[news.cnet.com]

"Drobo announced today two new Thunderbolt storage drives, its first that, on top of the traditional two Thunderbolt ports, also come with a USB 3.0 port. In fact, these are among the first Thunderbolt storage devices from any vendor that also support USB connectivity. This means you can use the drives with your existing computer, be it a Windows PC or a Mac, and keep them for use with future systems that support the Thunderbolt standard.
The two new drives are the Drobo 5D and Drobo Mini, with five bays and four bays respectively. The 5D supports five 3.5-inch (desktop) hard drives, to offer up to 16TB of protected storage space, while the Mini can house four 2.5-inch (laptop) hard drives or solid-state drives (SSDs), to offer up to around 3TB of protected storage space. The two drives' storage space is limited by the capacities of existing hard drives on the market, which is 4TB for 3.5-inch hard drives and generally 1TB for 2.5-inch hard drives."
"Both drives come with any extra mini bay on the bottom to host an mSATA SSD for its SSD-accelerated feature, designed to speed up the data rate of the internal drives to match that of the Thunderbolt connection, which caps at 10Gbps. Dobro says that the Mini has a new drive bay design that makes it possible to install and replace the internal drives without using any tools.
The two new Thunderbolt drives will be available for purchase by late July, with the pricing starting at $650. The storage is not included in the price but a Thunderbolt cable is. This is going to be another first since so far none of the Thunderbolt storage devices on the market have included a Thunderbolt cable."

Interesting. I hope they figured out how to make their "beyond RAID" fast. The interface type was never the problem with Drobo. They were just plain slow processing data to the drives.

Edit: I really like the Mini. Could be fun loaded up with SSDs.

---

C(-)ris
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Throwback Thursday Signature:




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2012 12:24PM by C(-)ris.

Quote
C(-)ris
Interesting. I hope they figured out how to make their "beyond RAID" fast. The interface type was never the problem with Drobo. They were just plain slow processing data to the drives.

Well, back when it was USB2 & FW400 only, the interface was a bottleneck well. But with newer interfaces, their slowness is even more apparent.

---

Help MacInTouch: Buy from Amazon? use this link [amazon.com]
Mac News & Info: [macintouch.com] [macnn.com] [tuaw.com]
Mac Benchmarks: [barefeats.com]
Used Mac Stuff [FS/T]: LowEndMac Swap List
Mac Software Updates: [macupdate.com]
Fonts: [dafont.com] [fontspace.com]
Online Computer Store With Mac Support: [macsales.com]

Quote
C(-)ris
Interesting. I hope they figured out how to make their "beyond RAID" fast. The interface type was never the problem with Drobo. They were just plain slow processing data to the drives.

no crap. I remember when they added FW800 ports while still trickling data into the USB2 port.

but this is what really drove me crazy....

ITS WHAT THEIR CUSTOMERS WANTED

they wanted a connector. they wanted a fast connector. they couldn't be bothered if the data transfer would be the same rate.

---

Quote
mattkime

Quote
C(-)ris
Interesting. I hope they figured out how to make their "beyond RAID" fast. The interface type was never the problem with Drobo. They were just plain slow processing data to the drives.

no crap. I remember when they added FW800 ports while still trickling data into the USB2 port.

but this is what really drove me crazy....

ITS WHAT THEIR CUSTOMERS WANTED

they wanted a connector. they wanted a fast connector. they couldn't be bothered if the data transfer would be the same rate.

Matt, it's business. It kills me too to see this, but this is the way business works. It's based on perception, not reality.

It's like people who add ground effects, spoilers, big wheels... to their car to make the faster, but the added weight actually makes them slower. They only care about the perception of fast, not the reality.

---

Help MacInTouch: Buy from Amazon? use this link [amazon.com]
Mac News & Info: [macintouch.com] [macnn.com] [tuaw.com]
Mac Benchmarks: [barefeats.com]
Used Mac Stuff [FS/T]: LowEndMac Swap List
Mac Software Updates: [macupdate.com]
Fonts: [dafont.com] [fontspace.com]
Online Computer Store With Mac Support: [macsales.com]

I have a 4-bay firewire 8 Drobo with four 2TB drives. I love the reliability but boy, it IS slow. Constantly grinding away because I put my Time Machine backup on one of the partitions.
The thought of Thunderbolt is sort of mouthwatering but at $650, Drobo can forget me as a customer for the new models.

