Drobo FS 5-bay Gbe Storage Array

by Data Robotics

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 13.5 x 10 x 13.5 inches ; 12.4 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B003GZ828I
• Item model number: DRDS2A21
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (161 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #7 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > External Data Storage > Network Attached Storage
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 17, 2003

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The revolutionary Drobo FS was designed with one purpose in mind: to deliver the best file sharing experience ever. From the moment you plug it in and see it instantly appear on your desktop, you�ll know there�s nothing like it. The all-in-one Drobo�FS is perfect for connected homes, home offices, or small office environments who need a simple, safe device for sharing and backing up files over the network. Like all Drobo storage products, Drobo�FS provides redundant data protection: just plug in your Drobo�FS, and your data protection is ready to go with no configuration required. We call this BeyondRAID� technology. You�ll call it peace of mind.

Share your data on a Gigabit Ethernet Network
Drobo�FS connects directly to a Gigabit Ethernet network to make sharing your data easy. Just plug it into any switch or wireless router and you are ready to go.

Supports the Computer of Your Choice
Connect to your Drobo�FS using any Windows or Mac computer. Whatever system you have, it's likely you'll be able to connect to it over your network quickly and easily.

Easy Expansion to 10TB and Beyond
Drobo�FS holds up to five drives allowing you to effortlessly grow your storage to meet your data capacity needs. To add more space, simply insert a new hard drive or replace your smallest drive with a larger one, even when all drive bays are full. And unlike traditional RAID systems, the BeyondRAID technology in Drobo�FS enables you to mix and match drive capacities, brands and speeds. This unprecedented flexibility allows for continuous expansion as available hard drive capacities increase. With Drobo�FS, expansion is automatic, instantaneous and access to data is always maintained.

Protection from up to Two Drive Failures
Enable the dual-drive redundancy option to protect your data from failure of up to two hard drives. It�s all done with a single-click and you never lose access to your data. Running out of space? No problem. Switch back to single-drive redundancy at any time. Unlike moving between traditional RAID levels, there�s no need to reformat or migrate data off of the Drobo�FS � potentially saving you hours or days of downtime.

Self-Healing Technology
When Drobo detects a "bad" hard disk, it proactively advises you with a series of warnings ranging from a blinking red LED on its front panel, to pop-up alerts in Drobo Dashboard, to email alerts. What Drobo does next is exceptional. Entering a self-healing mode where it repairs around the bad sector or disk, Drobo will work until it returns to the safest state possible. If Drobo has sufficient time and free capacity, it can even withstand additional hard disk failures � that's the power of self-healing.

Seamless Integration with Apple Time Machine
The Drobo FS enables network backup for Mac users at home, home office or small offices. The Drobo FS delivers the most seamless support for Apple Time Machine of any network storage system on the market today. Using Time Machine with Drobo FS is as easy as clicking one box in the Drobo Dashboard software, with no need for confusing, complex command line work.

Small Box | Big Storage
Description	4-Bay Direct-Attached Storage for Professionals	5-Bay Direct-Attached Storage for Professionals	5-Bay File Sharing Storage for Professionals	8-Bay Direct-Attached Storage for Professionals	8-Bay File Sharing Storage for Business	8-Bay iSCSI SAN Storage for Business
Type	Direct-Attached	Direct-Attached	File Sharing (up to 10 users)	Direct-Attached	File Sharing (up to 100 users)	iSCSI SAN (up to 8 servers)
Model	Drobo	Drobo S	Drobo FS	DroboPro	B800fs	B800i
Interfaces	USB 2.0, FireWire 800	USB 3.0 / 2.0, FireWire 800, eSATA	1 x Gb Ethernet	USB 2.0, FireWire 800, 1 x Gb Ethernet iSCSI (single server)	2 x Gb Ethernet	2 x Gb Ethernet iSCSI (multi server)
Drive Bays	4	5	5	8	8	8
Drive Type	3.5� SATA	3.5� SATA	3.5� SATA	3.5� SATA	3.5� SATA	3.5" SATA
Form Factor	Desktop	Desktop	Desktop	Desktop or Rack mount (3U)	Desktop or Rack mount (3U)	Desktop or Rack mount (3U)
BeyondRAID�	X	X	X	X	X	X
Thin Provisioning	X	X	X	X	X	X
Drive Protection	Single	Single or Dual	Single or Dual	Single or Dual	Single or Dual	Single or Dual
Smart Volumes	Automatic	Automatic	Automatic	Up to 16	Automatic	Up to 255
Drobo Sync					X
Drobo Apps			X		X
Power / Cooling	Fixed	Fixed	Fixed	Fixed	Fixed	Fixed
Management	Drobo Dashboard	Drobo Dashboard	Drobo Dashboard	Drobo Dashboard	Drobo Dashboard	Drobo Dashboard
Drobo Care�	Optional	Optional	Optional	Optional	Optional	Optional

