Hardware Review: Drobo Elite – Part I

The DroboElite is the most fully featured storage array in the Data Robotics range of devices. Regular readers will know I’ve posted frequently on these devices, from the first Drobo “Classic” to the DroboPro, both of which I own and have purchased myself. Data Robotics have kindly loaned me a DroboElite for this series of posts. As you will see, the top of the range model offers all the features the other models provide, plus the benefits of multi-user support.

Review: DroboPro – Part II

This is the second in a series of posts looking at the DroboPro from Data Robotics Inc.  Previous post(s):
Review: DroboPro – Part I
Previously I discussed a few frustrations with connecting my new DroboPro to ESXi, the target environment for my new device.  I’ve now managed to get the ‘Pro connected and visible within ESXi.  See [...]

Review: DroboPro – Part I

My new DroboPro arrived this week and so far I’m less than impressed.  As you know, I already have had a generation 1 Drobo for some time.  It has been a great device, doing exactly what I wanted.  After winning a second standard Drobo at Tech Field Day, I paid for the upgrade to the DroboPro in anticipation of a [...]

Enterprise Computing: Is iSCSI The New Home Protocol?

I’d like to think I’ve visited a lot of customer sites over the years.  Admittedly most of these are “enterprise” class with multi-terabyte if not petabyte quantities of storage.  None of those customers have ever bothered deploying iSCSI as their storage protocol.  Invariably block storage has been implemented using fibre channel and file using CFS [...]

GestaltIT Tech Field Day – Day 2: Ocarina, Nirvanix and Data Robotics

Day 2 of the Tech Field Day kicked off with a trip to Ocarina Networks. For those who don’t know (a) Ocarina offer a “data reduction” appliance (b) an ocarina is a small oval, china flute. I say data reduction as the Ocarina appliance uses a variety of methods for reducing data size, including [...]

Personal Computing: Diagnosing Performance Problems

Every now and then my main computer (i.e. the one with all the screens that runs MS Vista) eventually starts to slow down.  My usual response is a full re-install, which although sounds drastic isn’t that bad as most of my data is server-based, so the main effort is in getting the applications back installed [...]