Another year, another Drobo. Well, this time around it’s not really that new, but it’s still noteworthy. You probably remember the NAS-focused Drobo FS and the giant 8-drive DroboPro, right? Well, sometimes when two storage solutions love each other very much… you get the idea.
The DroboPro FS is basically a larger capacity Drobo FS. It’s a little more orientated towards serious business backup, though: it has a second gigabit Ethernet port, which you can use just as backup in case the first connection goes down, or you can use it as the connection to… an off-site backup using DroboSync.
DroboSync basically causes your Drobo to be backed up to another off-site Drobo in case of fire, flood, or theft. As long as the second Drobo has as much space as the first, it’ll maintain a byte-for-byte copy and update as often as you like, and will only transfer shared bits — so if you change the metadata on a four-gigabyte movie file, it’ll only modify the metadata portion. It’s a bit like DropBox. They claim it’s super easy to set up, and I believe them since “easy to set up” has kind of been the modus operandi for Drobo since the beginning.
Aside from that, it’s the same old Drobo. This one in particular, however, isn’t intended for off-site backups of your anime collection. No, this is for the big boys. The basic naked model costs $1999, and they’ll load it up with drives if you like — add $700 for 8TB, $1300 for 16TB. Check your favorite distributor for Drobo stuff. B&H sells them, among others. More info at Drobo.