SAN Archives -

Reality is in the eye of the beholder

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Mario Blandini • 0 Comments

Technology has altered reality. Sporting events can be more vivid and higher impact on a 60+in HD flat panel compared to seeing the event live. Technology discussions can be faster and more interactive over the web using a live demo with displays and webcams compared to sitting in a room with a whiteboard. Technology enables new ways of doing things that really are better – not necessarily avatars and CGI – but a more efficient version of what is real.

Some real and really good analysis was posted today from someone with a very keen eye on reality for storage customers. Matt Prigge posted to his Information Overload column @ InfoWorld.com on “How to avoid a forklift storage upgrade.” … Continue Reading

Microsoft Exchange, SQL, and Hyper-V customers go shopping for storage …

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Tom Buiocchi • 0 Comments

This is the one where Microsoft Exchange, SQL, and Hyper-V customers go shopping for storage at Microsoft’s biggest partners but decide that Drobo is a better choice. We love this story.

We’ve just completed some customer research polling our business users, and I asked the team to cut the data to only those who were in pure Microsoft application or virtualization environments. … Continue Reading

Small is the new huge

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Mario Blandini • 0 Comments

I was not trying to be overly personal in the last post, but it was relevant to the discussion … personality can be relevant, well sort of. In addition to being heterogeneous, I’ve never been physically taller than 5’6” and thus shorter than average most everywhere, and these days I have a smaller number of fully operational hair follicles. I am thus predisposed to believing that small is the new huge. I’m also a fitting spokesperson for the small box, big storage company. I am not just a Drobo VP … you know how the rest goes … I’m a home Drobo user as well.… Continue Reading

Halftime in America – Drobo for Business in Detroit

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Mario Blandini • 0 Comments

Last week: 39-minute flight from Toronto to Detroit and 2 days of high-density meetings in Detroit metro. No longer in the top 10 in North American business, the perception is that business is down in the motor city, even though 7.6% growth was enough fro GM to be the world’s top-selling automaker in 2011. Anywhere data is growing is a place where users are looking for newer, more advanced ways to store their data. It’s not just about lowering cost; the ability to storage massive amounts of data supports innovation and evolution in all types of organizations.

Without the capacity for new applications, innovation is inhibited. I was very excited to validate several ways Drobo users are accelerating innovation by harnessing massive amounts of information they otherwise could not feasibly store and protect.… Continue Reading

Toronto VMUG – The storage scrum

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Mario Blandini • 0 Comments

My last post started with a Canadian reference, and this one continues the Canadian theme. Drobo was a sponsor at the VMware Users Group (VMUG) in Toronto, the biggest city in Canada and lesser known as #5 in size for the whole of North America. It was a great chance to meet up with current Drobo B1200i users such as the University of Toronto, and connect with many new folks to talk about the latest technology.

Why the storage scrum? It’s not related to the Canadian Rugby League, of which the first 4 domestic teams hail from the Toronto area. Hockey is tops in Toronto but did not pair well with the word “storage”. Moreover, with 18 of 29 sponsors in the storage space, it seemed that the discussion was tightly centered on storage, its role in virtualized environments, and the continued journey to the cloud.… Continue Reading

Their other EMC-Dell-HP is a Drobo!!!

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Tom Buiocchi • 1 Comment

A funny thing happened when we introduced the Drobo B1200i in November last year. A lot of big companies started to buy it. Now we know who we are and we know who we aren’t – we focus on small-medium businesses and individuals who value modern, automated storage – and we clearly have not gone after enterprise customers. But when we saw more and more large companies start buying Drobos, we obviously took a closer look, asked a few more questions, and tried to understand why.… Continue Reading

Expanding the Tier 1 SAN you already have

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Mario Blandini • 4 Comments

2^nd post here, the beginnings of a steady cadence of solution-oriented discussion and analysis of real-world use cases @ Drobo!

I mentioned Automated Data Aware Tiering to start my last post. Some may not like this because the user cannot tune the tiering; specifically no tuning or configuration is required (or allowed). Customers get the price/capacity benefits of 7200RPM SAS drives for their bulk tier and need only a small number of SSDs to get great price/performance where they need it. More soon …… Continue Reading