Professionals seeking a redundant storage solution on the go have, up until now, had a rough go of it—either pack along a bulky RAID array and carry the drives separately, or carry multiple external drives and hope that simple mirroring can ensure their data’s integrity. The new Drobo Mini ($600) takes care of all those problems and more.
Measuring just seven inches square and less than two inches tall, the Drobo Mini uses a patent-pending, ruggedized “carrierless” design, letting you use and swap up to four 2.5” drives at a time without the need for additional carriers or screws and without the need for removing the drives when transporting. Other features include Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 connectivity, BeyondRAID technology with single- or dual-drive redundancy, a custom, miniaturized power supply, and an optional carrying case.