Who the hell would pay $500 for a Drobo ?
August 7th, 2007
What the hell is a Drobo, you ask ? Drobo is a little box that connects to your computer via USB, and houses from one to four hard drives. It does RAID-like things to protect your files from disk failure, and presents itself as a very simple, easy-to-use gadget.
And it costs $500, that’s not including hard drives!
Now I’m extremely biased because
- 1. I’m a super geek
- 2. I’m a storage freak and
- 3. I’m a cynical bastard
But even after considering the non-technical users I still can’t justify the price tag on this thing. All it does is operate a proprietary imitation of RAID-5 on a cheap embedded processor and board, with a cute little web interface and a USB cable. It’s nothing revolutionary, and it’s something that anyone with even basic technical knowledge can build out of an old PC and free software like Openfiler, FreeNAS or the commercial (but inexpensive) NASLite. Sure, a FreeNAS system won’t plug over USB, and won’t look as cute on your desk, but who the hell cares ? Dig out an old Pentium-2, find a bunch of cheap hot-swap drive trays on eBay and knock your thrifty self out!
And spend the remaining $460 on hard drives, hookers and booze!
