I’m not quite sure what to call this product….. Transporter? File Transporter? Drobo Transporter? Their website is www.filetransporter.com, as is their twitter account, but they refer to themselves as Transporter, though they are now owned by Drobo. B&H does list the item as Drobo Transporter though. Confusing.
The Transporter is a device for creating your own cloud storage so that you can be free from the monthly payments of services like Dropbox and Google Drive. I’ve watched the development of the Transporter with great interest. The company that makes it, Connected Data, was founded by Geoff Barrall who used to be CEO at Drobo. Shortly after they launched their first product, Drobo purchased Connected Data though so whilst they sort of seem to operate as separate companies at the moment, in name at least, technically these are Drobo products and I have been dealing with Drobo support on my issue.
I recently purchased the Transporter Sync, which is the version you plug into a USB drive but you can also get a variety of other options that come with a 2.5″ SATA drive built in. The theory is that you plug it into your router, stick it into your closet and forget about it. It acts exactly like Dropbox, giving you the ability to drag and drop files into a folder on your computer and have them sync seamlessly across all your devices. Including mobile devices. The beauty of it is that you could plug a 4TB USB drive into it and you’ll have no monthly fees at all, just $99 to buy the Transporter Sync in the first place, and of course the cost of the drive.
I’ve had one of these on my “to buy” list for quite some time and now I find myself working more remotely I decided to jump right in and re-purpose a USB drive that I wasn’t using. Setup was a breeze, it really was, I just can’t fault it. In less than 5 minutes I had it all up and running and I was happily pushing files up to my new personal cloud. Stoked! Now you guys know by now that I tell it like it is…… so here comes the downer. The very first time I went to do some work from a cafe, I tried to access my files and the Transporter tool told me my Transporter was offline. Frustratedly I drove home and couldn’t see any problem with it at all. The drive was running, the network lights indicated an internet connection on both the router and the Transporter and the other Transporter light indicated everything was A-OK. Restarting the Transporter didn’t work and in the end it was an unknown combination of pulling power, USB and network cables that finally got the “offline” status to change to “unsupported USB drive”. At least though it seemed to be working again despite that particular error message.
Then it occurred to me…… why the heck should I be going through this?? This was supposed to make things easier for me! The whole point of it was to give me offsite access to my files, what if I hadn’t been within easy driving distance? Yes it’s great to lose the monthly fees of cloud storage, but what you forget then is that services like Dropbox and Google Drive are redundant. They may go down for a few minutes here and there but they aren’t going to crap out on you completely like this did because they have huge teams of engineers to take care of problems should something occur. With Transporter you are at the mercy of the technology and for me, even though I was SUPER excited about putting this device into my workflow, I quickly concluded that a regular cloud service is going to be a far better option. At the same time, Google announced a HUGE price drop on their Google Drive storage. You can now get 100GB for only $1.99/month or 1TB for $9.99 ( it used to be $49.99).
So I’m returning the Transporter and I’ve signed up to Google Drive for 1.99/month because it just works.
I’m still interested to see where Transporter goes in the future. I think it’s pretty much a given that since Drobo purchased the company, the technology will simply be built into Drobos and for me that is immensely exciting. Yep I’ve had my fair few issues with Drobos in the past but I have to tell you that since I switched to the Thunderbolt enabled Drobo 5Ds they have been just phenomenal. I swear it’s like a whole new product and I’d recommend them to anyone in a heartbeat. I’m running two of them in my office (which I torture tested before I switched to them) and they have been amazing. The thought of having Transporter abilities in those so that I can log in remotely to retrieve an archived photo file is exciting. For must-have documents though, for now Google Drive will be my go-to option.
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Hi Dan,
Thanks for writing this article. My experience was similar and I have to tell you how disappointed I was to have gone through the same thing. At first It seemed like a bold claim, and turns out it was too good to be true.
My hopes for the future remain optimistic though.
Hey thanks for taking the time to contribute. Sorry to hear you had troubles as well. Perhaps it will take them a few iterations to get the kinks worked out? Not sure….
