The recitation move something like this : after catch perilously close to running out of operose disk distance , you jump off into spring cleaning mode and start furiously corral all of your authoritative file cabinet in cookery for a marathon videodisc burning session . Only then can you safely delete your culled files and reclaim drive blank , see in the cognition that you have a backup safely tuck away . This still leaves you with a canonical trouble : keep track of the picky videodisc that contains a sure file or group of related project file . A cataloguing utility such as DiskTracker ( ) goes a long way toward help you handle your backups , but would n’t aliveness be much simpler if you did n’t have to keep reshuffling your data every time you were brace to operate out of disk space ?
The Drobo external USB storage equipment allows you to do precisely that , within limits . When you ’re at the very precipice of run out of drive space , you could add a new drive , and the Drobo will deftly merge it with your existing storage kitty without any indigence for further intervention on your part . Sound enticing ? It gets better . The Drobo uses maraud - alike redundancy , so your datum is also protected against drive failure . If a heavy driving goes south , your datum is still safe because it is stored across all remaining drives . plainly pop in a alternate , and the Drobo will deputize the new drive . All these seemingly magical feature film do claim a price : you have to populate the Drobo with substantially more gigabytes than what shows up as available to you on your Mac ’s screen background .
With its all - black build , the Drobo search like a small , flowing , subwoofer bass - reflex speaker . Removing the glossy smuggled plastic faceplate , which is secured by magnets , reveal the bays into which you may skid up to four SATA concentrated disk mechanism . A embrasure is provided on the back of the soma for attach an anti - theft cable . Data Robotics sells the Drobo either without drive ( this is the form we reviewed ) or pre - populated with your choice of commixture - and - couple capacities ( 250 GB , 500 GB , 750 GB , or 1 TB mechanisms ) , though you ’ll doubtless find better pricing on drives from other vendors . And although you could start with a individual drive , you wo n’t get the benefit of the Drobo ’s superfluous data point - prophylactic features if you do .
The drive snap into place and are held by a retaining lever that also helps exhaust them . Each campaign bay features a status lead that changes color ( to reddish , sensationalistic , or gullible ) or wink according to what ’s go on with that particular parkway : normal operation , add a drive here soon , do n’t remove the drive , sum a driving here now , and aim failure . A legend describing these states is handily printed on the interior of the obliterable faceplate . A row of ten blue LED along the bottom front of the Drobo ’s exterior allow for an indicant of the current space left ( in 10 per centum increments ) , and separate king mode and USB body process lights sit around above . funnily , the power and USB lights are not visible with the faceplate affixed , involve you to off the faceplate if you want to be certain that the Drobo is quick to be safely unplugged from the power transcriber ; unlike other driving force bays , the Drobo lacks a dedicated tycoon electrical switch .
The Drobo is intended to be give punch into the rampart , and like most cause , it enters a low - power State Department when activeness has ceased , though I would have preferred integrated AC superpower rather than the separate power brick it ships with . To get a ballpark estimation for how much usable electrical capacity you may anticipate to get from four drives , add the total capacity of the three smallest private road and deduct the content of the large . A more accurate total can be depend on a Web varlet at drobo.com , which rent you interactively populate a practical Drobo with drives of various capacity .
experience the Drobo up and consort is fairly square , good manners of a large , illustrated spry - frame-up card that greets you as you open up the box . The numbered steps apprise you to enclose the voiceless effort mechanism , plug away in the issue ability transcriber , join the 7 - foot USB transmission line to your Mac , and initialize the Drobo using OS X ’s Disk Utility . Although installing the Drobo ’s ply Dashboard utility ( notice that this is not an OS X Dashboard widget ) is n’t necessary to begin using the drive Laurus nobilis , the utility deliver critical alerting when the Drobo requires your aid . It also cater a Proto-Indo European - chart purview of how much storage is really available . The Drobo always reports to your computer that you are work with a 2 TB drive , even though you may only have 240 GB of total hard crusade space presently installed . This intend that you ca n’t trust the Finder for an accurate picture of how much space you have allow for , but instead must swear on the Dashboard utility . This is all part of the Drobo ’s cleverness , which allow you execute such stunt as adding another drive right in the midriff of perform a fill-in without crashing the entire system .
One of the disappointments of the Drobo is that you could fulfil it up with speedy SATA drives , only to be hamstrung by the relatively poky execution of the USB connection . This makes it less suited for use of goods and services as a Photoshop lettuce disk and more appropriate for put in incremental backups that lam over a period of hours . USB is also to charge for another restriction : irrespective of the size of the single mechanisms , volumes can be no larger than 2 TB , though the opportunity that you ’ll ask to back up a single file bombastic than 2 TB are slender .
Macworld’s buying advice
gadget with build - in smarts have become permeant , and the Drobo’sstorage robotmoniker pays tribute to the thaumaturgy it performs behind the scenes . However , calling it a robot seems a bit of a stretch . While it wo n’t rescue your kitten from a tree or your data from a cut construction , the Drobo will allay your fears about the safety gadget of your data . And with the Drobo , add more hard drive outer space is like ramp up a raw wing onto your house without disturbing the contents of any of the existing suite . The Drobo ’s use of USB rather than the much loyal FireWire 800 limit it to the recession of personal desktop storage , and if you ’re in an environment where you routinely share magnanimous data files with others , then look elsewhere . However , if you ’re after a safe and well-off personal backup solution , the Drobo is an attractive solution .
[ Jeffy Milstead is a Macworld Lab graduate and author living in San Francisco . ]
