New Global Survey Reports the Reality Behind SMB Storage

SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwire - May 25, 2011) - Drobo, makers of the award-winning data storage products for businesses and professionals, today announced the results of a survey designed to identify small and medium business (SMB) storage perceptions. The survey of over 250 international small business and IT executives sheds light on the reality of SMB storage adoption, priorities and future goals.

Top findings

• SMB IT departments are limited: 68 percent of respondents have one or less person dedicated to IT.
• SMBs have no plans of moving all storage to the Cloud: 99 percent of respondents say they will not move 100 percent of their storage to the cloud; and a majority note that 75 percent or more of their storage will remain on-premise.
• SMBs are not getting the solutions they need from traditional storage vendors: 89 percent of respondents say that they are unsatisfied with 'big box storage' companies' current SMB storage offerings, citing a need for SMB-focused support for server virtualization, Microsoft Exchange, and file backup at an affordable price.
• SMBs want remote access, data protection and on-premise backup from their storage provider: 81 percent report it is of medium to high importance to have remote access to their data; 76 percent say that on-premise backup is a high storage priority; and 83 percent note that data protection features are a high storage priority followed by price.

"Today's businesses demand technically sophisticated storage that works, without complicated management," said Tom Buiocchi, CEO at Drobo. "These survey findings align with what we're seeing in the market -- businesses want robust storage that's also affordable and easy to use."

Additional information on the survey

• Over 250 respondents, across EMEA and the U.S., completed the online survey in May 2011.
• Participants included business executives, business managers, IT executives, IT managers and IT professionals representing SMBs across industry verticals.
• To access the full report, please visit: http://info.drobo.com/smbsurvey

About Drobo
Drobo makes award-winning data storage products for Small and Medium Businesses and Individual professionals that provide an unprecedented combination of sophisticated data protection and management features, affordable capacity, and ease-of-use. Based on the patented and proven BeyondRAID™ technology, Drobo's ability to deliver "Big Storage in a Small Box" creates the best storage experience ever for small and medium businesses and hundreds of thousands of individual professionals worldwide, who use it to support their file backup and media archiving, server virtualization, and email application needs. To learn more, visit http://www.drobo.com or follow us on Twitter @drobo.

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