Data Robotics Drobo Share - 8TB capability??? Is this a NAS?

[Adamz]

Been a bit bored so surfing for a bit and came across the Drobo SAN which has now been extended by Drobo Share which claims NAS support. Documentation on the Data Robotics site is pathetically small but there sponsored user forum site claims that it provides SAMBA support so I would assume it is available to most devices.

As the naked 4 bay unit is £340 in the UK and the Drobo Share Unit is $199 this would make a pretty incredible cost effective device as you can have 2 Drobo units per Drobo Share.

With 8TB avail I would not need to rip DVD's.

Does anybody know anything about this unit.

Mini Review at : http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/14/droboshare-drobo-nas-mini-review/ pretty slow transfer rates :-(

[Hi-Jack]

Check the news...
It became a NAS today with an add-on module :-)

http://www.mpcclub.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=464

We will review the unit shortly separately followed by the review of the Drobo
Share as soon as it comes in. The unit itself will come this week normally so
we could start pretty soon with it.

Enjoy

[Adamz]

Interesting that for once the UK price on something is less than the US price.

SCAN are offering the Drobo for £349 naked which is USD666 less than the US list price of $700. If current exchange rates are used for the share device then ($200=£102) the combined unit would retail at at £451. This pricing matches the Thecus 5200Pro and Infrant ReadyNas+ but is significantly above a Synology CS407e or Thecus 4100 or indicated price of the QNAP TS-409. It is only when you go above 4TB that it starts to become equivalent in cost terms.

Looking at their user forum it also seems that beside constraining volumes to 2TB there is a greater overhead in resilience (cannot refer to it as RAID coz it is not). The user forum indicates a 4TB configured system will result in 2.7TB avail. RAID5 would normally provide 2.85TB (after 5% overhead is included). However the advantage is that resilience is offered across different sized disk - heaven knows how disk failure rebuild works.

Personally, I would probably stay with normal RAID NAS devices as the 2TB volume limit is restrictive and the cost is marginal. However for a newbie it seems to offer great opportunities just needs to reduce its price by about 15% - mind you probably a lot less than buying other consumer units like Buffalo....

[nima01]

Is NFS and/or Samba possible on this device?

[Hi-Jack]

We haven recieved the Droboshare yet...
Using different size disks is not recommended at all... Check the review...

[PatPowerMan]

Any news on this topic, Hi-Jack?