The Drobo FS from Data Robotics offers huge data storage capability with sufficiently-fast network transfer rates for everyday use. The device isn’t without quirks, but my initial take on it is rather positive. Read on for my full review of the Drobo FS…

Background

I recently found myself in desperate need of additional hard drive space – and a lot of it. I had been using a 250GB Buffalo LinkStation for a few years, but have had to regularly delete files from it to make room for new ones. Plus, since the LinkStation is a single-drive unit, none of the videos, photos, music, or other data files I was storing on it were ever being backed up. I was one power surge away from losing it all.

Finding myself in the market for a new network-attached storage (NAS) device, I turned my attention to the brand name I had been hearing so much buzz about: Drobo, by Data Robotics. I first heard of the Drobo line of consumer-level RAID storage systems some time last year, but never committed to buying one as none had built-in network sharing capabilities. At the time, the only option was an add-on device called the DroboShare, which had received poor reviews due to slow transfer speeds.

But on April 6, 2010, Data Robotics unveiled the Drobo FS. The “FS” stands for “file sharing,” which is exactly what I was looking for in a data storage system. The notion of combining the much-acclaimed Drobo “BeyondRAID” no-configuration-necessary technology with fast, built-in network sharing was too much for me to pass up.

Purchase and Price

After researching a number of different NAS solutions, I did ultimately decide to purchase the Drobo FS. But it’s easy for critics to call the entire Drobo line overpriced. At $699, the Drobo FS comes with no storage space of its own. You supply the hard drives.

If you hunt around you may be able to find a better price. I got lucky and was given a $150-off coupon code: ENGADGETPLUS. The code was good for purchase directly from Data Robotics, but I’m not sure how long it will last. It may already be expired by the time you read this.

What you are paying for with the high price is the sleek hard drive enclosure, no-nonsense installation (supposedly – keep reading…), the BeyondRAID technology, and the overall aesthetic experience. Check out the Drobo packaging and unboxing and tell me if this doesn’t remind you of a certain Cupertino-based computer company:

But clever packaging and a nice-looking product isn’t worth anything if the machine doesn’t perform well. Fortunately, the Drobo pulls its weight and delivers on most of what’s promised about it.

Setup and Configuration

One of the biggest selling points of any Drobo is that you should be able to simply insert any SATA internal hard drives into the unit’s slots and it handles the rest. You don’t do any formatting or configuration. The Drobo recognizes the drives and sets them up as necessary.

All of this worked exactly as described. In my case, I inserted 1.5TB drives into three of the available five slots. (I bought them separately for around $99 each.) They easily slid right into the slots and the connections felt very solid. According to the Drobo Capacity Calculator, the total available space for these three drives should be 2.72TB after the unit prepares them for data redundancy. I kept the Drobo’s default option of protecting against a single drive failure. Had I chosen dual disk redundancy, the available space would drop to 1.36TB, but I’m not worried about the unlikely event of two drives failing simultaneously.

The Drobo comes with software called the Drobo Dashboard which allows you to check the available drive space, set up network shares, and create users and access levels. Once the Drobo is connected to your home network via the built-in ethernet port on the back and Drobo Dashboard is installed and launched on your computer, the two should automagically find each other. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for me.

When I launched the Dashboard software, I saw these two messages:

I was running the software on my iMac G5 desktop machine, connected to the same LAN as the Drobo. Two hours of Drobo phone technical support couldn’t solve this problem. We tried reinstalling the Dashboard software and unplugging and replugging in the Drobo several times, as well as rebooting my computer numerous times. In the end, I suggested to the support rep that I try connecting using a different computer (a MacBook laptop) and the Dashboard software immediately connected via the local wireless connection.

(I blurred out my username, as I don’t need anyone trying to connect to my LAN and access my files.)

I still don’t know why I am unable to use the software on my desktop but, more importantly, it doesn’t matter. What the tech failed to tell me was that the Dashboard software isn’t actually necessary to use the Drobo. Sure, if you need to set up multiple users or other more advanced tasks you’ll need it, but for the most basic task of sharing files over the network, the Drobo is ready for prime time as soon as you insert the hard drives and connect it to the network.

By default a “Public” folder is created and shared via both SMB and AFP. From there, you can easily access it from anywhere on the local network and even create other folders to be shared as well. Simple as that. So in all reality, the painful setup process that took me 2-3 hours could and should have only taken around 5 minutes, which is the amount of time you can expect to spend setting up a Drobo FS.

Moreover, if you’re replacing an existing network share as I was, you can easily assign the Drobo FS the same IP as your old drive, mirror the folder structure, and avoid having to reconfigure any computers or devices you already have set up. My AppleTV didn’t blink an eye after the switch. It continued to access all of the media files on the Drobo just as it had with my LinkStation with no reconfiguration necessary. Likewise, my Drobo FS now serves my entire MP3 music library to iTunes, which is notoriously picky about where its files are stored. But the switch went smoothly and iTunes had no problems finding the songs. Again, the key for a storage device switch like this is to retain the same IP on your local network. The Drobo FS uses DHCP to obtain an IP by default so be sure to manually assign one in your router’s configuration if you’re in this particular situation.

