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Reviews

Hardware preview: DroboPro

➡ Updated 1/14/19: I have revised my opinion of Drobo devices. After experiencing multiple, serious data loss events on multiple Drobo models, even recent ones, I no longer consider them safe for my data.

➡ Updated 11/23/09: The new DroboElite is now available. It differs from the DroboPro because it offers two Gigabit Ethernet ports instead of one, multi-host support, and up to 255 Smart Volumes.

Today, April 7, 2009, Data Robotics launches a new product aimed at professionals and SMBs: the DroboPro. I got a preview of it yesterday. Let me share what I learned with you.

Drobo Pro top

The DroboPro has some really cool features, some of which I, along with others, anticipated and looked forward to seeing. As I wrote in my review of the Firewire Drobo, Data Robotics was looking at making an 8-drive Drobo, possibly rack-mounted. I also thought they might introduce the capability to safeguard against two drive failures. And, as I wrote in this comment on that same review, in response to a reader’s wishlist for the Drobo, I thought they might at some point build networking capabilities right inside the Drobo.

Well, the new DroboPro does all those things and more!

  • 8 (eight) drives
  • 2 form factors: desktop and rackmount
  • Dual drive redundancy
  • Gigabit ethernet
  • iSCSI
  • Smart volumes: create up to 16 different virtual volumes, each of which can grow to 16TB
  • Price is $1,299 for entry level DroboPro or $3,999 for a loaded model with eight 2TB drives
  • Instant $200 rebate with customer loyalty program

Let’s dive into those new features a bit. Keep in mind my knowledge is as yet limited, since I haven’t seen the full specs; I only had a phone briefing.

8 drives

You know how the drives are arranged horizontally in the regular Drobo? They’re arranged vertically in the new DroboPro, which is about the same height, and a little less than twice the width of the original.

Drobo Pro cover off

Two form factors

The DroboPro comes in a desktop form factor which is 12.17″ wide, 5.46″ high and 14.1″ long. The length is about 3″ more than that of the original Drobo. I think the extra space houses the additional circuitry for the network, power supply and other features.

The other form factor is a rackmount with a 3U height. If I understood correctly, the rackmount kit can be attached and detached as needed, so you can interconvert between the two form factors if you like.

DroboPro dimensions

Drobo Pro rackmount kit

Built-in power supply

One thing that’s easy to miss if you look at the back of the DroboPro is that it no longer has a DC adaptor port, but a regular 120-240V connector. Have a look and see. This means the power brick which converts 120-240V AC to 12V DC has been eliminated. You’ll also notice a power switch on the back. That’s new too.

Drobo Pro back

Dual drive redundancy

As it was explained to me, the DroboPro comes standard with single drive redundancy, and the dual drive redundancy is an option that can be turned on at any time. In case you’re not familiar with the concept, this means two of the drives inside the Drobo can fail, and your data will still be safe.

Gigabit ethernet

Business-class networking is now built right into the DroboPro, along with enterprise-class features, like iSCSI with automatic configuration. The ethernet port on the DroboPro does not replicate the functionality of the DroboShare, as I initially thought. It only works through the iSCSI protocol, which means it needs to be mapped directly to a host, like a server or workstation, which can then share it among multiple servers or workstations. In that sense the DroboPro is not a NAS (Network Attached Storage), but a SAN (Storage Area Network).

iSCSI

If you’ve set up iSCSI volumes in the past, then you know how much of a headache they can be, and how bad the performance can be if it’s not set up correctly or if the hardware isn’t working as it should. I know firsthand about this. With the new DroboPro, the iSCSI setup is automatic. It’s as easy as plugging it into the network. The Drobo Dashboard software then finds it and mounts it as a volume on your machine via iSCSI. The work is done behind the scenes so you don’t have to worry.

For Windows, the DroboPro uses the Microsoft iSCSI initiator, and for the Mac, the folks at Data Robotics wrote their own iSCSI initiator. Those of you who work with Xserve and Xsan use Fibre Channel technology to connect to the network volumes, and you may wonder why Data Robotics went with iSCSI. It’s because iSCSI is more utilitarian. It doesn’t require special network hardware to work; it can use the existing ethernet network infrastructure, so there’s a lower cost of entry and maintenance.

I was assured that iSCSI throughput on the DroboPro is very fast. I guess it’s up to us to do some testing once the DroboPro starts to ship, so we can see just how fast it is. See the iSCSI guide on Drobo’s website for more details.

Smart Volumes

With the DroboPro, you can create up to 16 different virtual volumes, each of which can grow to 16TB. This is very important for the enterprise market, where companies want to be able to separate the data onto separate volumes and assign separate access privileges to each. Those of you who are network admins can readily appreciate how useful this is. Those of you who are creatives can also appreciate being able to assign a volume for Time Machine backups, one for videos, one for photos, and so on. Furthermore, each volume can be resized as needed, which is a huge leap forward compared to the difficulty of resizing LUNs set up over RAID volumes.

Price

The entry level DroboPro (enclosure-only) costs $1,299. The high end DroboPro, which includes the rackmount kit, two drive redundancy and is pre-loaded with eight 2TB hard drives for a total of 16TB of space, costs $3,999. There’s also a handy customer loyalty program which will give you an instant $200 rebate if you’ve purchased a Drobo in the past.

