Data Robotics Announces Drobo FS

My backup strategy is quite a mish-mash of USB hard drives and an Apple Time Capsule. I have been intrigued by Drobo’s various offerings in the past, but leaned more to a NAS (Network-Attached Storage) solution. The only Drobo option was to purchase a network add-on to an existing box. Today, they announced the Drobo FS. This new box is 100% NAS.

The Drobo FS can hold up to 5 drives an connects with a gigabit ethernet jack:

The Drobo FS starts at $699 with no drives, and costs $1,499 with 5 2TB WD20EARS drives. Here are the key bullet points from their press release:

Drobo FS Features and Benefits

• Plug-In and Share – The Drobo FS connects directly to any Gigabit Ethernet network for a true plug in and share set-up experience. Supports standard data transfer protocols including Apple File Protocol (AFP) and Microsoft Common Internet File System (CIFS).
• 5-Drive Capacity and Instant Expansion to 10TB and Beyond – Customers with growing storage requirements can easily add data capacity by simply inserting a new hard drive or replacing the smallest drive with a larger one, even when all five drive bays are full. With Drobo FS, expansion is automatic, instantaneous, and access to data is always maintained.
• Single- and Dual-Drive Redundancy – The Drobo FS dual drive redundancy option protects against the simultaneous failure of up to two hard drives. Customers can engage this option with a single click without ever losing access to their data.
• Self-Healing Technology – With BeyondRAID, the Drobo FS continually examines data blocks and sectors on each drive to flag potential issues. The preemptive “scrubbing” helps ensure data is being written only to healthy drive areas and automatically keeps data in the safest state possible – even when a drive fails.
• Customizable Storage – Utilizing the growing library of DroboApps, including media and web applications, users can customize the Drobo FS to further enhance their sharing experience.