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25% more drives, 250% more pricetag

These are great when they work, or else they destroy data.
http://reviews.cnet.com/external-hard-drives/drobo/4864-3190_7-32470303-1.html?tag=txt;uo

Yikes! That is terribly unfortunate

I suppose with every manufacturing process there's going to be errors. If an LCD has a dead pixel or two, it's called acceptable defects. If a Drobo unit loses the disk pack and clears it, that's a much bigger problem.

I had a somewhat similar problem with a 2nd-Gen drobo rebooting itself after heavy use, and their support sent me a fresh replacement Drobo to put the disks in. Perhaps I got lucky with my support case.

At any rate, I've had 1st, 2nd, and now 3rd generation Drobos now and have not lost any data or had any problems (that weren't related to running firewire in windows)

1st Gen: 8-12 MB/s
2nd Gen: 12-24 MB/s
3rd Gen: ~80 MB/s!!!! (this 5 bay one over eSATA)

I can't say that every Drobo made will be perfect, but I am glad to have bought mine.

Who in their right mind would pay this much for such a limited unit? You would have to be "sofa king retarded"

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16859105563&cm_re=windows_home_server-_-59-105-563-_-Product

Same cost for a nice HP four-bay WHS that also includes a 1.5TB drive. The Drobo is the biggest ripoff ever.

Eh, yes I will admit that it's possible to accomplish what the Drobo does yourself (give or take) and save a few hundred dollars.

sarcasm:
But, if the Drobo is the biggest ripoff ever, then setting up and managing yet another server in your house is the most fun thing ever! Relying on a M$ Home Server would have to be the best storage solution, I wonder why more enterprising businesses don't use it?

Alternatively, building a customized lunix RAID solution that supports and utilizes any brand and size of hard drive, with on-the-fly recovery, thin-provisioning, tool-less drive insertion, flawless eSATA hot-swapping, and seamless 16TB expandability is the easiest thing ever!
/sarcasm


Time == Money.

Take your pick and enjoy your decision! (or possibly the responsibility and work that comes along with your decision

#6 - WHS + HP software is Apple-simple. Add a tiny app to every computer that uses the network and never worry about backing up again. And WHS folders integrate with Windows libraries automatically now - so so simple.

Actually a lot of small businesses do use WHS, but the 10 seat limit is a hard and fast rule. Can't blame M$ for crippling it just a little, WHS software is about a tenth the price of current their current Server OS.

WHS also offers one-click setup for remote access and features automatic media streaming and conversion. My WHS also makes use of my HDHomerun and records the TV shows I want, but that might take a little effort.

#7 you got me, if I hadn't bought Drobo's, Windows Home Server probably would have been the solution I went with.

Of course, using a whole server does introduce a lot of points of failure. Drobo just has the unit. If a unit fails, you pop the disks out, and put them in a replacement Drobo they'll send over and you're up and running. I figure a complete WHS backup and recovery would be a bit more involved...

Drobos aren't for everyone. People who love tweaking every last setting will probably hate them, because there are no settings. But for the person willing to spend some extra money on something that works without any user interaction, it's a fine product.

I'm just stuck defending my purchase because so many people keep on dissing it!

If you have the time and know-how to build your own perfect storage solution on the cheap, good for you, but I'm busy!

(yes I realize the irony of saying that when I wrote three long bensbargains posts during the work day, so don't bother pointing it out

#9:
I see your point, and have nothing against WHS. But putting a desktop workstation with a bunch of USB drives attached in a server room sounds pretty lame. Drobo's got a unit that's rack-mountable, holds 8 drives with dual-disk failure protection, two gigabit iSCSI connections and VMWare ESX certification, so I would say more businesses use Drobo's than WHS, yes.

Heh, I don't want my money back! I'm very glad I bought the Drobo's and don't want people who are interested to be scared away by those who would scoff and say that they can achieve the same thing in linux for 50 dollars less (along with X? hours of work).

Exactly which facts have I distorted? I may paint a pretty picture, but only because that's how I see it.

To naysayers:
If you find the Drobo to be a ripoff, present your alternatives! (that server does look very nice #5)

If you know a way to get all (or even most) of the features that Drobo provides for less money, please list the hardware and software you used to do it!

Present the potential buyers who are thinking about this with some better alternatives rather than insults.

#11:

That is very cool. I bet that it's a very fine storage solution, but there are some very subtle differences between it and the Drobo.

Namely you're comparing a server with a hard drive.
(adding TCP/IP and SMB layers to data transfers does not increase the speed)

The media collection and encoding is great, but I've already got a server that does that, so why buy another one?
With the Mediasmart functions like My Documents and Library backup, why not go all the way and make it a domain controller with roaming profiles? Why not put 2 NICs in there and make it your router as well?
I wouldn't be surprised if the answer is: Because that's not possible.

After a quick glance at the features, here is a list of things that the Drobo can do that the Mediasmart cannot:
-Connect to a computer over eSATA (even over gigabit ethernet, you will not reach more than 100 MB/s due to overhead) (with the Drobo listed on this bargain, I have gotten more than 100 MB/s)
-Move the disks from a broken server to a working one preserving all data and settings From the 495spec PDF: The included Server Recovery Disc can be used to recover all data and restore folders or, to reset the server in case the server operating system disk becomes corrupt" now the recover and restore parts sound great, but that "or reset the server..." sounds a bit destructive
-Drobo does not need to install M$ patches and reboot to remain secure, because it's a hard drive rather than a server.

My opinion:
You can often get a good deal by buying products that are the all-in-one combination of several things. Still, there is a good chance you'll be getting a halfway decent server paired with a halfway decent hard drive.


(Devils Advocacy aside: Your point is well made and I'm sure that would be a pretty sweet home server)

#13:

Substitute "fast" for "expensive" in your "*really* expensive external enclosure" sentence and I think we can come to an agreement here.

I did a quick search, and I couldn't find any speed benchmarks for a Mediasmart 4XX.....oh yeah!

That must be because most hard drive benchmarking software doesn't even work with network shares. I figure that's because for all the things network storage is supposed to be, fast is not one of them.

If you want Microsoft and HP (what a team!) to combine their efforts to build your server for you, and you don't care about speeds, then yes, the pre-built NAS server is the better choice.

Drobo is not faster than a properly configured host using the same interface to the clients. Maybe it seems fast because prior versions were so slow, but performance is not it's strong point.

80MB/s for 5 drives over eSATA? That's not good at all, a single drive over eSATA should exceed 80MB/s.

#16:

I don't use several external external drives because that would require me to manage a whole bunch of drive letters.

Also if the drive failed the data is all gone.
Drobo gives me a single drive letter, expandability, and with this latest generation, very good speeds.

I use it like a single, decently-fast drive, except that it can grow to 16TB and never fails.

Background info (I didn't want to share earlier because of my shame over my excessive archivism):
I'm running a computer DVR (BeyondTV FTW!) with 10 tuners and I record about 16 hours of tv a day. It's very bandwidth intensive to compress shows constantly, and direct attached storage works better than writing to an SMB share all the time.


Conclusion:
If you want a Windows Home Server with protected storage that will collect and re-encode your data and manage your files, go with Network Attached Storage.

If you want speed and the functionality of a local drive, but with data protection and 16TB expandability, and you already have a server that does that other stuff, Drobo is a fine Direct Attached Storage device.