One thing up-front: You can't use Drobo for your boot drive so it's not a solution for a primary drive. On the other hand, a primary drive can use RAID. (Not making a comment as to the viability of using RAID on a primary -- just the facts here.)
So the question is, how will you use the Drobo?
There are a few ways:
1. Direct-connect to PC via USB or eSATA.
2. Network-connected via ethernet with DroboShare device.
3. iSCSI over network. (I don't think all Drobo units have this.)
So for the home user it comes down to direct-connect (one PC/Mac) or ethernet (all PCs/Macs on network).
The Drobo itself is wonderfully simple to use, and is very well-constructed. It has a nice magnetic cover for accessing the drives and big bright lights to clearly point out good and bad status.
It is simple to add or delete drives. Just plug 'em in.
The Drobo software for managing the device is OK, but not as good as the device it is managing. My Drobo has the DroboShare device, and it requires me to keep tabs on three different types of updates: the Drobo firmware, the DroboShare firmware, and the Drobo management software. When I first plugged everything in, it required me to check for updates a number of times before everything was up to date.
You have a bit of a learning curve with regard to keeping an eye on disc usage. When you setup the Drobo, you give it a target size for your array, not the actual amount of storage you have today. So you might only have 2TB in actual disc storage, but you can create an 8TB array. It's mostly a good thing, once you get the hang of it.
The biggest drawback I have seen, as someone who attaches the Drobo via ethernet (DroboShare) is that it is not the speediest storage in the world. Sometimes it can be very slow. (NOT due to running out of storage space. It has a feature that automatically slows down writes as it gets close to filling up, but I am only about one-quarter full in terms of actual on-hand disc space.)
Many times when I try accessing the Drobo there is an initial pause, and then it reacts with typical performance. It might have something to do with the way it monitors the network, I'm not sure. But the pause is a little too long for my likes.
My "rough estimate" of data transfer speed is that it takes maybe twice as long to copy a bunch of files to the Drobo than to copy the same files to a Windows Server file share. (I'm sure Robin can do much more accurate testing than my "gut feel" described here.)
On the plus side, the plug-and-play aspect to network storage was great with the Drobo. It worked the first time, with absolutely no tweaking on my part. (Aside from learning how to use the sometimes-confusing Drobo management software.)
The DroboShare unit has a bit of a bonus for techies: You can use it to run small applications. There are a handful of apps on the Drobo site, and some are mildly useful. I played around with the feature for about a day, and came to the conclusion that it is a cool idea, but because it would require me to learn a new technology ecosystem, and the scope of such is limited to just Drobo users, it makes more sense to build the apps to sit on some other platform.
That said, it does provide an opportunity for industrious people to build apps that can turn the Drobo into a functional stand-alone server that can handle more than mere file sharing.
I like the Drobo for its ease-of use, peace-of-mind, and at-a-glance view of its status. It's great for storing shared files, bulk storage, backups, and other things that are not ultra performance-sensitive.
However, for those looking for a "data drive" on their PC that will be accessed frequently, I'm not so sure. Since my Drobo is set up as network storage I have not tested extensively in a direct-connect scenario. My guess is that there are faster direct-storage units out there, but Robin could test that in his upcoming review.
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