Author Archives: Tom Buiocchi

Drobo CEO Tom Buiocchi

Last week I had breakfast with a very successful technologist here in the Bay Area who had just purchased and deployed a Drobo 5N in his home. He wanted to give me some feedback on the product, share some ideas for future enhancements, and the like.

All in all, it was an excellent interchange; suffice it to say I picked up a few new ideas about what we can do “next.” But I picked up even more important things when I turned the tables and asked him a few things about his “connected home”—what was he using before the Drobo, why did he change, what applications was he using in his “use case,” etc. His answers were very enlightening, a bit frightening, and very encouraging.

Before Drobo, he didn’t use anything to centralize and proactively manage his digital assets. He had a collection of different solutions for his music, his family videos, and his massive photo habit. He did a little backup to a Time Capsule, and a little to the cloud. He still manually inserted DVDs in a device to play them instead of streaming them to his HD TVs. He had been looking at a Drobo for over a year, and had only recently decided to “clean up his digital act” at home because (in his words) “it was spring; I wanted something to organize something other than the garage, and it was becoming downright embarrassing that I didn’t have my media organized and protected.”

Now this is a guy who I thought certainly would have had his digital life perfectly organized and synchronized—and yet, he hadn’t made the move to modern storage and data management in his home, despite his terabytes of valuable information he needed to protect and manage. Time and “other stuff” were his primary inhibitors—and our primary competitors.

So what did I learn? I learned that even the most advanced users of digital media often don’t take the time, or have the recipe, to do what my friend had to do to organize and protect his valuable assets. Heck, for most of us, we’ve done this once in our lives at most, and if it’s the first time, it could be intimidating.

I also learned that we could help a lot more (even he didn’t get it all nailed the first time). So, to that end, if you (either at home or in your business) want some impetus and free assistance to get you going on your “digital spring cleanup,” or perhaps you just need to brush up on “best practices,” give us a call at (866) 895-8177 or attend a Drobo for Professionals Live Demo. We can put you on a Drobo Live with one of our Drobo Solution Architects (“geniuses”) who can help you take that important first step. It’s way better than rearranging the garage again!

Thanks

Tom

To learn more about  Drobo for Professionals, register for a Live Demo. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Google+.

Drobo 5N offers Copy and Plex

We at Drobo, makers of award-winning storage products for professional and business customers, are announcing a new software platform to enhance the mobile and cloud-connected capabilities of the Drobo 5N and subsequently its customers.  The first two applications we’re integrating are Drobo Copy, a cloud-based data sharing and data protection service from Barracuda Networks, and Plex, the industry’s leading media server for managing and serving digital media (such as video, music, and photos) to nearly any device.  We’re also introducing a development kit developers can use to create applications that further extend the power and simplicity of our new networked storage device for remote access and share, media streaming, and cloud integration.

Our customers have been asking for us to help them extend the ease and affordability of Drobo beyond the four walls of their business or home. Secure mobile and cloud enhancements to Drobo are natural and very valuable extensions, and we are delighted to be working with such industry leaders as Barracuda and Plex.

Drobo Copy

Our first integrated cloud application is Drobo Copy, a cloud-based service from Barracuda Networks.  Customers can use Drobo Copy to protect and synchronize their data between their on-site Drobo 5N and the cloud, as well as securely sharing information with friends, colleagues, and business associates worldwide.  The combination of Drobo Copy integrated into the Drobo 5N delivers unprecedented ease of use.  The new Drobo Copy application is available at www.drobo.com/droboapps.  Drobo Copy includes use of 5GB of cloud storage and has no per-user fees.

“Our customers understand the value of easy, affordable, and secure cloud storage that ties into their easy, affordable, and secure local storage,” said BJ Jenkins, CEO of Barracuda Networks.  “Barracuda and Drobo are delivering an industry-leading, integrated solution for that majority of business customers who want and need both.”

Plex

Plex is quickly becoming the default media ecosystem for such platforms as Google TV, smart television, set-top boxes, DLNA-enabled devices, Roku, home theater PCs, and iOS, Android, and Windows mobile smartphones and tablets.  Plex can also extend the media experience across these devices with features such as web video queuing, recommendations, PlexSync (enables transferring content to mobile devices), and a few more.  Plex’s user interface has been heralded as the easiest and most intuitive out there by reviewers and its millions of worldwide users alike.  Plex for the Drobo 5N is expected to ship in April.  Like Drobo Copy, it will be free for download at drobo.com/droboapps.

“Plex is proud to integrate our media serving and access capabilities to the Drobo 5N for the very knowledgeable, media-savvy Drobo customer base.  Given the explosive growth of personal and online-rich media content and mobile devices everywhere, we think this will be a very popular solution,” said Elan Feingold, CTO and co-founder of Plex.

The new Drobo Application Platform, with its enhanced user interface, will enable Drobo 5N customers to access increasingly diverse and integrated applications from leading commercial software developers like Barracuda Networks and Plex.  Learn more about how the Drobo Copy and Plex applications integrate with the Drobo 5N at Drobo Copy.

“As a longtime Drobo enthusiast and developer, I have been able to create and share many new applications leveraging the simplicity of Drobo storage. Once again, Drobo proves its dedication to providing its customers the best of all worlds, whether it’s cloud, mobile or on-premise storage access,” said Ricardo Padilha, owner of the community portal www.droboports.com.

To learn more about the Drobo 5N, register for a Live Demo. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Google+.