that had a lot of little files to deal with.
Time machine back-up- that has a lot of little files to transfer. Slow
Migrating itunes media- lots of little files. Slow.
And anything with a lot of indexing or scanning of the data- slow.
And whenever these activities are taking place, access of the drive slows down too. Sometimes I can't even stream a 320x240 video while iTunes is organizing music on the drive. It basically stops me dead in my tracks, and I have to walk away for a few hours.
And then there was the setup. The Drobo arrived on a Friday, so when I tried to set it up over the weekend I had no Data Robotics support to call. The problem that I encountered that really set me back a day or two was that after installing the Drobo Dashboard software it checked for updates. Awesome. Both the firmware and the dashboard software had updates. However, after the new Dashboard software installed I could barely use it. Many of the buttons were missing text, or not there at all- only discoverable by how the cursor changed as you passed over them. I un-installed and re-installed several times hoping something would work better, and eventually, after deleting all fonts on my system and restoring the default fonts I was successful. I'm not saying it is the fault of Data Robotics that I had a lot of fonts- and I'm not even certain that that was the problem- but it was incredibly frustrating.
As storage for my rather large iTunes library, it works, but not as well as I had hoped. This is where having a RAID directly attached to my machine would have been better. I always have to remember to encourage the Drobo to mount before starting iTunes, otherwise my music path will default to my user's music directory- and downloads and podcasts will begin to go there, instead of to the Drobo.
After writing this I really feel like I should maybe return it. I guess it depends on how much of a lazy human I actually am.
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Comments about Drobo FS Network Storage Enclosure:
Not fast.. transfers are about 28MBps. But what it does do, it does very well. Its a NAS for the tech illiterate. Set it and go... almost anyone can get it up and running in under an hour.
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Comments about Drobo FS Network Storage Enclosure:
This is the Second Drobo I have used. The first one I've purchased for my company. So far I love all of the features and ease of use and setup for this system. The User interface for the device is very cool and easy to update and make changes to the device. I use this as my master backup for several machines over my network. I would not recommend using it as a drive system to work off of. I would recommend using the Drobo that has the firewire 800 though for a direct drive to edit. I have to store tons of video footage and special FX and the speed at which the system backs up files has been amazing. I also truly enjoy the fact that you can divide sections of the system off to different systems or for different people that I need to have their projects backed up.
Comments about Drobo FS Network Storage Enclosure:
It was easy to install the drives and get things up and running. However, the admin console feels slow. Also, it feels like it take a long time from starting the Drobo FS until you can eventually connect the admin console to it.
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Comments about Drobo FS Network Storage Enclosure:
Did a lot of reading on NAS's and canvassed opinion but the clincher for me was the ability to use different size hard drives and upgrade drives while also getting the same benefits as a RAID5 array.
I have 2 x 3TB, 1x 1TB, 1x 2TB and 1x750GB and it just works, simplest piece of kit to setup and access.
Only negative is that my I can't stream some of my media as the public domain app for serving DLNA content (FUPPES) is fairly limited in codecs it supports. Going to have to try a media server that allows samba shares.
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