Drobo configuration

Have you ever wondered how long it would take for a 12 year old child to configure a Drobo storage device? Well you are about to find out. In this short time lapse film you can see it for yourself!

[Watch the video to see the answer]

I was lucky enough to win this Drobo from Data Robotics at the Gestalt IT Field Day last week. It arrived today via Fedex. If Drobo is meant to be simple for home users than there is not really any point in me testing it out, I know a thing or two about computers. However my youngest son Tim does not.That's not quite true, he is bit of a geek and a whiz at using applications but he is only just starting to learn about computer technology itself like storage. What a great test of the simplicity of the device. Seriously, the hardest thing was removing all of the packaging.

Tim also managed to figure out how to create the partition and format it. The Mac was kind enough to pop up the right utility when the Drobo was plugged in. After the partition was formatted it auto mounted. His test was to then copy a video file into the Drobo and play it from there. This is all included in the time.

If you are wondering what a Drobo is check out their web site. Essentially is a desktop storage device that contains data protection.

Drobo utilizes the revolutionary BeyondRAID storage technology that protects data against a hard disk crash, yet is simple enough for anyone to use. As long as you have more than a single disk in Drobo, all data on Drobo is safe no matter which hard disk fails. There’s no need to worry about anything else.

Its technology lets you add disk drives, it will take up to four. If you run out of space you simply pop out the smallest drive (its okay your data is protected) and insert a larger one, you will then get more space and the data protection re-configures itself underneath. For large drives the re-configuration process can take quite some time.

If you enjoyed this, please post a comment, I am sure Tim would appreciate it.

Rodos

[Note : I attended the Gestalt IT Field Days as a guest of Gestalt IT. Travel and accommodation was provided as part of the event. See the Field Day FAQ and my comments for details.]