It’s easy to change the setting, though, and the dual redundancy keeps your data even more secure.
Each one of those symbolizes 10% of Drobo’s capacity.ĭrobo has options for single or dual redundancy for data as well, though I believe you’ll need more than two drives for dual redundancy. There are also other lights that serve as a gauge, showing the drive’s current capacity. There are other light combinations that indicate drive failure, or that a drive is busy optimizing. At 85% capacity, a drive’s light will turn yellow. They usually show green when the drives are healthy with plenty of room. These tell you whether everything is going fine with them, or if they need attention. Inside the front panel is a guide to the lights next to each drive. Drobo immediately optimizes how your data is stored, rearranging and reallocating space to make sure it is secure. Or if one of your drives has gone bad, pop it out and put in a new one. You can even keep using it while it is busy optimizing.
Drobo will adjust, keeping your data safe and secure. No need to reformat anything, turn the device off, or make any other changes. When you need more space, just pop a new one in an empty bay, or swap out a smaller one for a larger one.
You literally just pop off the front panel, which is held on by magnets, and then push the drives in, snapping them into place, like an Atari cartridge. You don’t need any special trays or tools to insert the drives, either. Through the whole process, I was continually surprised at how easy it was. Once you run the Drobo Dashboard, it asks you to format it, so there’s no hunting for options. Turn on Drobo, after attaching and plugging in the included power supply.Connect Drobo to your computer using the included USB cord.You need to begin with at least two 3.5″ drives, but the regular Drobo desktop unit will take up to four drives. Insert the drives into the Drobo unit.Install the Drobo Dashboard on your computer.Go to /start to get documentation and to download the Drobo Dashboard.There are very clear, quick start instructions for the whole process right inside the box, which is really helpful for someone like me who isn’t too knowledgeable about hardware. While traditional RAID setups can be complicated, Drobo has perfected the art of making it simple. Drobo also shipped two 1TB drives so I could try it out, leaving plenty of room for expansion in the future.Īt first I was skeptical that I could figure out how to make it work without help. While my ideal solution is a Network Attached Storage unit attached directly to the router so that all of my family members can access it, I was able to test a really nice desktop unit with four drive bays. Drobo offers external storage from portable/desktop solutions to entire racks. I recently got a chance to try out a Drobo product. And as someone who works on the internet, that’s important. Thus, I still felt like my data wasn’t as secure as it wanted to be. I’ve had other useful external hard drives that worked well, but weren’t protected against drive failure. When I looked into getting something like that to back up my data, it was like reading a foreign language. They made it sound easy, but, of course, there was plenty to know that they weren’t mentioning. Baby photos, things I’ve written, movies, songs… I worry about losing it, so I’m always on the lookout for the perfect backup storage solution.Ī number of years ago, I learned about RAID systems from a friend of mine who knows way more about computer hardware than I do. I’m a bit particular about making sure I back up all of my important files.