Original URL: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/01/14/data_robotics_rolls_out_droboshare/
Data Robotics' Drobo may have a daft name, but it's a clever take on expandable external storage. And today, it became a NAS box too, courtesy of a clip-on network adaptor.
Data Robotics' Drobo: expandable storage
Drobo is a four-drive storage unit that allows you to plug in any SATA HDDs you've got hanging around and have it automatically create an aggregated storage space that's also protected against the failure of any given disk.
DroboShare: Gigabit Ethernet enabled
Pull out a drive and just swap in a new, bigger one, and Drobo restructures itself on the fly - and quickly too. The full capacity's appears on the host machine - Mac, PC or, now, Linux box - as a single mounted unit.
The new box, the DroboShare has a pair of USB ports into which you plug one or two laden Drobos - they'll both auto-aggregate into a truly colossal space - and a Gigabit Ethernet port to hook the whole lot up to your LAN. It'll make its avaiable through
An empty Drobo costs $499/£299, and the DroboShare adds a further $199/£119 on top of that, so it's not cheap. But it does make upgrading its storage capacity and absolute doddle. And it's cross-platform, supporting NTFS, FAT32, HFS+ and EXT3 file-systems.
Drobo 'data robot' revamped with Firewire (8 July 2008)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/07/08/data_robotics_drobo_gets_firewire/
Drobo storage 'robot' to deliver music, movies to UPnP devices (7 July 2008)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/07/07/drobo_gets_dlna/
Iogear pitches over-the-network USB sharing gadget (20 May 2008)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/05/20/iogear_usb_lan_sharing_gadget/
You don't know disk about storage failures (6 March 2008)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/06/disk_dominant_contributor_storage_paper/
Rebit: This is your grandmother's data backup (8 February 2008)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/08/rebit_backup_review/
Showa Denko ships 40GB 1.3in HDD (11 January 2008)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/01/11/sdk_ships_1_3in_hdd/
Nexsan gives 42TB array a make-over for picky Apple fans (10 January 2008)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/01/10/nexsan_satabeast/
Toshiba raises colours in portable storage battle (9 January 2008)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/01/09/toshiba_external_storage/
Apple guns Xserve and Mac Pro to 11 (8 January 2008)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/01/08/apple_eight_core_xserve_macpro/
Hitachi hypes 'world's most capacious' laptop hard drive (3 January 2008)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/01/03/hitachi_tips_500gb_laptop_drive/
Storage 'robot' guards loads of data (6 June 2007)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/06/06/data_robotics_drobo/