The number one complaint about the Drobo is pretty obvious: getting the damn thing on your network without using a host computer. Well, consider that complaint sorted. Today Data Robotics is releasing a NAS upgrade for Drobo called the DroboShare, which will support:

• Gigabit Ethernet (yes!), static or dynamic IPs
• Auto-mounting SMB shares via Drobo Dashboard (supports SMB authentication)
• Dual USB 2.0 ports for two Drobos per DroboShare
• EXT3 file system support (officially!)
• Capacities up to 16TB (provided you feed it 4GB drives that won’t be out until, say, 2010)
• And possibly our favorite: email alerts, should a drive happen to crash, for example

It’s also worth noting Drobo still capable of switching between NAS and direct-attached modes if you decide you want to take your Drobo OFF the network (but why would you do a thing like that?). The biggest problem with this add-on? It’s $200, which brings the total cost of a DroboShare NAS rig to $700 — without drives. Still, we have a feeling for many a Drobo user — ourselves included — the value of the functionality will far outweigh the borderline unreasonable price tag.