| Data Robotics DR04DD10 Drobo 4-Bays USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 Fully Automated SATA Robotic Storage Array | 
 enlarge | List Price: $499.00
Buy New: $474.99
You Save: $24.01 (5%)
Buy New/Used from $474.99
Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 13 reviews)
Sales Rank: 503
Category: CE
Publisher: Data Robotics
Studio: Data Robotics
Brand: Data Robotics
Label: Data Robotics
Media: Electronics
Autographed: 0
Memorabilia: 0
Special Features: nv:Enclosure Type^3.5"|Compatible Drives^3.5" Hard Drives|Drive Interface^SATA|Enclosure Interface^USB 2.0|Enclosure Interface^IEE1394a Firewire 400|Enclosure Interface^IEE1394b Firewire 800|USB 2.0 Transfer Rate^480 Mbps|Firewire IEE1394a Transfer Rate^400 Mbps|Firewire IEE1394b Transfer Rate^800 Mbps
Shipping Weight (lbs): 12
Dimensions (in): 10.7 x 6.3 x 6.3
MPN: DR04DD10
Model: DR04DD10
UPC: 094922903457
EAN: 0094922903457
ASIN: B001CZ9ZEE
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | FireWire 800 (FireWire 400 compatible) | | • | Enhanced USB 2.0 performance | | • | Redundant data protection | | • | Hot expandable up to 16TB | | • | Mix n match drive capacities |
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Product Description
As rich media (photos, video, movies, music) continues to devour your storage capacity, you need a solution that allows you to easily manage, protect, and scale storage for your PC or Mac. For you, we've created Drobo, the first fully automated storage robot to take the pain out of keeping your important digital content safe. This Data Robotics DR04DD10 Drobo enclosure accepts up to 4 internal storage SATA hard-drives (drives are not included) that you set up as an array for both primary and backup storage. Add Drobo, get 4 drives and download at will. Unit Dimensions - Width 6.3 Inch x Depth 10.7 Inch x Height 6.3 Inch Storage Controller Type - Serial ATA (SATA) Includes Power adapter Voltage Required 100-240V AC, 50/60 Hz Data Robotics - 1 Year Limited Warranty Hard Drive Type used - Internal Drobo utilizes a revolutionary storage technology that makes it simple for anyone to use, yet is powerful enough for business. Once you experience the power of Drobo, the idea of keeping multiple external drives or a RAID 5 array will seem as antiquated as that 28.8Kbps modem in the back of your closet Windows, Mac, Linux - Drobo works with all three major operating system platforms and their native file systems Drobo allows you to purchase as much or as little storage as you like up front. Since you can expand at any time, Drobo is the right solution for your budget
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Disappointed with DRI September 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Having done a ton of research before purchasing a RAID system, I felt pretty confident when my FW800 Drobo turned up with four 1TB disks from the Drobo Store a week ago. Everything worked as expected, I knew that I would lose disk space for the RAID requirement, so that didn't bother me and I transferred all my data across from my iMac and external HDD...nice and secure. Itunes library, video's, RAW files, the works...streaming to Apple TV no problem.
And then the dreaded 1.2.4 firmware update that happened on Friday. Once installed, my Drobo has been constantly rebooting and the dashboard software doesn't recognise it...consequently I've been without my data for five days now (as DRI do not offer support over the weekend) and it appears, according to their technical support call service who finally answered my call last night after waiting for nearly an hour, are not likely to resolve my problem under a week due to the increased volume of calls as a result of the firmware update.
So, I've really no way of knowing how good this product is, as I've only had it up and running for a few days and then it failed on me. I hope my data is okay and intact, but who knows until DRI can get the thing working again. Bottom line is that their technical support is deficient and if you want reliable access to your data, then my recommendation would be to purchase an additional RAID array for RAID0 backup of the Drobo, this would allow you not to lose data if your Drobo goes down, would allow fast rebuilds of the Drobo if a drive did fail, and would allow you to swap out disk sets for off-site storage for additional protection. I actually think DRI recommend this approach anyway, but the need has been hastened by failure of their product.
