Drobo box creates a simple solution for file backup and storage

When it comes to backing up data, one of the most common misconceptions people approach me with revolves around external hard drives. Moving files to an external hard drive does not make them redundant; it makes the external drive the single point of failure. The hard drive inside the box can fail, just like the hard drive inside your computer. In my office, the motto is, “if a file is not in two places, it does not exist.”

If the files are being moved off the computer hard drive to make space, the solution is to find a way to make the file redundant on other devices. This can mean buying two external hard drives to copy files onto, but that leads to a manual process, more cables on your desktop (I hate cables), and fewer available ports on your computer. Plus, when they fill up, there is no easy way to upgrade.

So, now we are looking for a product that automatically makes redundant copies of files, does not take up too much space, is easy to use and is user upgradeable. Sounds complicated, but it isn’t. I already have one.

In our service room, we have been using this product for over a year. When we store or back up data in the office, we need to know it is secure and redundant, and we already have plenty of cables running around, so the fewer wires the better.

To accomplish this, we use a Drobo (starting at $349) from Data Robotics Inc. It’s a sleek, black, shoebox-sized device we connect via USB or FireWire 800 to computers in the backroom.

The device is available preconfigured with hard drives or comes empty; we ordered an empty one and used some old drives pulled from dead computers we keep around the office. Once powered and connected to the computer, we took the front panel off and slid four standard computer hard drives into the four bays. The Drobo then takes over, turning our four individual drives and creating one big disk from them. Drobo has an instructional video on its Web site, www.drobo.com

The Drobo makes a very complicated system very simple. Fundamentally, it is a hardware RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks). It takes many smaller disks and formats them in a way that allows computers to view them as a single disk. The redundancy comes in because RAIDs can be constructed in different ways, each providing different amounts of redundancy.

A mirrored RAID is when two drives are mirror images of one another; if one disk fails, the other keeps working with no data loss. A RAID level five, which requires three or more drives, keeps data redundant in a way that allows a single drive to fail without data loss. In a RAID five, the final drive size is about two thirds of the total capacity of the drives.

What makes the Drobo great is its BeyondRAID technology. Typically RAIDs are very complicated and take expertise to manage, but the BeyondRAID system requires no management at all. The Drobo handles everything. Moving between RAID levels is typically a complicated process that usually puts data at risk, but the Drobo does this safely, with no risk to data, on the fly as drives are added or removed.

With two disks, the Drobo creates a mirror; with three or more, the Drobo changes to RAID level five. If a drive fails, software on the computer and the lights on the Drobo notate which drive died or is dying. Replace it with any drive of equal or larger capacity, and the Drobo rebuilds the RAID with zero data loss. Need more space, just plug in a new drive into an available bay. Drobo full? Just pull out the smallest drive and replace it with a drive of larger capacity.

The Drobo can also offer a file storage solution to a small office. With the DroboShare ($199), a Drobo can be plugged into the local network. Using standard file sharing protocol it can be used in a multi-platform environment to provide scalable, redundant network storage that can still be directly connected to a computer when necessary.

The Drobo solves the problem of backing up and storing files on an external hard drive. It is redundant, easy to use, easy to manage and easy to upgrade. With no configuration or management needed, it can work for anyone. Since it uses standard drives, if you have ones lying around, like we did, there is no additional cost for initial implementation.

Though the cost of entry is higher then a basic external hard drive, the investment is worth it. Data loss is more expensive and time consuming than deploying a proper backup solution. With a Drobo, moving your files off your computer might be the best thing your can do for your data.