Product ReviewsData Robotics Drobo 4 Bay SATA2 Hard Drive Storage Array Firewire 800 & USB2.0 - Retail Pack
|
60%
40%
0%
0%
0%
|
With 10 User Reviews
|
 Rating: Review Date: 11/04/12  |
Cons: none
Pros: great and efficient |
|
Rating: Review Date: 07/21/12 |
Pros: Simple, single and futureproof
Comment:
Have own the Drobo 4 bay for 4 years and never had an issue. Started with 2x1Tb drives, added 2 more 1TB drives and eventually replaced them all with 2Tb drive. Never had a moment of trouble with it and the drive replacement was painless. Be aware however that rebuild after drive replacement does take quite some time. |
|
Rating: Review Date: 04/11/12 |
Cons: Slow transfer speed.
Pros: Effectively unlimited storage. Comment:
The Drobo will not max out a USB 2 connection, let alone the Firewire 800 interface it ships with. However, speed is not the killer the Drobo, seamless, automatic, on-the-fly, on-line storage upgrades are the killer feature. And those upgrades just work.For archival purposes and media storage, the Drobo can't be beat. Just keep the library and index files on the SSD you boot from. |
|
Rating: Review Date: 04/06/12 |
Cons: - a little slow- support from Data Robotics can be spotty
Pros: - easy to use, simple to set up & maintain- early warning of drive failures- solidly built- ability to use different disks Comment:
I've owned a Drobo since they were first on the market. I actually own the USB 2.0 only model (not this one), but they are quite similar although this 2nd gen version has a faster processor and runs a different firmware.Overall I am very pleased with the Drobo. Although other RAID units offer more features, the ability to grow the array dynamically with DIFFERENT disk sizes is a huge win. When I first bought the Drobo it had a mix of 200GB & 320GB drives (1TB total available), by the time I retired it (replaced with a Drobo FS), it was populated with 2TB WD Green EADS (5.44TB) and I didn't lose a byte of data in four years. That being said, Data Robotics' marketing copy goes a little too far in suggesting that data on the Drobo is protected against any calamity -- to their credit when you look at their technical whitepapers they point that out and suggest -- rightly -- that you still need a solid off-site backup policy as well. If you need a solid local storage solution for personal or small-office use that's as set-and-forget as possible, you can't go wrong with a Drobo. |
|
Rating: Review Date: 03/12/12 |
Cons: should have waited, extra $10 off price i paid
Pros: got it on sale for 309, easy to use Comment:
extremely good system, have 2 seagate drives installed. dashboard software is nice feature. no issues with drobo on network, 8 meg + network transfer speeds. |
|
Rating: Review Date: 11/05/11 |
Cons: none worth mentioning
Pros: only paid $250 Comment:
i don't regret this purchase over the iomega cloud ix2-200 which had very slow transfer rates over wifi and i won't forget to mention that the signal will drop out every so often with the iomega, drobo processed my mail in rebate in a timely manner. you should not use 5400 or low rpm green drives for this |
|
Rating: Review Date: 08/14/11 |
Cons: You must put it in sleep mode before shutting down your Mac (or it will hangs forever, same on Windows).
Pros: Simple, quit, intuitive, can share between my macs without a network link. Comment:
Easy backup solution. You can swipe the Drobo between 2 Macs without any problems (just install the software on both Macs). You can also share the files by doing an SMB or AFP share (no need the DroboLink). It is simple to use and the software is really well made. Firewire speed is damn fast for Time Machine backup. At 249$, you can't go wrong. |
|
Rating: Review Date: 08/11/11 |
Cons: none so far
Pros: Easy to install, great built quality. Comment:
I love it, I needed to improve my backup situation and I hated the fact that this would have meant getting a series of annoying external hdds. The drobo is exactly what I needed, however, I use it on a mac and I stored my aperture library on it and I wasn't able to use it properly with usb2. Had to step up to firewire 800. Now it's just fine so I sugggest to grab a firewire card at the same time if you don't have a mac or a 1394b capable mobo. |
|
Rating: Review Date: 07/20/11 |
Cons: Slow over USBAdding storage takes HOURS before it's active
Pros: Very easy to upgrade storageQuietLow power Comment:
I've had this running 24/7 since July 2009 without any problems (2 years).I just received a 2TB WD EARS hard drive from NCIX today to upgrade the unit and it tells me it's going to take 56 hours to re-distribute the data! Fortunately I still have access to the contents while it's copying.Overall I'm very happy with this unit, the ability to mix-and-match drive capacities is great. I don't have time to manage a RAID array, when the Drobo gets full I just put another drive in.I use this mainly as central storage for movies and music that can be accessed anywhere in the house via Ethernet and wireless. Even 1080p MKV files at 12GB play fine over the Ethernet.But if you're in a rush to copy a lot of date over the USB connection it can be slow. I haven't tried the Firewire yet. |
|
Rating: Review Date: 06/10/11 |
Cons: could be cheaper
Pros: looks good quite easy to use. don't mater what sise hdd are mix and match. Comment:
i won this from NCIX and like it a lot don't have much use for it but good build works right out the box did what it supose to. you can add or subtract hdd as needed and not loose data!! big plus!! Thanks NCIX love it!!! This review was modfied by poster @ 06-10-11 06:10 PM |
I bought this to back up my data and it has been very efficient so far. I like it in my living room as it doesn't produce much heat around the atmosphere. Great device