We are all worried about our data. Being able to keep them secure is a big question mark. We don’t know when our hard disks will crash. We may have heard of the famous “RAID” (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks). Taking the RAID approach, our data is either spread in many disks or mirrored across them. Thus, ideally nothing will ever be lost. 😀 This is just the basic of the idea behind RAID. There are further extension to it. with a combination of the levels of raid for better suiting the situation. The more we think of security, usability, flexibility and for the long run, the more money we spend. In fact, you must be knowledgeable to configure your “RAID”. What if I say there is an easier solution? Yes, there exists one; DRobo.

Designed with the user in mind, Drobo (Data Robotics) allows easy management of your data. No need to worry about the RAID leveling details. Drobo caters everything for you. You just need to feed if with 3.5″ hard disks to feast on. 😛

With its innovative approach, you do not have to find matching hard disks with same storage capacity. It is as flexible as your needs. Be it a 120Gb or 1TB hard disk, you just need to attach it in one of the four bays available. That is all required from us, the human counter part. The robot will format the hard disk, and replicate the data as needed if it already exists. Quite handy?

What if one of the disks fails? Be reassured, nothing disastrous has happened. You just need to replace it with a new one, and within a matter of time, everything will be back as the same old way. Each and every task is fully automated. You must be wondering, “there must be some kind of drivers or software to be installed”. It is a zero installation configuration. It is recognised as a mass storage, and it is self dependent. Thus no need for drivers and softwares. Your usual usb 2.0 is here to cater for the needs. Just plug and use. We can call it a bonus. It is cross-platform compatible; be it Windows, Linux or your Mac OS. That’s good news.

Use it as an alternative to the traditional Network Access Storage (NAS). With an added interface, from simple Drobo, it becomes Drobo Share. The above image shows the addition (just below the Drobo). It has the power of Gigabit. That kind of cool. In other words, we can access our data from the many computers we have in our home. To supplement its networking capability, it supports all the network protocols (ftp and http).

In a nutshell it is worth considering to equip you with a Drobo.