Those of you who might balk at the price should compare the features and ease of use of the DroboPro with other comparable products on the market. I’m going to walk you through a different kind of comparison, one that looks at the cost of the original Drobo and the cost of the new DroboPro.

Think of the DroboPro as two regular Drobos in one. The original Drobo is $499 for the enclosure, so that brings the price to $998. The difference between $998 and $1,299 is made up by the additional networking features and the complexity of the circuitry and auto-management algorithms of an 8-drive array. Keep in mind the DroboPro has enterprise-class features like dual drive redundancy, iSCSI and smart virtual volumes. Those features alone warrant charging several hundred dollars to thousands more for it, as other companies who make similar products have already been doing.

Drobo Pro side

Summary

The DroboPro is a fantastic addition to the Drobo line. Its enterprise-class features, its incredible ease of use, and its unmatched storage flexibility make it the perfect external storage solution for busy professionals with serious storage needs or business server rooms. Users will appreciate all of the space it makes available for their work, and system admins will appreciate how easy it is to set up and maintain. From a design point of view, it’s a drool-worthy beauty. Having been a Drobo user for almost 1½ years, I can tell you it is my storage solution of choice, and I look forward to upgrading to a DroboPro some day.

Images used courtesy of Data Robotics.

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How To

Get iMovie '08 to import 3GP files

I recorded a few video clips with my wife’s mobile phone today, and when I tried to import them into iMovie ’08, I found out that I couldn’t. Apparently, I’m not alone, because if you do a search for this on Google you’ll find there are plenty of other people with the same problem.

Fortunately, there are two ways to work this out, but neither is necessarily obvious. Pick one of them:

  • Open up the clips in Quicktime. I was able to open them up and play them right away. Now, export each clip as an MP4 file. You must specifically select File > Export, then select Movie to MPEG-4 from the Export drop-down menu. Don’t just Save the clip, because it’ll package it as a MOV file, which iMovie ’08 will still refuse to import. You must Export it as an MP4 file. You may also be able to export to other formats, but MP4 is what worked for me.
  • Open them clips in Turbo.264, then export them to some format (try Apple TV or iPod Standard, for example). There’s a catch here though. If the resolution of the clips is too small, Turbo.264 may not be able to convert them, and will give you an error. Best stick with Quicktime then.

Now open up iMovie ’08, and go to File > Import Movies, browse for them, and import to your heart’s content. That’s it!

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How To

A new lease on old hardware

In 2003, I bought an HP OfficeJet 7110 all-in-one, a big, boxy monster that did (and still does) printing, scanning, faxing and copying. I’ve barely ever used it to fax, but the feature is there in case I need it. Now I’m using it over our wireless network with an Apple AirPort Express, and it works great.

HP couldn’t wait to retire this model. A year after I’d bought it, I had a hard time getting support for it, in spite of the fact that I’d bought an extended support plan. Less than two years after I’d bought it, HP had already discontinued it. They stopped developing the drivers for it sometime in 2003 or 2004. The development for Mac drivers stopped at 10.4 (officially) but more likely, at 10.3. I used their drivers on 10.4 and there were serious problems. Switching accounts, for example, disabled printing, and it couldn’t be re-enabled unless one restarted the computer. I complained numerous times to HP, via tech support, via messages to their executives, but no one cared. Basically, HP’s support is horrible, and my experience was no different with the OfficeJet 7110.

Fortunately, I found a way to get more use out of this dinosaur without needing to buy a new printer (yet). Back in 2005, I purchased an Apple AirPort Express, a small device that does quite a few things. One of them is printer sharing. You plug in a USB printer, and it will share it wirelessly.

I’d wanted to do this ever since I’d bout the AirPort Express, but there were no usable Bonjour/network drivers for the 7110. With the introduction of Leopard, however, the story changed. Quite a few CUPS drivers came pre-loaded with the OS, and one of those drivers was built exactly for the 7110.

A couple of weekends ago, I took a half hour to relocate our printer and its stand, plug it into the AirPort Express, and install it on both our Macs via Bonjour. This was after I’d joined the AirPort Express to our existing WiFi network through the AirPort Utility. The whole process is fairly easy to do, except changes to the AirPort Express may require a reset or two before they commit properly. This may only be a bug with the older version that I have (from 2005), and it may not affect the newer versions of this device, like the 802.11n that just came out.

Now our printer is networked reliably and it’s usable immediately from both our Macs, which is something that wasn’t possible before. It’s not tethered via the annoying USB cable, and we don’t have to deal with its bulk next to our desks. Although the drivers are print-only, when we need to scan something, we simply take my laptop over to it, connect it via USB, and scan to my Windows XP virtual machine, which runs on VMware Fusion on top of Leopard. This is because the XP drivers are the only ones that still work reliably for this printer.

What also satisfies me is that I get a new lease on old hardware. I don’t have to go out and buy something new to get the functionality I need. I already spent good money on working hardware, and thanks to Leopard’s built-in printer drivers and AirPort Express, I get to use it years after HP decided to discontinue it and force people to buy new printers.

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