Thoughts on the Drobo?

[Shroomie]

I filled my "fileserver" up yesterday, so I'm looking for something new. I remember seeing one of these on DL.TV a while back and it looked pretty neat. Does anybody own one or have any experience with them?

It's going to be used mostly for media storage, and I like the idea that I can just swap out a dead drive without losing anything. My other option is RAID 5 I suppose, but this seems like it would be much easier to switch between computers.

 

[xenotype]

I know if you do a search for the DROBO, when it first was unveiled some forum members were anxiously discussing it. It seems to work best for non-tech savvy people, as it is fairly expensive, you could build a cheaper NAS out of old parts lying around, or with a cheap via-C7 machine. I've heard many a stories of people turning the 199 walmart gPC into a fileserver, just drop in a controller, up the PSU and youre golden, plenty of room for drive bays, could drop in gig-Ethernet NIC, make it one killer NAS.

Even if you dont want to use a full blown computer, there are cheaper enclosures out there, that you can couple with a decent RAID controller, and go RAID5 and get the respect of the ladies.