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CNET First Look
Drobo Mini Thunderbolt drive
As a storage device, the Drobo Mini makes no financial sense.
3:38 /
Transcript
-Hey guys, Dong Ngo here and this is the Drobo Mini Thunderbolt drive, but let's talk money first.
And when it comes to money, there's nothing more near and dear to me than my wallet.
So, let's very randomly here check out how much I have there now.
Oh, and see here.
Well, off the bad, I have $200 and some more.
I'm not a bragger or anything, but you have to admit that's a lot of cash,
but that is not enough to even buy one third of this drive.
Yes, the Drobo Mini costs $650, and what do you get from that, well, a few things.
Number one, you are guaranteed to spend some more.
That's right.
Because the drive here comes with no storage, instead, it comes with 4-drive bay right here for you to put in the internal drive, fast, high speed.
Again, fast and high speed internal drive, like this one right here.
You see how easily [unk] just like this.
There you go.
Four of them.
And on the bottom here, there's also a small slot to put in a small SSD.
So, all in all, you can spend about $300 or $400 or even $500 more before you can take advantage of the Drobo at its old glories.
Now, the second thing you'd get from a Drobo Mini is the bragging right.
That's right.
Because, with BeyondRAID, Drobo gives us option of making
a volume up to 16 terabytes regardless of how much storage actually you have in the drive.
The idea is that you aim for high and then later on add more storage to the drive, either via more drive or higher capacity drive.
The problem is that, currently, with 1 terabyte hard drive being the largest 2.5 in hard drive high speed on the market, the Drobo can give you 4 terabytes of broad raw capacity at most.
The third thing you'd get from a Drobo is a very cool drive bay cover right here.
It stays on very firmly and strongly.
Actually, sometimes, too firmly and too strongly because of a strong magnet, but hey, it looks really cool.
And finally, the drive comes with an amazing amount of [unk] light wrapping around with face right here.
They're probably enough to keep you up at night, and if that's not enough to keep you up at night, on the back here, the drives comes with two fans
that is very loud.
There you go.
Now, the Drobo comes with both Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 making it a very versatile sort of device.
In my testing, however, it proved to be one that tries to teach you patience because, first, it takes a long time to boot up.
In my test, up to a few minutes.
And secondly, it's slow.
In fact, it's among the slowest Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 drive I reviewed.
And even worse, it seemed to progressively slower the more data you put on it.
All in all, the Drobo is unique to say the least.
Whether or not you're gonna pay for that, it depends on how much dough you are actually rolling in.
Personally, I would go for other thunderbolt drives that offer more storage, fastest speed, and cheaper.
For more information, check out the full review at CNET.com and to find out how rolling VIP I really am, you can follow me in Twitter or check me out on my Facebook page.
Once again, my name is Dong Ngo and this has been a very quick lesson on finance with the participation of the Drobo Mini Thunderbolt drive.
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