Drobo Crosses Atlantic

Data
Robotics announced the official UK and Ireland launch of Drobo,
the world’s first storage robot. Drobo is a striking black desktop
device that connects via any USB 2.0 port on a Mac or Windows PC. Under
its magnetically attached faceplate are four bays that can accept any
brand, size, speed or capacity mix of standard 3.5" SATA internal hard
drives (sold separately and available at most electronics stores).

Drobo works like any
external USB drive and installing it is as easy as pulling it out of
the box and plugging it into a USB port. However, unlike competitive
solutions, Drobo requires no software, no configuration, and no
computer expertise to start reliably storing important data. In
addition, Drobo users benefit from the extensive reliability features
of the storage device, which uses patent-pending RAID-like proprietary
software. Drobo boasts data redundancy features normally associated
with RAID such as mirroring and data striping, but without the hassle
of RAID. Drobo creates one large pool of protected storage out of the
available drives, enabling users to get rid of multiple external drives.

Data
Robotics was founded by two Brits, Dr. Geoff Barrall and Julian Terry.
Barrall earned a doctoral degree in Cybernetics from the University of
Reading and serves as CEO of the company. Terry, who earned a degree in
Computer Engineering from the University of Bristol, UK, serves as
chief architect of Data Robotics.

Barrall – a 20-year-veteran of the
storage industry – said he was inspired to create Drobo after losing
irreplaceable personal data from a system crash at home. "After
inventing enterprise storage technologies and building entire data
centers, I understand how to store and protect data better than most,"
Barrall said. "When I investigated what solutions were out there, the
only options were managing a growing number of external hard drives or
managing RAID. That’s when I realized there needed to be an easier
solution, and I began the development of Drobo four years ago."

Drobo
is priced at GBP299 MSRP and is distributed in the UK and Ireland by
CMS Peripherals, one of the largest independent distributors of data
storage solutions in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is available
immediately

Data Robotics, Inc.