Data Robotics adds the new DroboPro FS to the family

Oh man.

" A simple google search will show you that many, many users have problems with their drobos."

You know, a simple google search will give you exactly what you search for. Search for anything and you are almost guaranteed to find it. This forms an availability heuristic and you start to believe that what you searched for.

Drobo does provide a very different solution to a RAID5 they are hardly worth comparing.

I've had a drobo for since they first came out, never had a problem, never had to transfer all my data off when it gets full.

That's not the job of a product announcement article. That's the job of a product review, which this is not.

If you'd like deep analysis of the performance of hardware, see elsewhere.

For example, here is MacWorld's product *announcement* article about a drobo unit
http://www.macworld.com/article/146496/2010/04/drobofs.html

And here is their review of the Drobo 2.0
http://www.macworld.com/reviews/product/405304/review/drobo_dro4du10.html

TUAW isn't pretending to be a source for in-depth analysis of products. There's nothing about the site that indicates that that's their job, nor is there anything wrong with this article.

I think you're mistaking "unbiased bloggers" and "investigative journalists." They aren't the same. This is the same website that runs an article on decals for Macbooks and a look at Saving Private Sheep for the iPhone. It's not an independent testing lab, it's not consumer reports—it's a light heated look at Apple products in a blog format.

Mentalsticks is off the deep end. This isn't a product review article nor a product review website. It's product announcement. There's nothing in here that's biased.

The article doesn't tell people to buy the unit, it tells them the features and the cost.

We also talk about the Drobo on MacCreate.com, and hardly talk about any other solutions. You know why? Because Data Robotics sends out press releases and calls the editorial staff when they have new products.

Data Robotics is a smart company, they make their marketing simple and they make their message targeted at the average Mac consumer. That's the same audience that TUAW targets.

By comparison, look at this from the QNAP site (and thanks for the rec Bogey, we're going to check them out)...

"All the OS and applications are embedded on the DOM. The NAS allows system booting without accessing the physical disk sectors and that avoids unsuccessful system startup caused by bad block sectors or file errors on the hard drives. Two operating systems are built on the DOM for system booting alternatively upon every system startup. When one fails, the other one will be used to boot up instead, and the failed OS is recoverable from the other healthy OS."

That's useful info for an IT team, but it's way over the head of many people who read TUAW. Data Robotics knows that and they know how to reach those people.

mentalsticks' comment is harsh. But he does bring up some points. Many users have experienced stability and performance issues with Drobo products. So mentioning their products without caveats will bring deserved criticisms. It also doesn't help that TUAW's so-called reviews did not even bother to measure performance numbers.

Personally, not a big Drobo fan. Compared to other options on the market, they're pretty pricey. I personally chose a QNAP (www.qnap.com) TS-559Pro NAS, fully equipped with 5 x 1.5TB drives it came in at about $1600. It's been 6 months now and it hasn't skipped a beat. Another NAS option worth looking at is Synology - a friend bought one and he's been very happy. My QNAP also interfaces nicely with the UPS I have it connected to, so in the even of a power outage, it will gracefully shutdown after 30 minutes of running off the NAS.

Whatever you buy - do your homework. As others has said a NAS RAID doesn't substitute for a proper backup regime, it just provides a level of hardware redundancy.

Still, I'll side with Steve here, it's news and worthy of reporting. You read the article and form your own opinion.

So why don't you report on other NAS solutions? Engadget doesn't just report on drobo but on other NAS products as well.

Just seems like drobo gets carte blanche on these websites and podcasts.

Considering TUAW and Engadget are both owned! by AOL, that is not the best argument.

Is this a news story or an ad?

It's a good thing that I usually ignore you, Mentalsticks.

I suppose that Engadget is "on the take" also: http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/05/data-robotics-debuts-8-bay-drobopro-fs-with-automatic-offsite-ba/

When we get information from suppliers like Data Robotics, we report it. They sell a lot of hardware to companies and individuals, and people want to know about their new products. What would you suggest, mental? Should we just ignore any news from Data Robotics just to keep you happy?

I don't think so. The next time I hear from Data Robotics with news of a new product, I'm going to write a post about it. Enjoy!

How much does Drobo pay you to write this, Steve?

I didn't mind the first few ones since they actually contained information, but now you're not even pretending this isn't a blatant ad anymore.