Mine just arrived today. I’m having trouble with it and while googling for a solution, I stumbled on this article. I too am having problems, but only mine are right off the bat. It wasn’t able to locate my Transporter and so I had to manually enter the serial and MAC address. Now that everything should be set up and working, it’s not recognizing my Transporter and in the drop down list it states it’s “Not Connected”.
I really want to like this product, but I’m starting to hear bad things. You think they would have waited to ship until they had the kinks worked out. Have fun w/ your purchase Drobo. Meanwhile, I think I’ll send $1.99 Google’s way.
I had some issues initially but it turned out to be a problem with the SATA drive inside my USB enclosure. Since I replaced the drive inside the enclosure it has been faultless for the last 3 months since.
The issue I had was intermittent and would usually allow me to set up the new drive, going through the usual 20 minute format process. I was then able to load a bunch of files onto the drive and it would appear to run fine for a few hours. It would then go offline for no apparent reason. I did some diagnostics on the USB drive and found some issues and after replacing the SATA drive it has run perfectly ever since. When I get some time I’ll connect the faulty drive up to a native SATA interface so I can hopefully run some low level diagnostics without the USB-SATA interface getting in the way.
So my advice is to seriously consider getting a non-sync model of Transporter but if you get a Transporter Sync and have issues then make sure it’s not your own USB drive at fault.
By the way Connected Data, who makes the transporter actually bought Drobo. They had left Drobo to found connected data and build the transporter. Drobo was left in the hands of the investors who were unable to manage the firm properly and so they sold the company to Connected Data.
Dan – Sorry to hear about your issues and I hope you decide to give Transporter another try. Many of the issues we see with Sync are related to users with old drives. Most newer drives work just great. For those that have Transporter, we continue to improve the feature set and have recently added a mobile camera auto-upload feature. It’s a great way to keep offloading photos and videos without paying monthly fees. Thumbnail support is in beta and should be released by the time most folks see this.
Best,
Jim @ Transporter
Hi Dan, I’m in the same position. I have about 100 GB of video clips that I use for teaching film and media classes, and I bought this because I am away from home a lot and I want to have access to any video clip that I want that day for class. As I’ve transferred the files from my local computer to the Transporter, it keeps going offline. The first time was because my Verizon FiOS router had disconnected the device. I tried to connect it to another port but as I did that I accidentally disconnected the power supply. Once everything was powered up, it worked fine, but I’m not sure why it was disconnected it. I haven’t been home since then so I can’t try that again.
I’ve never had an issue with my Transporter. It has worked like a charm from day one. I’ve been able to access my files from anywhere, whenever I want, from whatever device I choose.
The only issue with it is that I wish more developers would take advantage of the api’s and integrate transporter into their apps. I’d like it to be as common to see in apps as Dropbox, Google drive or one drive.
Absolutely horrible experiences with Transporter / Desktop Transporter
at my end since getting it just over a year ago (the version with a 1TB
drive installed). Not only does it regularly go offline for no reason
and for considerable period, necessitating the kind of sudden rushes
back to base that you speak of here, but TWICE now, not just once but
TWICE it has inexplicably failed to such an extent that over 250 GB
worth of files on it (thankfully most of them backed up elsewhere)
simply vanished. As in ka-pow, gone. The first time this happened the
support people took me through a long and somewhat laborious journey to
resetting the whole system but offered no advice about where the files
might have gotten to or why. And when it happened a SECOND time just
over a few weeks back, I was so frustrated I almost threw the unit in
the bin right away. Instead, when I cooled down, I put it in a cupboard
and only tonight tried it out again. Now it simply refuses to reconnect
at all. I am permanently OFFLINE it would seem. And, guess what, I’m
almost glad to be at this stage. Transporter is a good idea but, thus
far, that is all. The software is horrible, the built-in links to the
service’s own home page are either incorrect or just fail to work; and
when the company itself can’t seem to make up its mind what it’s called,
well that’s sign enough for me that the days of having a large USB
drive in the back pocket are not over yet.
I bought a Transporter about 6 months ago. It and the Desktop Transporter software have caused me no end of grief. Instead of backing up my data, the software has succeeded in deleting several albums of cherished photos. Not only that, but it continues to delete files from folders while I’m working on them! I was once on the phone to a client discussing a file that I had just saved to my PC and watched in horror as it simply vanished, right in front of me. I was in talks with support for months on this issue, but they never resolved it. All they could do was suggest I use some data recovery software. I’ve now given up on them. If you’re thinking of using one of these devices to backup precious data, think again.
