Drobo FS Review

The thought behind the dashboard allows someone to add shares and users to your Drobo FS in MINUTES. You can literally connect your new FS to your network, install the Drobo Dashboard, and have shares and users set up in less than 10 minutes.

The process for adding shares is as easy as creating a share name by hitting the “+” button and leaving the user “Everyone” or adding specific users for more granular control over users and access. The simplified approach to users and shares makes this a no-brainer for non tech savvy users, but doesn’t give you you sub folder access controls. If you ask me, I would much rather have top level user controls than a failed attempt at enhanced user access controls.

There are other features of the Drobo Dashboard application worth mentioning like Drobo Copy and the Tools Menu, but most of the blood and guts of the configuration is completed through the main menu option. Drobo Copy is an option that allows you to schedule the copying of data from your computer to the Drobo on specific days and times. The limitation of the application is that you can only “browse” for folders. This is fine if you have a locally connected Drobo, but for those of us with the FS model, the ability to type a path in the field would make things much easier.

The tools menu option gives you easy access to things like blinking the lights on the FS, registering the device for support, shutdown & restart functions, and checking for updates. Having important features like shutdown and restart in a simple tools menu means that you do not have to dive through nested menus like you do on the QNAP TS-419P+.

Our configuration in the Lab is as follows:

Drobo-FS

• 2 x WD20EARS-00MVWB0 2 TB SATA 3.0Gb/s
• 2 x WD10EARS-00MVWB0 1 TB SATA 3.0Gb/s
• 1 x HDS72202ALA330 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s

Bench rig:

• Gigabyte 880GA-UD3H
• AMD Phenom II X4 965
• 2x2GB Patriot Sector 5 PC3-12800
• Seagate 500GB ST3500630AS
• BitFenix Colossus (click to read our review)
• BFG LS-450
• Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

In House Server:

• Gigabyte GA-EP45UD3LR
• Intel Core 2 Duo E7400
• 2x2GB Corsair XMS2 CM2X2048-6400C5
• Hitachi HDS721010KLA 1TB HDD SATA 3.0Gb/s (OS Drive)
• 5x Hitachi HDS72202ALA330 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s (Hardware RAID 5)
• Lian Li PC 75B
• OCZ GameXStream 850W PSU
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• 2x 120mm Antec Fans
• 4x 80mm Panaflo Fans

Network

• D-Link DGS-2208 Gigabit Switch
• Cat5e everywhere
• Jumbo Frames: 9014 Bytes (matches all systems on our network – including NAS)