 

Don't forget to buy your Drobo Care!

Drobo Care 1-year Warranty	Drobo Care 3-year Warranty

 

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

72 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Improved over the first Drobo, April 21, 2010

By 

M. Jones (Madison, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Drobo FS 5-bay Gbe Storage Array (Personal Computers)

I owned the original Drobo when it first came out, but ended up selling it due mainly to how noisy it was. The ease of use of the Drobo kept me interested in the products however. I'm happy to say, this is drobo is much improved. It's not silent by any means, and is probably louder than it has to be, but it replaced the blower with a regular fan and is much more tolerable. It takes a LONG time to boot after a shutdown (around 10 minutes)

Transfer speeds are not really anything to write home about. I'm getting between 24-27 MB/sec uploading large media files. That will be fine for my uses, but if you're doing a lot of data manipulation on this as your primary storage, you may be disappointed.

75 of 82 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Drobo FS - A hard drive for the whole family, September 14, 2010

By 

L. Abate - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Drobo FS 5-bay Gbe Storage Array (Personal Computers)

Intro:
External hard drives are cheap. For less than $100 you can purchase a 1 terabyte external USB drive. After a few minutes of setup time, you can be well on your way to storing your MP3's, Office docs, and family photos. But what happens if it fails? What happens when it gets full? And how do you share your files with the rest of your family members? These are the problems that led a company called Data Robotics to create a product known as the Drobo.

Think of the Drobo like a little storage robot.You just add a few hard drives, plug it in, and the Drobo does the rest. The latest in the line of these "storage robots" is called the Drobo FS. The FS stands for file sharing. Instead of a USB connection, it plugs directly into your router. It's like a centralized hard drive for everyone in your house to use. It works over both wired and wireless connections, has native Apple Time Machine support, and expands up to 7 terabytes - yes, 7 terabytes. Whether you have a PC, a Mac, or one of each, the Drobo FS works with them all. And the best part about this little guy - it is no more difficult to set up than a printer.

Setting up the Drobo FS:
You can purchase the Drobo FS in one of two ways, with or without disks. Either way, the FS ships in its own creative packaging. Inside the box you will find the Drobo FS, a power adapter, ethernet cable and installation software - that is it. On the front of the FS you will find a reflective plastic cover, held in place by magnets. Behind it, you will find the five hard drive slots. You can insert as few as two or as many as five drives - it doesn't matter what size. Have two 500GB drives and one 2TB drive? Not a problem, the Drobo FS simply adds all available space to the "storage pool." For my review, I used three 1TB drives and two 1.5TB drives.

After inserting the drives and connecting the ethernet cable to the router, I installed the Drobo software on a MacBook Pro. After the software installation was complete, a quick reboot was needed and the Drobo FS was ready to be powered on. The first time it powers up, a type of diagnostic sequence is initiated, most likely to check the health and sizes of the newly inserted disks. After about one minute of blinking lights, the Drobo FS showed up in my list of shared drives. In roughly 10 minutes I had successfully added over 4TB of protected hard drive space to my network.


In Action:
The Drobo FS will first show up on your network as a single public share. A share can be thought of as a partition or separate "disk." You can choose to leave it as a public share, but most users will likely go on to create more, i.e. Music, Movies, Photos, Work - you get the point. Shares can also be created for different users, but I will get more into that later on.

File transfer speeds were not outstanding, but would be more than sufficient for normal use. Hard drive intensive activities, such as video editing should still be done on a direct-attach hard drive. Speed is not what the FS is about - it's sharing. Within 5 minutes I was able to copy files from three different computers to the Drobo FS public share. Now every computer on my home network has access to them, whether they are plugged into the router, or wireless. This is how home file sharing should be.

