I use my WHS for 3 things: backup, file storage and streaming videos/music to my Xbox 360. Thanks for testing the first 2 of those. Any tests using the FS for use on the 360? I've been very close in getting either the FS or a Synology box to replace my (aging) WHS box.
Thanks again for the review.
When Microsoft unexpectedly announced that it was dropping support for its Drive Extender technology in Windows Home Server 2011, it inspired a collective scream from enthusiasts who had stuck with the platform for more than three years, through some decidedly bumpy times.
But at least one company saw Microsoft’s misstep as an opportunity. Data Robotics, Inc. marked the occasion by introducing its Drobo product line to the Windows Home Server community, complete with a special discount aimed directly at them.
It was a smart move. Drobo CEO Tom Buiocchi describes the company’s mission as “trying to bring elegant ease of use to people who never dreamed they would have terabytes of storage.” That’s very close to the original vision for Windows Home Server.
So, can a Drobo really earn a place in a small office? That’s what I set out to learn for myself with some hands-on testing over the past few months. Here’s my report.
Drobo’s sleek black boxes are specifically designed to do everything that Drive Extender did. You can mix and match hard drives of varying sizes, old and new, to turn four or five drives into a single pool of storage. Data on that virtual volume is protected by a technology called BeyondRAID, whose fundamental premise is that hard drives will fail.
When (not if) that drive failure happens, the pool of storage rebuilds itself on the fly. To increase the amount of available storage, all you have to do is add a new drive or replace an existing one, without having to shut down the entire unit.
I tried one of the first-generation Drobo units four years ago, when they were brand new. That hardware showed tremendous promise in fulfilling the company’s vision, but its performance was marred by painfully high noise levels that made the device unusable in an ordinary office environment. (I wasn’t the only one who thought so, either.)
A lot has changed in the past four years, and when I heard the news about Drive Extender I decided to take a fresh look at Drobo’s offerings. Can Drobo’s technology replace Windows Home Server completely? Or is there room in the home (and home office) for both products?
The folks at Drobo were kind enough to send me one of their current Drobo FS units for review, and I purchased a Drobo S using my own funds. The two products look nearly identical, except for the connectors on the back (more about that in a bit). The elegant design is the same as I remember, as is the jet black finish.
Neither unit was whisper-quiet, but they’re nearly so. The noise level on each of the two units was well within acceptable limits, even when I stuffed each one with five drives of varying sizes and put them to work.
The Drobo FS ($699) is one of four products in the current Drobo Storage for Professionals product lineup. Connect it to a wired network using the Gigabit Ethernet on the back, and then subdivide its pooled storage into shares, with access rights for each share assigned to user accounts on the device. As a server, it can also host apps that handle some of the tasks that people use a Windows Home Server for.
The Drobo S, which costs $100 more, shares a similar chassis but is designed to connect to a PC using USB 3.0, FireWire 800, or eSATA connections. It doesn’t allow you to run any external apps.
Up next, a closer look at how Drobo works.
