Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

You remember Drobo, right?  It’s the cute, little storage robot, now with up to 4TB of storage.  Well, some interesting news surfaced that might make you take another look at this gem: Drobo Apps.

Yes.  With all the ways our phones can become different and more useful devices with 3rd party applications, now your Drobo can as well.  Currently, there are 20 Apps for Drobo.  In what ways will Drobo change?

For starters, how about turning Drobo in to your personal jukebox with Firefly?  Or maybe you want to access data in Drobo remotely?  Or perhaps, you want to limit the size of your back ups with Time Machine?  Fancy a Linux compatible dashboard?  You get the idea.

Data Robotics, the maker of Drobo, isn’t supporting these community sourced applications.  Instead, they rely on the developers and users to find solutions that work with their product.  Data Robotics doesn’t have to guess what users want from their product, they can just sit back and let the market do with it as it pleases.

Currently, the applications are all free.  Whether or not it will stay that way remains to be seen.  Also unclear is if this kind of hands off approach will work for Drobo.  Can companies rely on 3rd party apps to create functionality in their products?  Some argue, the developers will do a better job.  Conversely, some say without the Drobo backing the apps big projects won’t get done and the product will suffer for it.

Either way, it is great to see the community reacting to a great way to control data.

Check out the applications: [Drobo]