I had a similar path, though to be honest I haven't had any real problems with my Drobo. It did exhibit horrendous IO rates, but I never lost any data. I just decided that I didn't like having valued data locked up in a proprietary format, with little recourse if the box dies or the software glitches. Bonus, I now have dual disk redundancy on 6 drives for quite a bit less than a less functional, 5 bay Drobo.