I had bought one of these and plug a 32Gb usb flash disk. I though that setting will be straight forward. I had missed that the device is not WIFI. Ok I had connected directly to router and it formatted for a while the usb disk, while I had registered to their site giving my Email and created a folder. Figuring how to put some pictures inside still I had not figured how. My every work horse is a portable running Windows Vista Pro impossible to install their software. OK I install it on my android mobile phone, Ok fine but nothing happen. Checking the device it was displaying all kind of colors and blinking. Ok it is Christmas but an office it is special. I install it on a Windows 8.2 portable, installation done, but nothing happen even after rebooting the device which stay green for few minutes and turn blue, finally blink. I had give my email I though I ‘ll receive some report, but it is of no use. I had contact their support team, they ask me informations that they must have and that’s all. I had try a lot of devices in my life and I had design some my impression is that neither somebody had though of a way to diagnose/support it. Reading your experiences of unresolved installations confirm me in my though. But the problem this device attack is trivial: remote backup/retrieve of files, something that certain peoples are doing using FTP and smarter using a peer to peer software BIT Sync. I am a consultant I go from offices to office write some codes and fill spreadsheets. I want to backup/retrieve these files, less than 3Mb, before I leave customer offices in case of. I had design an utility that mail me an entire folder and subs of new/updated files to my 15Gb GMail account (syncapps.com). It is done presto at end It even send me a complete report that I can check and decide to erase these confidential files. I use it since 10 years on any device where I can run Gmail even mobile and retrieve any version of files typing keywords, this cost me nothing. Regurlarly I run GMail Backup to have a copy of them on a backup disk. This experience give me the envy to write my backup software based on FTP and later a peer to peer version, not relying to any third party…
Sorry to hear about all of the bad experiences. I purchased one of these almost a year ago and have not had any issues. I even purchased another one to store offsite so I will have redundancy if something happens to my office. I have moved all of my Dropbox files to it and no longer use DB. The security factor was the key for me. No one has access to my files except me and the the people I share folders with. The only “annoyance” is on smart phones the app takes a few seconds to connect to the transporter it states “transporter offline” for that few seconds but then connects with no issues.
I have had my transporter sync for over a year now. I have heard of connected data since 2013. I followed their product for a while so I decided to give it a try. Having used both one drive and google drive I knew how their product should work. The initial setup was a little cumbersome but I got it done and never looked back. I use a 1tb western digital portable hdd. Like others have said performance and reliability relies on your network and isp! With that said I have had great success with this product. I use solely the sync function rather than the storage option. Using my mobile device has giving me lots of open options and freedoms in accessing my data. And the software installed on my computers keeps my data within reach at all times. However when my internet goes down so does my transpoter. My solution was to add another location. So I added one more sync for redundancy. Now everything works great with no drop outs. Now I’m up to four locations for added redundancy. Each of them have the same 1tb wd hdd. It’s a great product and would recommend to anyone who wants a private cloud. I have and use Wd Mycloud with a single 2tb hdd. It’s works very well but if and when it fails I lose everything. Transporter is localized to my computer but syncs to all that have access. So if any of my drives fail a simple swap and its up and running again. And if you cannot connect to the internet you still have a local copy to work with until you can connect and sync. I hope those who have problems give it a try again and enjoys the great use of this product. I still use google drive and one drive but my main cloud is still my Transporter.
Interesting article.
I have been thinking about Transporter for a while, and was considering it as a way of circumventing services like Dropbox and Google Drive usually being blocked in the sectors I work in.
If you’re in an industry that doesn’t allow cloud services then yes, Transporter is probably one of the only options I guess. They seem to be really shifting their business model to cater for enterprise and those kinds of legal or medical services. I can’t even see the consumer product on their site anymore…
Services like Google Drive are NOT an option when security and privacy are required. None of these services will give you HIPAA or PCI Compliance certification. A private appliance like Transporter is necessary.