Seriously thinking of returning it and getting two RAID0 arrays and use Mac Disk Utility to manage the RAID...none proprietary and redundant. The Drobo has the makings of a great product, but seriously needs to be better supported by their technical support group, including better testing of their firmware updates and faster resolution of technical issues, especially those created by DRI in the first place.
I will update my review once I have my Drobo back online and hopefully can increase the score.
 Safe and sound at last September 30, 2008
I bought the Drobo as a primary storage solution for my iMac. All of my data (iTunes library, iPhoto library and EyeTV library), which totaled close to 700gb worth of data were stored on a single 1TB external hard disk. My data was only on a single disk and if that disk failed I would be losing data that has taken years to accumulate, not to mention photos that could never be replaced.
Once the Drobo arrived, I put in two 750gb disks plugged it in via Firewire 800 on my iMac and copied over all of my data from that external disk. There's no setup and it worked like any other disk, except now my data is stored safely on two disks.
I then took apart my 1TB external disk which was a SATA drive and put it in the Drobo and expanded my space even further and now my data is spanning 3 disks.
So I have gone from data being stored on a single disk to three disks and I can expand that disk space by simply adding another drive. My data is safe and I no longer have to worry about it. Not only that but it took no time at all to migrate my data opposed to setting up a RAID array and spending the time to build a custom setup. Drobo has a small footprint on my desk and I can see how much free space I have at a glance. It's a beautiful piece of technology and if you're at all serious about your data, the Drobo could easily be the best investment you make for it.
 Unreliable product sold by not trustworthy people - think twice before you buy! September 28, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I've reviewed it a while back, but now I have to revise my original rating and review. I strongly advice you to think twice, before you make your purchase, as I am now sitting in the mess of trying to recover my data! The company making Drobo refused to offer any support.
[Latest update 09/27/2008] DROBO CRASHED AND I LOST MY DATA!
They lied about Linux support on their web site. Someone got Linux working with this device, and they started putting up Linux "Support" on their product web site. The truth is: THEY DO NOT SUPPORT LINUX AND REFUSE TO PROVIDE SUPPORT FOR PROBLEMS.
The worse thing is that they don't provide support for Linux. I am extremely disappointed because they advertise Linux support on their web site, but when problems appear, they shied away and told me they don't "officially" support Linux. They sent me to their "community" web site filled with advertisement, where I finally learned the Linux support is "experimental" at the moment. Now I am on my own.
I felt I was cheated. They are not trustworthy. Now they don't even want to take that thing back! So my advice - think twice before you buy this product, I would not trust what they put up on their web site.
[Original review]
This is an interesting product, which is really easy to use. I have not got a chance to try out the recovery feature, but from what I've read so far, I would expect it to work as advertised. I've considered building a RAID 5 array myself, but with the amount of work involved, I have always hesitated. This product solved this problem, although the downside is the price tag and being dependent on their proprietary data format. I guess if my Drobo fails, I'd have to buy another one immediately.
I got the USB version, so far I am getting around 10-20MB/sec throughput. It's quite low, but good enough for my purpose as mass storage primarily.
Another issue I have had was with the fan, when it on it's quite noisy. This happens after I've accessed the drobo for a while. I've not observed a lot of heat even when the disk has been active for a while. Another nice thing is that the disk goes to standby after being idle for a while, so this is good for the disks' lifespan.
The spin up time I've seen is around 10-20sec, I guess it's also dependent on the disks I am using.
Overall, this is a useful product that suites my needs. For me, the downsides are the price tag and the fan noise. 4-star is the best I could think of for now.
2nd gen product is a winner! September 17, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I bought my first Drobo in 9/07 to store video, iTunes and do backups. It was a USB device, performance was OK, but not a killer.
