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.

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