Drobo FS is a dream if you need to backup macs.

Well, if you want to backup your Mac, there aren’t very good choices. Time Capsule is wonderful in terms of specs, you can from a network restore from it, but it has an incredible failure rate. I’ve lost 6 of 8 Time Capsules in the last two years with no way to recover data except to take the things apart.

The solution is expensive, but probably worth it. I have a Drobo Pro with 8 slots and it is a terrific disk server connected to my iMac. It handles backups from half a dozen Macs perfectly over gigabit ethernet and it is great for video and so forth with iSCSI. With the latest firmware release it is also stable. The big problem is that if you do lost a MacBook, it doesn’t natively show up as a restore drive.

The new Drobo FS is a 5 slot (vs. 8 slot) version which is a NAS. That is it also has a gigabit ethernet, but emulates a windows file server, or a Time Capsule, so you don’t need an IMac or something to be the server and it just plugs in. Costs $700 street which is expensive as it comes without hard drives. OTOH, you can get amazing 2TB drives for $200. The Western Digital Blacks are very good according to StorageReview, so 10TB new are just $1700 street with amazing performance.