In addition to the added convenience of having a centralized place for everyone to store their data, the Drobo can be used as a restore point for backups. With native support for Apple's Time Machine, both Macs in my house could use the Drobo FS for their automatic backups. Sitting in bed while my MacBook Pro backed up its internal hard drive over Wi-Fi brought a smile to my face.


For the Geeks:
As I mentioned, the Drobo FS was designed to make file sharing easy. By default you are presented with a single "public" share. However, for those who like to tinker, there is plenty to do. First, you can set up unique shares for everyone connecting to the device. Say everyone in your family had a laptop, you can set up a share for each of them. You can also set up Time Machine shares so everyone can backup over the network. Beyond that, you can set up shares with special permissions. Want a private share for your personal files? Simply lock it down with a password and only you will have access.

For those who really like to get their geek on, the Drobo FS has apps, yes, apps that run right on the Drobo itself. There are some basics, like a HTTP and FTP servers, but also some very useful home media streaming apps. Using one called FUPPES, the Drobo FS is transformed into a UPNP media server with DNLA support. In laymen's terms, you can stream video files to your XBox or PS3 directly off the Drobo FS. In my testing, I was able to get PS3 streaming set up but was unable to stream to my DNLA enabled Droid X.

When filled with 2TB drives, the FS offers around 7 terabytes of protected storage. This may seem like a lot of storage space, but when you have multiple computer backups, gigabytes turn in to terabytes quicker than you may expect. Between the three computers in my household, the backups alone took up over one terabyte of disk space.

Conclusion:
The Drobo FS isn't as fast as a USB 2.0 or FireWire external hard drive - and it doesn't come cheap, but its network sharing capabilities, built-in file protection and ability to expand, more than make up for it. For families with multiple computers, especially laptops, the Drobo FS is the perfect way to give everyone their own "hard drive." Mac users get built-in Time Machine support and Drobo Apps will continue to expand the functionality of the device. Overall, I highly recommend the Drobo FS. It's ease of use, massive storage capacity, and built-in data protection technology make it an excellent choice in network attached storage for the home.


Likes:
Easy to set up and configure
Attractive design, expect its reflective front cover and array of LEDs to start a conversation or two
LED status lights let you know at a glance the health of each drive
Up to 7TB of protected storage!
Can be set to a dual disk redundancy mode (two drives can fail and your data is still safe)
Less technically inclined members of my household had no problem using it
Tons of features for the geeks, including Drobo Apps, email status updates, and much more
Takes up a heck of a lot less space than 5 external hard drives

Dislikes:
Not as fast as direct attached storage
No built-in way to share files over the Internet
Doesn't come cheap, device cost + drives adds up quick

(Note: This review was taken verbatim from my tech column)

87 of 103 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars DROBO FS, October 19, 2010

By 

Geek guy (Dallas, Tx) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Drobo FS 5-bay Gbe Storage Array (Personal Computers)

Hello all,
I spent the money on this and thought from all of the reviews that it was the best NAS on the market. Well Setup was easy but the problems started after the fact.
Start performing copies of my data to the NAS and the network thru-put was 20-30 Mbps and that was the max speed. I opened a tech article on the Drobo support forums and it took two days to come back with a reply. They stated that one of the new drives I was using was causing the speed issues so I removed and waited for remaining drives to come green. Which took several hours.
Once that occurred my speed did not change I changed out network cables / Switches / Routers and nothing seemed to help. I even connected the drobo FS to my MAC and made not change as for speed.
Further review from the Drobo foums many others were having the same issue and could not explain why.
I returned it to Amazon and ordered a DS 1010+ and once it arrived I plugged in the same drives formatted the partition and started the copy process. Which was less than hour to get the complete system up and running. Also the diags did not find a problem with the drive that Drobo stated was bad.
My default speeds were between 50-120 Mbps without Jumbo frames and once the settings were done I was locked at 120 Mbps.
Also the amount of options of the DS 1010+ were huge compared to the DroboFS yes the price is little more but worth every penny.
Even a friend of mine that has a NAS that cost two times more was not as good as the DS 1010+. Do the research before purchasing. Meaning signup for Drobo Forums and do the reviews before purchasing.
Watch Youtube on the DS 1010+ looks at the menus and see the options that are available. Hope this helps.