Data Robotics just announced the Drobo FS. Drobo FS via Drobo Apps (which are free) will have a link to the Oxygen Cloud. This could lead to several interesting options for the small business to large enterprise with respect to data storage and accessibility. Not to mention protection.
The Drobo FS features the following:
- Shared File Storage over a gigabit connection
- Speaks NFS over TCP (Linux Systems)
- CIFS (Windows and Linux Systems)
- AFP (Apple Systems)
- Network Backup
- Holds up to 5 drives of any size much like its other relatives. With the price of a 7200rpm TB drive being roughly $100 at Best Buy, this is an inexpensive option to have available 5TBs of space.
- Support for Drobo Apps which makes the Drobo FS available anywhere on a network
- Oxygen Cloud (not available on shipping date)
- iTunes Compatible Media Server
- UPnP/DLNA media Server
- BitTorrent Client
- Web Server
- FTP Server
These are some interesting features but the one that intrigues the most is the integration with the Oxygen Cloud, which will be performed by Oxygen with Data Robotics help via the Drobo Apps program. The Oxygen cloud integration has the potential to allow a user:
- Have their data replicated to the cloud. Thereby gaining backup functionality without much effort.
- Read data that was replicated from the Oxygen cloud to the local Drobo
- Be part of a larger organization with remote management by the organization which will be useful for telecommuters, remote offices, etc.
Users of Drobo FS will potentially be part of a private storage cloud for an organization giving local read and write access for cloud based data. This is a unique possibility with the Oxygen Cloud DroboApp that will benefit SMBs, Retail institutions, remote offices, and telecommuters while providing the necessary security with remote management. With the appropriate DroboApp, in essence, Drobo FS’ can belong to a private storage cloud and the data already replicated by other Drobo FS’ will be accessible locally. Now they just need to encrypt the data as it is written and use some form of PKI to allow remote users access to this replicated but encrypted data.
The new Drobo FS has plenty of potential!