Actually, fast is a relative term. Our local LAN workstations work fine with a Drobo as a shared active storage system for 1080p high-definition raw video projects which we all can edit from _simultaneously_. That's the key... there's enough throughput for multiple users to push heavy live data without hiccups, even in a bandwidth-hogging setup like workgroup video editing.

Yep. We have a Drobo connected to one of our workstations via Firewire 800 and share the drive between our local users in this department using a simple gigabit ethernet switch. It's practically a no-brainer expandable, protected data solution that requires no IT assistance. We have ours formatted HFS+ (between macs) using a 16 TB volume size to maximize capacity. In the future if 16 TB isn't enough (LOL?) then we'll just chain another 16 TB Drobo to that from the other Firewire 800 port.