Photographers create a hundreds, if not thousands, of 10-20MB files a day and storing these images safely has become a challenge.

Personally I use several backup methods to insure I don’t loose any of my images. I have three Western Digital My Books, two NAS drives (which are aging and due for failure,) and I also subscribe to a paid online backup service so I have off site backup.

You might have heard about Drobo, it is a unique backup storage array that allows you to insert up to four SATA hard drives in it, each maybe any size, and they don’t have to match like with RAID arrays.

I originally held off on joining the Drobo bandwagon mainly because it was new and wanted to see how they faired longer term. Everyone I know who bought the original Drobo Fully Automated SATA Robotic Storage Array 4 Bay USB 2.0 loves it. They haven’t had issues and they now swear buy them. They originally went for at least $500 but they’re now discounted to around $350 because they just came out with a new version.

As soon as the Data Robotics DR04DD10 Drobo 4-Bays USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 Fully Automated SATA Robotic Storage Array was announced I pulled the trigger. I’ve only had it a few days but I can tell you from my own personal experience that it is amazing! Its fast, so fast that I can use it for my primary storage and even use it for my Aperture vault and it’s much safer having my data on it rather than a single hard drive.

The redundant nature of the Drobo is what makes it far better than single drives and even mirrored RAID storage arrays. Nothing else compares to the Drobo in terms of reliability.

I’m so impressed by my new Drobo that I’m considering picking up the discounted Drobo USB 2.0 and a Droboshare to replace my NAS arrays and use it as additional backup. The price is hard to beat and even with several Western Digital 750GB Greenpower Sata II drives it’s still cheaper than other external arrays with comparable capacity.

Pricing, rebates, free super saver shipping, and other promotions maybe subject to availability and restrictions.