Drobo FS DRDS2A21 10/100/1000 Ethernet Port Network External Hard Drive $399.99 w/FS @ Newegg.com

Would have jumped on this if hard drives were a little cheaper. Perfect for the parents considering it needs minimal setup to get it started.

Useless - that is in my opinion - but then i buy QNAP.

my $150 synology NAS also has built in "self healing" ie...i am running redundant backup and can upgrade one drive at a time and it will automatically increase the volume size without rebuilding the array

Quote from loofa : I suggest you research this one before pulling the trigger... especially if you value your data!

Amen! DROBO sucks - do not buy.

Quote from hallowmann : Some reviews indicate rates closer to 25-40MBps.

That's reasonable for a home application.
Now the question is how fast does the speed fall off servicing 2-3 requests at the same time?

I have one and have lost a harddrive, all my data was fine. When I replaced the drive it took maybe 10 hours to rebuild. You can have a 2 disk redundancy, but you lose space (obviously). I've had mine for 8 months or so and am happy with it. It's fast enough to stream video to my laptop, and I use it mainly for storage.

The reason I got this over a WHS or something is because while I can mess with raids, I'd rather not waste the time doing it. Also, I don't have to have 4 or 5 of the exact same drive to run this, you can mix and match drives. Especially with prices the way they are now, I can't afford to buy 4x2tb drives at one time. This way I could grab some older hdd's laying around and use them.

To each their own, but it's been worthwhile for me.

Dam, missed this.

Quote from norazi : my $150 synology NAS also has built in "self healing" ie...i am running redundant backup and can upgrade one drive at a time and it will automatically increase the volume size without rebuilding the array

4 disk synology? If yes, that is extremely cheap, please link it!

I can confirm that the max speed over gigE is around 20-40 MB/s. REALLY slow.

-It also has issues with needing to be rebooted every so often, where the unit will give you 1MB or less throughput. It's awful sometimes.
-Will disappear from windows explorer whenever (unless you give it a static IP - which you should do) and force you to map the drive again. If it refuses to mount, reboot the unit.

A synology 5 bay unit is faster and has more options for configuration. It's more expensive, but a greater value than the drobo.

When it comes time to replace the drobo, I will go with synology.

Don't waste your money. Drobo has the newer DroboPro FS which is slightly faster, but still not worth it. Why pay more for ~20% more performance when your other options are much faster still?

Drobo needs to up their game. Their effort with the FS is just embarrassing.