This August, 2008, I bought a 2nd generation with FireWire 800. WOW. Its fast! We use it for editing home-videos using Final Cut Express connected to a Mac Book Pro.
I told the IT guy at work about this. Boy did I learn a lot. Enterprise servers with RAID storage like those from HP or Dell that cost $5-20k have less features than this little black box:
I can add drives one by one to Drobo to increase capacity. RAID can't.
I can use mixed size drives like 400, 500,750, 1000GB. RAID can't -- well it can, but it only uses 400GB on each. Which wastes a lot of space.
Drobo is self-managing. RAID isn't.
The drobo.com site has a calculator that lets you experiment with different combinations of different drive sizes. The other reviewers have a hidden agenda in complaining about drive sizes measured in k=1000 or k=1024, or the amount of overhead used for protection. They are blaming Drobo's maker for their lack of understanding/research.
We solved a problem that I bet many of you have: unused computers purchased over the past years and disk drives sitting around because they have data you want to keep but have no hard drive space to use to replace them. Drobo gave us a HUGE amount of storage. In our house we got rid of two unused Dells that had archives of stuff, and one Dell that was in active use as a file & print server. Our Drobo is connected to a Dell notebook vintage '04 which doubles as a file/print server. Its power efficient so its "on" all the time.
Part of the reason we collected so many computers and drives was because "its cheaper to build it yourself." This is true, but you "pay" for it in sweat equity and on-going need to maintain. Drobo works and releases the tax on your time that being the home IT staff takes. If you want some of that get a Drobo. If you want to be a slave to support inferior storage solutions -- well keep being a slave to your computer gear.
 Good but not perfect September 17, 2008
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
OK, lets get started. First of all, the company that makes the Drobo call it the first storage robot. Let's make one thing clear, this is no more a robot than a laptop, printer or coffee machine. There is no mechanized anything with the Drobo. It's an electronic device, that's all. The video ads floating around the drobo website are also somewhat misleading, it is NOT as simple as unpacking, pluging a couple drives in and that's it.
Here my personal experience with a recent model Imac 20", the new firewire drobo and 3 drives (2x500, 1x750)
Inserting a drive into the drobo will erase any and all data contained on it!
Be sure you read the instruction carefully and think through how you want to format and partition the drobo, yes, it does not do this crucial step for you! You can have one big partition or several.
This is done with the mac osx disk utility. Also, you can format the partitions in any of several osx flavors or even fat32. If you are thinking of hooking the drobo up to an airport extreme via USB to share it over your network you MUST FORMAT THAT PARTITION in Mac OS Extended but NOT JOURNALED. Otherwise the drive will never show up in the airport utility shared disk window.
I created a 700GB partition just for time machine and the rest as one big chunk. When i started up time machine on my Imac and told i to use this new partition it i never thought it would take forever, as in 6 hours(!!) to create the first initial time machine backup for my 200GB system. If you already have a time machine backup on some other drive there seems to be no sure fire way to copy it over the drobo,
And the drobo, or rather the drives, were constantly in use making quite a racket.
There are some other minor quirks i have run into in the 2 days i have had the system, but nothing major.
An example would be after putting the drobo in standby mode there is no obvious way to revive it; no button on front or some 'restart' function with the drobo utility - so it's unplug and re-plug, hardly very elegant solution.
UPDATE AFTER 10 DAYS OF USE
well, the drobo and time machine backup on it came in real handy yesterday as my imac refused to boot. I restored OSX with the leopard cdrom and one of the lastest time machine backups. this took about 3 hours. what happened next was kind of strange, time machine started making a whole new backup (200GB) of the entire system on top of the backups i had just used to restore the system from. this must be some kind of time machine bug and not a drobo problem. but after having to reboot the system for some other reason and restarting time machine to finish the backup the system said that the time machine partition was read only?!!
had to shut down drobo and reboot imac to get rid of this problem. also, just found out today that even though disk utility allows for non-destructively changing partition sizes, the DROBO DOES NOT SUPPORT THIS.
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