james, youre essentially doing the same thing as i described. I use the drobo as my data storage device so it's one unit containing all my data and should I lose one drive I will not lose my data - assuming the drobo does not die . . . I use external drives to back up my drobo and no longer use dvd's at all. I even deliver images to clients on portable drives or upload them to servers. . . when i import images to the drobo i always make a second copy to my onboard internal drive (drive d) lets call it. I do my editing and culling then back that folder that's on the drobo up to an external drive (about once a week) along with my lightroom catalog. Once i've done that i clear out the copy i made to the on board HD (2 TB partitioned into 4 sectors). The drobo allows me to have easy and quick access to all my files at once so i'm not using a bunch of usb externals - which slows things down. . .