I've used Drobo B800I as a Media Server

Drobo B800I is a great replacement or an addition to the old DroboPro. Actually B800I is DroboPro and it's latest version. I Recently setup a Drobo B800i for connection to a Windows server for media playout. The media needed to be loaded on a Drobo from a Mac computer but the playlist server software was running on Windows. Since setup was done using a Mac. I first needed to format Drobo volume to NTFS by installing tuxera NTFS to load the content onto drobo. Here is more info about Tuxera NTFS Some Tips

• On Windows - First use Drobo dashboard to create a volume
• Next in control panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management and under disk management initiate drobo drive and format to ntfs.
• Once the drive is formated to NTFS you can easily mount it in drobo dashboard under volumes (left menu under all devices)
• In Drobo Dashboard under Drobo Settings (left menu under All devices) network settings you can set MTU..If you set your network card to high speed and configure Drobo MTU setting..This will help speed up data transfer
• When connecting a older DroboPro and Drobo B800I to same machine, be sure to start B800I first and let it be detected by Drobo dashboard before turning on DroboPro

Alternative to Drobo B800I is QNAPs TS-869 PRO 8 BAY NAS. For those who enjoy administrative tasks. QNAP TS-869 and units like these require manual selection of Raid type and raid configuration while Drobo manages your raid. QNAP is nice also and has a web interface that allows you to select type of raid you want and format. With additional loaded software for example an ftp server built in.