Before joining Capture Integration, I had no experience selling the Drobos, so while we do sell them, I'm relatively new to the product. But the benefits seem to be ease of use, cost efficiency, ability to utilize a RAID 6 (2 drives can fail without loss of data). It does have some limitations and potential weaknesses, in my opinion. Read/write speed has been one weakness. The other is that mixing and matching drives produces a system that has inconsistent quality control. While some users will do their due diligence regarding purchasing high quality drives from one manufacturer, I feel most will take advantage of the ability to reduce costs by purchasing drives of varying quality.
I agree there are quality alternatives out there, OWC, etc, although we cannot sell OWC products. In the past (going back about 3+ years) I have sold the LaCie RAID boxes like the 4Big Quadra in iterations of 2TB - 8TB, and Capture Integration now sells the LaCie product line. Despite having 4 drives in the enclosure, the 4Big Quadras can be easily configured as a single icon on a desktop, which can make backup processes very simple and easy. These are every bit as easy to set up (in fact maybe easier) as a Drobo, and they have proven themselves extremely reliable. The read/write speeds are extremely fast. So, for the user, they are simple, fast, affordable, and sold by a company that has been around a while and will likely continue. LaCie now has a formal VAR program, so a Value Add dealer like Capture Integration has a direct support channel and can circumvent the laborious tier one level support that's available for most e-commerce resellers.
I'm very concerned about data storage for photographers these days. I see way, way too many photographers who don't have an effective backup strategy implemented. In fact I even see photographers, and I mean good, talented, successful photographers, that do not have data redundancy period. Just really scary. And surprising.
For me, the most important elements for a photographer in terms of data backup are clarity of strategy and sustained ease of implementation and maintenance of that strategy.
The biggest advantage that the quality RAID boxes offer is higher capacity and greater real-time reliability than individual drives. This reduces the complexity and number of interfaces that a photographer will have to deal with, which enables storage purchases to be less frequent and backup strategies to be more easily maintained. I see way too many studios with multiple small to medium size drives that quickly fill up, forcing the photographer to buy yet another small to medium capacity drive. This produces inefficiency and increases data risk. Ideally, a photographer can purchase storage that will last at least 2 to 3 years without adding to it, and be able to easily fulfill their strategy for effective redundancy of their data.
Steve Hendrix
