Drobo 'robot' automates server storage

The new Drobo by Data Robotics is promoted as the "world's first storage robot." In reality it is actually a hard drive enclosure, but with the unusual ability to automatically detect and format up to four 3.5-inch SATA drives of any capacity. Perhaps more importantly, the Drobo handles a number of maintenance tasks automatically, such as creating redundancy, and sensing and repairing data corruption. When attached to a Mac or PC via USB 2.0, the computer sees the Drobo as a unified drive. Colored LED lights indicate the status of each bay: yellow for instance indicates low space, while flashing red indicates failure. An empty Drobo enclosure costs $699.