Seamless Integration Between Drobo FS and Time Machine

Data Robotics, Inc. announced the seamless integration of Drobo FS, the Drobo designed for file sharing, and Time Machine, an automated backup software program by Apple Inc.

With enhanced capacity management controls and the ability to back up data from multiple users, the new Drobo FS with Time Machine integration offers Mac users a highly efficient and scalable shared storage and backup solution.

By integrating network file sharing capabilities and automated data protection with Time Machine, the Drobo FS greatly simplifies data sharing and backup for connected home, home office and small office users. Based on Data Robotics’ BeyondRAID technology and built on Drobo’s flexible platform for adding features and capacity as needed, the Drobo FS can be customized and scaled to meet current or future storage requirements.

"Many Mac users want a network storage solution to use with Apple’s Time Machine for easy, automated backup of their data," said Mark Fuccio, senior director of products and markets at Data Robotics. "The Drobo FS delivers the most seamless support for Apple Time Machine of any network storage system on the market today. Using Time Machine with Drobo FS is as easy as clicking one box in the Drobo Dashboard software, with no need for confusing, complex command line work. The combination of Apple’s and Data Robotics’ proven technologies offers Mac users unsurpassed simplicity for storing, sharing, and backing up their data."

Drobo FS users are now able to pre-define a limit on how much storage will be used for Time Machine backups. Previously, Time Machine would consume capacity until it was gone and then delete the oldest backups to make room for new backups. The Drobo FS platform enables multiple Mac users on a network to automatically and simultaneously back up to the same Drobo FS.

Richard Harrington, founder and CEO of RHED Pixel, explained: "At RHED Pixel we have a team of motion graphics artists working on multiple computers. Often times they need to share a pool of assets for big jobs. We found we were losing a ton of time duplicating data and shuttling drives around the office. The work is also really demanding on hard drives. We have had four drives fail in the last three years. We use Time Machine to protect against drive failure constantly. We use a Drobo FS both to share project assets between artists and for Time Machine backup. Each workstation has its own share for Time Machine. Drobo FS’s ability to share files between users and to replace individual backup drives on the fly make it the most cost effective solution on the market."

Powering Drobo FS is a dual core microprocessor: one core runs Drobo’s BeyondRAID code while the other core runs an embedded Linux server for file sharing and running DroboApps from third party developers. Data Robotics has enhanced the source code for Netatalk, an open source implementation of AFP (Apple File Protocol) to support Time Machine by controlling the amount of disk space used for backups. Data Robotics has donated source code for its enhancements to the project. These are available in Netatalk 2.05, or later, for all developers and users.

Features and Benefits
of using Drobo FS with Time Machine

• Set Time Machine capacity limits – Users can control how much Drobo FS capacity is used by Time Machine backups.
• Plug in, share, and back up – The Drobo FS connects directly to any Gigabit Ethernet network for a true plug in and share set-up experience. Multiple users on a network can automatically and simultaneously back up to the same Drobo FS target.
• Open and customizable storage – Using an open-source platform and the growing library of third-party DroboApps, which include media and web applications, users can customize Drobo FS to their unique sharing environment and requirements.
• 5-drive capacity with instant expansion to 10TB and beyond – Customers with growing storage requirements can easily add data capacity by simply inserting a new hard drive or replacing the smallest drive with a larger one, even when all five drive bays are full. With Drobo FS, expansion is automatic, instantaneous, and access to data is always maintained.
• Single- and dual-drive redundancy – The Drobo FS dual drive redundancy option protects against the simultaneous failure of up to two hard drives. Customers can engage this option with a single click without ever losing access to their data.
• Self-healing technology – With BeyondRAID, the Drobo FS continually examines data blocks and sectors on each drive to flag potential issues. The preemptive ‘scrubbing’ helps ensure data is being written only to healthy drive areas and automatically keeps data in the safest state possible – even when a drive fails.

Drobo FS is available now from authorized partners worldwide.