Coolest Piece Of Computer Hardware I Have Seen In 10 Years

[tinjaw]

This has the potential to bring enterprise storage practices to the masses. This product will push the market to produce versions that cost under $200 and can be purchased by Mom and Pop businesses at their local office supply store. In the mean time expect every digital artist with a Mac to own one of these by Christmas.

Even if you don't expect to be able to afford this, watch the video demo. This is the best demonstration, ever, of what can be built when engineers stop thinking like engineers and start thinking like users.

drobo
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[mouser]

very very cool stuff.  sort of like a smart interactive external raid.
(ps you might adjust title of post to make it a little easier to identify what its about).

so it looks like its keeping multiple copies of data for redundancy - it would be nice to see what the internal filesystem organization looks like, and how configurable it is.  very cool stuff though, no doubt about it.

[crono]

It's not exactly a Raid - you cant do RAID5 with one or two Discs imo. The FAQ says:

Q. Does Drobo use RAID?
A. No, the patent-pending technology within Drobo is not RAID and was developed specifically to perform data management and configuration tasks automatically so that you don't have to. Drobo does utilize advanced storage concepts such as virtualization, but it is not a derivative of RAID

But if you look to the calculator at http://www.drobo.com/drobolator/ and enter 4 500GB Disc you got 1500 GB for storage and 500 GB for protection. This is the same which you get with a RAID5 System of 4 500 GB Discs. 500 $ for the "empty" case aren't cheap, but it's OK -do you know the Kaleidescape system? THIS IS EXPENSIVE... - watch the experience Video on http://www.kaleidescape.com/products/index.html

bye