"Self-Healing" Storage Pool with Drobo
Hard drives are getting larger and cheaper as day goes by. We store more and more precious data and one thing that we don’t realize (until it is too late); It is not a matter of “if”, it is the matter of “when” our hard drives crash.
There are option to protect your data such implementing a RAID (available in both software and hardware: redundant array of inexpensive drives (or disks), also known as redundant array of independent drives), but it is not very friendly to consumer.
Drobo is a new innovative storage robot, which make the data protection and management easy to average consumers. Comes with four hard disk slots, Drobo pools them together as one enormous drive. If you insert an 80 GB SATA, a 250 GB SATA, and a 110 GB EIDE, it will handle them all as one continuous storage pool of 440 GB external drive accessible via USB 2.0.
Drives are hot-swappable and no tools are involved: open the case and pop in the new storage. It also detects if a drive is failing and does what it can about it. It states the entire storage pool is “protected” and in general that Drobo is “self-aware” or “self-healing”. It’s not clear precisely how Drobo “protects” your data or is “self-aware”, $699.
Read more about Drobo HERE ! Watch the video demo HERE!
I think you need to fact check this piece again. My understanding is that “If you insert an 80 GB SATA, a 250 GB SATA, and a 110 GB EIDE, it will handle them all as one continuous storage pool of”…… 190 GB” The largest drive is used for the redundancy/pool/security. It’s not using RAID but it *is* retaining multiple copies of bytes and doing so in some fairly novel and interesting ways. Read up on this sucker – it’s fascinating.
It uses a “dynamic” proprietary RAID (RAID-1 – Mirroring when under 50% utilization and RAID-5 – Stripping with parity when utilization is above 50%).
The actual usable capacity versus raw aggregate capacity is not as you described. They have a nice tool you can use here:
http://www.drobo.com/drobolator/
You’re right. I should have said “It’s not using standard RAID”.
Massive Data Storage Robot – New Superlow Price
Now you can get the Drobo for much less. The Drobo is a new foxy black cube that offers massive compact storage. Now prices are being slashed. Data Robotics, the manufacturer of the Drobo, has announced that the cube’s price is being cut from $699 to $499. And, in an unusual move, the company is offering a rebate to anyone who already bought a Drobo above $499.
Eric Gadfly