Drobo 4-Bay Drobo Robotic Storage Array Enclosure

The 4-Bay Drobo Robotic Storage Array Enclosure is an innovative external storage solution. The Drobo features the convenience and data protection capabilities of a RAID, without the hassles and inflexibility associated with RAID storage.

The enclosure supports up to four standard 3.5" SATA hard drives. You can configure the storage capacity of the Drobo to suit your needs; you'll even be able to mix and match drive capacities without sacrificing data protection. Your computer sees the Drobo as a single hard drive volume for the ultimate in ease of use.

Scalable Storage Solution: The Drobo offers truly scalable storage. The four-bay enclosure ships without any drives installed, allowing you to customize storage to suit your needs. Start with a drive of any capacity, and simply add more as your storage needs increase. You'll even be able to replace a drive with one of a larger capacity, the Drobo's storage will increase and your data will remain unchanged and secure.

Intuitive Interface: The enclosure features intuitive LED lights that indicate disk status. Green lets you know that everything is a-ok, yellow indicates that the array is 85% full, while red lets you know that the array is 95% full. The Drobo also lets you know if it is in the process of optimizing data, or if a hard disk has crashed and needs to be replaced.

Data Protection: The Drobo delivers real-time data protection of stored files. The device protects against both drive failure and data corruption. It can even auto-repair data on a crashed hard drive, provided that the drive is replaced by a disk of equal or greater capacity. The Drobo intelligently and automatically rebuilds data from a failed drive, allowing you to get back up and running much quicker than you would with a RAID system.

Dual Interface: The Drobo can be connected to a computer via high-speed FireWire-800 or USB 2.0. The FireWire-800 bus is capable of burst speeds of up to 100MB/sec, compared to the 60MB/sec of USB 2.0. Expect sustained transfer rates of around 40MB/sec using FireWire-800, compared to the 20MB/sec that a USB 2.0 connection will give you.