Way back in the hazy days of August, I ran out of storage.

Again.

My desktop looked like a bad set from "Swordfish". A 1tb Firewire 800 drive, a 1tb USB2.0 drive, and a few errant 500gb USB drives. With each new device my computer booted slower, the noise increased, my precious desktop real estate declined, and juggling data got that much harder. I needed to do something dramatic.

But there was good news: Data Robotics just released an updated version of their hyped Drobo , and the intertubes buzz was all positive. It supports Firewire 800 and up to 4tb of storage (16tb theoretical). After weighing my options, I decided to take the plunge. I bought one.

Fast Forward several weeks, my shiny new Drobo was here. Giddy with excitement, I followed the (simple) instructions to a "T". I installed the drives, I installed the software, I hooked this bad mamma jamma up... and nothing.

The software didn't recognize the device. Console showed an arcane error that seemed vaguely relevant to Firewire and mysticism. But nothing. Zip, zero, zilch.

I went through the predictable troubleshooting steps. Replaced the cable, rebooted, tried reconnecting my previous Firewire 800 drive, tried daisy chaining them, failures all.
Everything pointed to the Drobo.

I decided to connect it via USB 2.0, ta-da! It worked perfectly. But it was working on USB. Which was not acceptable, at all. The only reason I opted specifically for the Drobo was I wanted to move away from USB for my mass storage needs.

I contacted tech-support. I was hopeful that they would have a fast miracle solution. "This is a known bug, we have a super secret beta-tastic firmware right here to fix you up!" they would say.

Trouble ticket filed, I waited.

And waited.

A week later, I finally got my first response. They needed more information. Of course. I happily gave them all the details, included the diagnostic output from the Drobo Dashboard software. Things were finally looking up.

Then I waited.

And waited.

Eight days later (today in fact) I got a response. It was from Steven, a Tier-3 Support Engineer.
Bad news it seems, the Drobo itself was in fact defective.

Unfortunately, I live overseas, and their RMA process will only handle shipping to/from the US. I would need to send the Drobo back to the states on my dime, then ship the replacement back here (including duties, again) on my dime.

While this is a perfectly reasonable policy, it still sucks.

With a heavy heart I responded to Steven. I thanked him for letting me know, I explained that I understood the RMA policy, that I felt it was reasonable. And I explained that reasonable or not, by the time I got done shipping this unit back, the replacement unit, coupled with duties and the original cost of shipping and duties, this Drobo was going to cost me $970. Nearly double the price of a brand new Drobo. It just wasn't cost-effective, time to cut my losses and run.

I expected that to be the end of it. Or will it?

As I wrote out the trials and tribulations of my poor little Drobo, Steven e-mailed me. He's going to talk to his boss about the shipping issues.

As a sane adult consumer living overseas, I have no reason to expect Data Robotics to pick up the tab on this. But it would be pretty freakin' sweet if they do.

Regardless of the outcome, dear interweb, if there is only one lesson I've learned while living outside of the USA and shopping online, it's Caveat Emptor.