DROBO: The Device for the Paranoid

I had the privilege of checking out this piece of hardware in person today when my brother in law had it brought to his hotel room for testing. I can tell you one thing, DROBO is THE device for the uber paranoid. Basically, DROBO is an external storage and back up solution that stacks up several hard disk bays in one casing with Firewire, USB, eSATA, Ethernet and iSCSI connectivity options. It automatically "synchs" data from one hard drive to the other, therefore we lazy people would have a copy of our files in each of the hard drives (up to 24 TB). If one fails, just pull it out, stick another one in, and voila, instant back up.You don't have to stick to one brand of storage devices, so if you have old 250GB hard drives lying around, you can just stick it in, and it becomes part of the stack. There are pretty light indicators that allow you to check the health of each drive.

This device is great for professionals in the media, photography, video, music and design industry - those needing huge storage capacity, and at the same time, assured data protection. It's also a useful server virtualization and back up solution for businesses and organizations. The casing looked and felt durable enough, with a sleek, all black design with neon indicator lights.

Just had some questions in my mind like what happens when you accidentally unplug it, or can you access the drives via Wi-Fi - but the sales person in charge couldn't answer yet, since it's probably a new product line. The idea is amazing, but I guess I need to use it for a a couple of months to really be convinced.

With a price tag of Php30,000++, it's worth a look. Better to be safe than lose all your hard work in that single, vulnerable external drive. Did I scare you enough to get one? Then go to http://www.drobo.com. Or just contact me if you wish to purchase locally.

General Specifications