Usage and Speed

This may be the section of this review that you’re most interested in. How well does the Drobo FS actually perform? The good news is that the Drobo FS works very well for everyday use.

I ran some extremely unscientific tests to get a feel for the Drobo’s transfer speeds and overall performance. To see how fast the Drobo FS could copy files, I picked out an 89.2MB video file and copied it back and forth between two computers, one wirelessly connected to the network and one wired. To time the transfers, I used Mac OS X’s built-in clock, just watching the seconds tick off. My measurements aren’t intended to be perfect but do give a feel for the unit’s transfer speeds.

On the wired network, the Drobo FS connected via SMB to my iMac G5 gave me a speed of 5.9MB/sec when copying from it and 8.1MB/sec when copying to it. Via AFP, the up and down speed was faster at 9.9MB/sec. Of course, AFP is Apple’s filing protocol I was expecting it to do better than SMB on this machine. I don’t have Windows computer to use for tests, but I imagine SMB would perform a bit better on one. Wirelessly, AFP speeds dropped to 2.8MB/sec down and 2.3MB/sec up.

For regular use, these speeds are sufficient for accessing and moving files to and from the Drobo FS. But I definitely wouldn’t use it to copy large data files often. In initially copying around 230GB of data to it from my old LinkStation, it took more than 13 hours for the transfer to complete. So if you’re accessing large amounts of video or photos, you’re better off buying a different Drobo and connecting it directly to your computer via FireWire (the Drobo FS does not have a FireWire connection – only ethernet).

I also tested Drobo FS performance by playing several video files off of it simultaneously. The point of this test was to see if multiple computers in a household could all enjoy videos shared on the Drobo FS at the same time without running into transfer issues. The video files are all encoded at bitrates of roughly 1,800kbit/sec. I was able to successfully play four video files at the same time without any choppiness, stuttering, or loss of frames. Two were playing via the wired network connection to my iMac G5 and the other two wirelessly on my MacBook. I would have tried more, but neither of the computers can handle smooth playback of more than two simultaneous videos even if they’re stored locally.

In day-to-day use, I access the Drobo FS on average once every 15-30 minutes. Each time, file retrieval is quite speedy. The only time I have to wait is if the hard drives need time to spin up. Through the Drobo Dashboard software, you can set the hard drive spin down time in increments of 15 minutes. I left it at the default of 15 minutes and very rarely have to wait.

Other Features

Data Robotics touts a feature called DroboApps that allows you to install software onto the machine that will run in the background. Don’t think that just because they’re called “apps” that you’ll find the variety of unique and fun applications that are available for the iPhone. There are only a handful of DroboApps available but they can add some important functionality to the unit such as turning it into an FTP server, Apache web server, or even serve up media files for iTunes. If you need to access files stored on a Drobo on the go, installing a few of these DroboApps should let you do so easily. But I can’t tell you for sure as I haven’t actually tried any of them. My primary use for the Drobo is on the local network.

I haven’t experienced this yet, and I hope I never do, but the Drobo features a column of lights that tells you at a glance the status of your hard drives. If there’s a failure or they’re simply filling up, it’ll let you know through color codes.

In addition, the case itself has a couple of external features that are nice touches. Four large rubber feet on the bottom dampen vibration and potentially reduce shock to the drives from nearby bangs. The glossy front panel is magnetically attached to the Drobo allowing for quick and easy access to the hard drive bays. The hard drives are also hot swappable, which enables you to switch them out at any time, even while the Drobo is running. So if you were to replace a single 1TB with a 2TB drive, the Drobo would then automatically work to reorganize its file structure and ensure that no data is lost and that the most space is made available. (Another feature I haven’t tried yet, nor will I need to any time soon.)

The Drobo FS is also fairly silent. In a completely quiet room, you will hear its faint hum, but it’s not annoying. In fact, when the air conditioning is running, it’s hardly even noticeable. I tried to measure the dB rating using a sound meter, but I had to hold the meter within 2-3 inches of the unit to even get a reading. Beyond that, it’s negligible. I wouldn’t use it inside a home theater or any other environment where you need total silence, but it won’t bother you for regular household or office use.

Summary

Overall, other than an unusual setup hiccup, the Drobo FS has worked like a charm. It easily shares files across a local network to any SMB or AFP compatible computer/device, which is exactly what I bought it for. Its “BeyondRAID” data redundancy system makes me feel safe about my data even if a drive fails. Data transfer speeds are slow for very large transfers but fast enough to never think about them during normal usage.

I would recommend the Drobo FS for any user, novice to advanced, who is looking to almost infinitely expand data storage without ever having to think about what you’re doing. With the necessary setup only requiring you to insert the hard drives, connect an ethernet cable, and plug in the power cable, it really doesn’t get any simpler.

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If this review was helpful and you decide to purchase a Drobo FS, we’d appreciate it if you buy it through our Amazon affiliate link here. Thanks!

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Here are all the photos I took of the Drobo FS while unboxing and setting it up:

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