Has anyone had any experience with the new WD MY BOOK Thunderbolt duo? 6T for under $550 is sort of tempting. Which would be safer; RAID 0 or RAID 1. The WD can be configured either way: mirroring or striping.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2012 12:57PM by richorlin.

richorlin, RAID0 is less safe than a single drive. It's only for performance, there's no redundancy.

Personally, my next move will be to get an older Mac Pro and fill it with drives. I had a RAID5 for years, but the size of drives now is big enough I just put some in and setup time machine or CCC so I have versioned copies. The advantage over of a RAID1 is that not only are you protected against drive failure, but data corruption and file deletion.

My current build is a Hac which works well but the parts were given to me - not specifically selected for a Hac - and it's not fun to deal with. Though it does hold six drives quite nicely.

---

Help MacInTouch: Buy from Amazon? use this link [amazon.com]
Mac News & Info: [macintouch.com] [macnn.com] [tuaw.com]
Mac Benchmarks: [barefeats.com]
Used Mac Stuff [FS/T]: LowEndMac Swap List
Mac Software Updates: [macupdate.com]
Fonts: [dafont.com] [fontspace.com]
Online Computer Store With Mac Support: [macsales.com]

Drobo hooks up Thunderbolt


How 'bout Apple hooking up Thunderbolt for Mac Pro's... ?


///

---

Sometimes it is what it is...
and then there's times when it's really better.



==

Quote
Buzz
Drobo hooks up Thunderbolt


How 'bout Apple hooking up Thunderbolt for Mac Pro's... ?


///

be well.

rob

Quote
Buzz
Drobo hooks up Thunderbolt


How 'bout Apple hooking up Thunderbolt for Mac Pro's... ?


///

Why bother, unless you're going to use it with an overpriced Apple monitor, thunderbolt is pretty useless.

---

"They don't call me Colonel because I'm some dumb a$$ army guy" Colonel Homer J. Simpson

Quote
colonel panic

Quote
Buzz
Drobo hooks up Thunderbolt


How 'bout Apple hooking up Thunderbolt for Mac Pro's... ?


///

Why bother, unless you're going to use it with an overpriced Apple monitor, thunderbolt is pretty useless.

It's only $100 more than the Dell. Who makes a similar monitor at a lower price?

---

Help MacInTouch: Buy from Amazon? use this link [amazon.com]
Mac News & Info: [macintouch.com] [macnn.com] [tuaw.com]
Mac Benchmarks: [barefeats.com]
Used Mac Stuff [FS/T]: LowEndMac Swap List
Mac Software Updates: [macupdate.com]
Fonts: [dafont.com] [fontspace.com]
Online Computer Store With Mac Support: [macsales.com]

Quote
colonel panic

Quote
Buzz
Drobo hooks up Thunderbolt


How 'bout Apple hooking up Thunderbolt for Mac Pro's... ?


///

Why bother, unless you're going to use it with an overpriced Apple monitor, thunderbolt is pretty useless.

was kinda thinking to hook up a TB Drobo to a MP...


///

---

Sometimes it is what it is...
and then there's times when it's really better.



==

Quote
Buzz

Quote
colonel panic

Quote
Buzz
Drobo hooks up Thunderbolt


How 'bout Apple hooking up Thunderbolt for Mac Pro's... ?


///

Why bother, unless you're going to use it with an overpriced Apple monitor, thunderbolt is pretty useless.

was kinda thinking to hook up a TB Drobo to a MP...


///

Okay, fair enough.

---

"They don't call me Colonel because I'm some dumb a$$ army guy" Colonel Homer J. Simpson

Quote
M A V I C

Quote
colonel panic

Quote
Buzz
Drobo hooks up Thunderbolt


How 'bout Apple hooking up Thunderbolt for Mac Pro's... ?


///

Why bother, unless you're going to use it with an overpriced Apple monitor, thunderbolt is pretty useless.

It's only $100 more than the Dell. Who makes a similar monitor at a lower price?

^^^

---

Help MacInTouch: Buy from Amazon? use this link [amazon.com]
Mac News & Info: [macintouch.com] [macnn.com] [tuaw.com]
Mac Benchmarks: [barefeats.com]
Used Mac Stuff [FS/T]: LowEndMac Swap List
Mac Software Updates: [macupdate.com]
Fonts: [dafont.com] [fontspace.com]
Online Computer Store With Mac Support: [macsales.com]