Computing on Demand PC News & Reviews
Drobo has finally started to add some apps to their networked appliances to make them more useful for media hungry enthusiasts. Along with a copy module, Drobo has incorporated Plex for their 5N. Although Drobo is still far behind the rest of the industry in implementing features media enthusiasts look for in a network appliance, it is a step in the right direction.
Drobo, makers of award-winning data storage products for businesses and professionals, today announced a new software application platform that enables enhanced mobile and cloud-connect capabilities for Drobo 5N customers. The first two applications to be integrated include Copy™, a cloud-based file storage, syncing and sharing platform where users can easily store, protect and share data, and Plex, the industry’s leading media server for managing and serving digital media (video, music and photos) to nearly any device (TV, PC, or mobile). The company also announced availability of a development kit by which other leading application developers will be able to further extend the power and simplicity of its new networked storage device for remote access/sharing, media streaming, and cloud integration.
Available Thursday, March 28, Drobo’s first integrated cloud application is Barracuda Networks’ cloud-based service called Drobo Copy. The Copy application allows customers to easily protect and synchronize data between their on-site Drobo and the cloud, and to securely share information with friends, colleagues and associates globally. The ease-of-use delivered by the integration of the Copy application on the Drobo 5N is unprecedented. The new Copy application for the Drobo 5N is available beginning March 28 via a free download at www.drobo.com/droboapps and includes free use of 5GB of cloud storage and no per-user fees.
Plex is quickly becoming the default media ecosystem for Google TVs, smart TVs, set-top boxes (STBs), game consoles, DLNA-enabled devices, Roku, home theater PCs, and mobile devices that run iOS, Android, and Windows mobile operating systems. In addition, Plex can extend the media experience across all of these devices with features like web video queuing, recommendations, PlexSync (which enables taking content with you on your mobile device) and more. Plex’s user interface has been hailed as the easiest and most intuitive in the industry by reviewers and its several million users worldwide.
“Plex is proud to integrate our media serving and access capabilities to the Drobo 5N for the very knowledgeable, media-savvy Drobo customer base,” said Elan Feingold, CTO and co-founder of Plex. “Given the explosive growth of personal and online rich media content and mobile devices everywhere, we think this will be a very popular solution.” Plex on the Drobo 5N is expected to ship in April, and like the Copy application, will be available for free download from Drobo Apps.
The new Drobo application platform, complete with an enhanced user interface and experience, will enable Drobo 5N customers to access a growing list of diverse, integrated applications from leading commercial software developers.
“As a long-time Drobo enthusiast and developer, I have been able to create and share many new applications leveraging the simplicity of Drobo storage,” said Ricardo Padilha, owner of the community portal www.droboports.com. “Once again, Drobo proves its dedication to providing its customers the best of all worlds whether it’s cloud, mobile or on-premise storage access.”
