Data Robotics gives Drobo FS full Time Machine compatibility

I downloaded the Drobo FS 1.7.2 update last night, along with a firmware update, through the Dashboard app. After restart, I pointed Time Machine to my Drobo desktop share and away it chugged - no standard warning that everything would be erased. Still chugging away on the data transfer, but so far so good. Observations:
1) The data I already stored on my desktop share appears unharmed, residing comfortably along with the sparsebundle TM is creating.
2) TM's evaluation of "Available" space seems a bit weird - I have a 1 TB desktop w/ 4.5 TB of disk space in Drobo. TM says: "Available: 16.65 TB of 17.57 TB." wtf?

I'll update as it goes along.

Go for the netgear ready NAS. I have a 2 yr old unit and updated all the driver over a year ago to 4x1TB. It also support time machine and all transfer protocals like smb, AFP, and more. They have add on pckages you can get from the support board and make it a web server and more with ssh root access (not supported my warenty if you mess it up). Jumbo packet support with a GB interface. The new intel ones support iSCSI but I run the older arm proc. You can stream from it as a media server. Yes they also use there own file system with their xraid but if need be they can tell you how to set that FS on a Linux machine to recover data if the hardware dies so you won't loose your data. Xraid is faster and you can expand it, but I thunk you can also choose standard raids when you set it up if you don't trust that FS.

here's my main issue with the drobo. it uses a proprietary file system, meaning that the HD's are a B%tch to recover from if something goes wrong. if the unit fails, you can't just take the HD's and use them to recover until unit is repaired, nothing will recognize the backup'd files except a drobo. and i'm not afraid of some bad reviews but drobo in total is barely 50/50 with the reviews. that's not a good enough ratio for me to spend that kind of money. i bought the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 from OWC, even though it doesn't live-swap.

http://www.drobo.com/support/updates/dashboard/

Is the directory where the Drobo Dashboard is downloaded from.

Also I didn't see anything in either the blog posting or the press release that says they support 10.6.3....

Also desperately waiting for this update. It was of the main justifications for buying the FS in the first place. Really surprising to find that it didn't work right out of the box with 10.6.3 (even if it is Apple's fault).

Can any of you drobo owners tell me if all the negativity about the system is valid (ie, claims of slow reads or writes, unrecoverable corruption)?

I've looked around and the Drobo sounds really nice, but I've been on the fence given the above.

Drobo and TimeMachine are not friends. TimeMachine is designed to start deleting old backups when a drive fills up. Drobo is designed to be never filled up. It slows to a crawl as drives get full and the size is virtual so that you can expand it. TimeMachine gives Drobo fits. That is why I use CCC instead for scheduled backups and use normal fixed size drives with TimeMachine.

Thanks, Steve!

I've been checking back to see when they announced it. Glad I saw it here first. I can finally recommend the drobo to customers as a backup solution.

Has anyone else compared transfer rates of the drobo fs to other NAS? I've been seeing some pretty slow rates versus other companies.

It sometimes takes a while for Drobo's updates to reach the client. I've had to download them from the drobo site directly on multiple occasions when my client simply refused to find the update.