Drobo Further Extends Auto-Tiering Capabilities With New Hybrid Storage Systems

[Cristian_25H]

Drobo, makers of award-winning data storage products for businesses and professionals, today introduced several new models of its fast-growing family of business storage systems. Included in the group are both higher- and lower-end models of Drobo's flagship product, the Drobo B1200i, which features a unique patent-pending tiering technology that allows customers to easily and affordably enjoy both the performance benefits of SSD technology and the capacity of traditional hard drives (HDD) in a single system.

The new models, which include several higher-capacity and lower-priced versions of the Drobo B800 series, also embrace 3 TB hard-drive technology, giving Drobo customers even more affordable capacity with the traditional Drobo ease-of-use.





Drobo data-aware tiering technology is the only approach that allows customers to automatically benefit from the capacity of hard drives and the speed of solid-state devices in a single, affordable package. Small- and medium-size business customers can immediately and dynamically optimize their application performance without the extensive technical expertise, complex system configuration or traditionally high prices that define other storage systems with these high-end capabilities.

The new Drobo models are ideally suited for virtualized environments, workgroup projects and backup applications, offering more cost-effective performance acceleration and 50 percent more capacity than previous models. With automated data tiering, 3 TB technology and "Drobo-like" ease-of-use all in one box, Drobo's new models give customers further choice and affordability with the best storage solutions on the market today.

More Choice and Flexibility

The Drobo B1200i SSD combines the low-cost capacity of traditional hard drives with the low-latency, high-speed transfers in SSDs, delivering up to 300 percent higher performance over previous versions of the product. The B1200i SSD is used by SMB customers as primary storage for up to 250 users or as tier-two storage and backup for departments in larger organizations.

The Drobo B800i and B800fs provide additional cost-effective solutions for businesses needing primary or backup storage. The Drobo B800i SAN is optimized to provide easy and reliable storage to servers running applications such as file services, data protection, e-mail and server virtualization that usually are reserved for more expensive enterprise solutions. Using Drobo BeyondRAID technology, all Drobo business products enable customers to leverage different drive capacities, allowing for continuous expansion as larger drives become available. With Drobo, expansion is automatic and instantaneous, and access to data is always maintained.

"Small businesses should take a look at Drobo from a capacity perspective," said Scott Lowe, founder and managing consultant at the 1610 Group. "Being able to put SSDs into the hardware so the cost per gigabyte is lower is a great feature. It also makes the random restore and backup of data a more enjoyable experience."

"I love the simple scalability," said Marc Wrubleski, the technical manager of the mathematics department at University of Calgary. "I'm putting in a B800i for a researcher who needs 10TB today and will need 20 TB later on. To just add or replace disks without any system reconfiguration is such a great feature."

Ideal Storage Configurations for Business

New Drobo systems include (MSRP listed):



For more information, go to http://www.drobo.com/products/business.

[Drmark]

wow... just wow... 3tb.. OMG NOT. Ok, just cuz I'm such a nice guy I'll help them with this. 3tb drives have been out awhile, and since you didnt get the update. 4tb's are out now with 5's on the way.
Buy the Synology 1812+ loaded with 8 4tb drives for 26 tb of storage space today including redundency.
Box $1,050 includes overnight shipping from Amazon
8 4tb drives from Best Buy $320 each including tax
$3,610 total in your home or business.

The Drobo with 3tb drives is around $18,000. Is it worth the extra $14,400?

[james888]

$18000 is a lot, but it does use sas

[Jizzler]

Originally Posted by Cristian_25H

"Small businesses should take a look at Drobo from a capacity perspective"

Small businesses should look at hiring a tech to build and maintain their systems. They're going to earn their salaries in savings if you make purchases of turnkey systems such as these throughout the year.

[Drmark]

James I stand corrected, took the time to actually read the release. They offer for $5,699 an 8 bay system with 8 3tb drives, non SSD's. So still a better deal with the Synology and 8 4tb drives.

[tacosRcool]

My eyes! They hurt!

[james888]

Originally Posted by Drmark

James I stand corrected, took the time to actually read the release. They offer for $5,699 an 8 bay system with 8 3tb drives, non SSD's. So still a better deal with the Synology and 8 4tb drives.

It does say $18000 for 26.7tb hdd/ssd useing sas.

[Jizzler]

Originally Posted by james888

It does say $18000 for 26.7tb hdd/ssd useing sas.

He's using his previous $3,610 Synology example against the $5,699 Drobo B800i.

As for the B1200i (the $18K model), you could build one like it (SAS, 9x3TB MHD, 3x200GB eMLC SSD, RAID controller supporting hybrid arrays) for half or less, depending on the rest of the configuration. Ex: CPU choice, if using licensed software, etc.

[Prima.Vera]

Drobo sounds very similar to Dorobo, which is thief in Japanese...

[james888]

Originally Posted by Jizzler

He's using his previous $3,610 Synology example against the $5,699 Drobo B800i.

As for the B1200i (the $18K model), you could build one like it (SAS, 9x3TB MHD, 3x200GB eMLC SSD, RAID controller supporting hybrid arrays) for half or less, depending on the rest of the configuration. Ex: CPU choice, if using licensed software, etc.

I do not deny that. I built my computer for half of what you could by equivilantly.

[Drmark]

Best Buy just dropped the price of the Hitachi 4tb drives from $299 to $249. Just made the Synology deal even sweeter by -$400 for 8 drives before taxes.
8 4tb drives @249 each with tax $2,131
Synology 1812 $1,050 including overnight shipping from Amazon
total $3,181 VS. $5,699
I could almost buy 2 of the Synology beasts and have only 50tb+ of actual storage space instead of around 18tb