Daily Archives: July 8, 2008

Drobo 2.0 Released!

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Data Robotics this morning announced the availability of the second generation Drobo. The new Drobo is faster itself and adds FireWire 800/400 connectivity as well as USB 2.0! When connected via FireWire the unit is said to be twice as fast as the older version. This new version will make it better for Digital Video applications and faster storage. The new Drobo Dashboard software that gives some performance boost to owners of the older Drobos will soon be available for download.

It appears the the Drobo Share add on (gives the Drobo network connectivity) has not yet been upgraded to FireWire but I will assume that will be coming in the future.

We picked up a Drobo evaluation unit sometime this spring and have been impressed with it. In a nutshell the Drobo is an external enclosure that allows you to add up to 4 Sata or Sata II hard drives of any capacity to the unit. It then takes all of the space and allocates backup areas. This allows for your data to be spanned across all of the drives and also provides some redundant data protection. If a drive fails, simply pop it out replace it with one of equal or greater capacity and your data will be saved. Running out of space on the Drobo? Pop out the smallest drive and replace it with a bigger one and away you go. The current model supports up to 16 TB of drives.

While supplies last Data Robotics is selling the older Drobo’s for 349.00 and the new Drobo 2 at the regular price of 499.00.

For anyone that needs a secure data storage and backup, we highly recommend the Drobo and now with the release of Drobo 2.0 we are moving the Drobo higher up our list of recommended Data Storage products.

We will be ordering a new Drobo 2 unit shortly and will be testing it and have it available for demonstrations and evaluations.

 

Hmmm, No iPhone through Apple Canada

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Breaking new this morning. Canadians will not be able to purchase an iPhone from the Canadian retail Apple Stores or via www.apple.ca. iPhones will be available through Rogers and Fido retail outlets however.

Reports are that Apple is not happy with the data plans that Rogers announced in late June and as a result is not selling the phones via it’s Apple stores in Canada and re routing those allocated phone shipments to Europe!

Looks like the voices of people like me and others who have said that the plans are a rip off compared to the plans offered to US customers via AT&T are being heard.

So if you want an iPhone on July 11th (although we are urging people to boycott until the plans get better) you will have to go to a Rogers or Fido retail outlet.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was looking forward to the release of the iPhone in Canada, not because I wanted one but because I thought that if similar data plans to what was being offered in the US were available it would force some competition and lower data rates for all smart phone users in Canada. Personally I am awaiting the release of the Blackberry Bold (said to be mid August) before I make a decision.

I will however be purchasing the V2.0 software (although Apple could learn from Microsoft in not charging for firmware IE the Zune) for my iPod touch. This should give me Exchange support on my Touch. If it does not I will forgo the update.

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Response Point SP 1 released!

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Today Microsoft has released Service Pack 1 (SP1) for their Response Point Phone system and with that comes the official release of Response Point into Canada. Response Point is a phone system designed for small businesses that takes away the complexity of most phone systems (and the large price).

Response Point is a hardware and Software system available from three hardware manufacturers, Syspine, DLink and Aastra. Here at Sysguy Consulting we are authorized partners for the Syspine and Aastra systems.

Service Pack 1 adds the long awaited ability to use SIP Trunking (VOIP) with your Response Point system as well as using POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service). Other additions include click dialing from your PC, call history and live status views of other users phones from your PC.

We have downloaded the software and the firmware for our Syspine Demo system and will be applying it soon. Once we have run through it we will be posting a more indepth review.

Please contact us if you want to see a demo of the Response Point system in your office.