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I knew from other people that the Drobo was worthlessly slow, but thanks for the info about the other problems.

I'm a big fan of either building a linux-based server, or using a QNAP. QNAP is a bit pricey per disk and per GB, but it just works.

For large disk requirements, I use a linux server with Areca 12-port RAID as secondary storage, and external eSATA+expander trays for tertiary storage (probably could put 50-100 drives on this with no problems). Overkill for most home use, though.

It's 2010, and I'd use iSCSI, not SMB, unless I wanted direct-attach FW800.

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I'm very curious how well the online disk changes work with something like the QNAP NAS. Is it really as simple as changing out the disks one at a time and waiting for the RAID to rebuild?

Generally, if you set auto-rebuild, yes. It's RAID5 though, so you're only protected from single drive failures. I use RAID6 on Areca cards (or better) for "critical" data, or remote servers -- single drive failures all too often become double drive failures before the RAID finishes rebuilding.

The other issue is that write (and sometimes read) performance is hurt during rebuild. For timing-sensitive systems, people often turn off auto-rebuild or scale back rebuild percentage of writes, so their application's performance isn't so affected. Of course, if the second failure happens during the rebuild...