Drobo
Drobo was a manufacturer of a series of external storage devices for computers. They are made of different types including DAS, SAN, and NAS appliances made by Drobo, Inc. Current Drobo devices can house up to four, five, eight, or twelve 3.5" or 2.5" Serial ATA or Serial Attached SCSI hard disk drives and connect with a computer or network via USB 2.0, USB 3.0, FireWire 800, eSATA, Gigabit Ethernet or Thunderbolt. Drobo devices are primarily designed to allow installation and removal of hard disk drives without requiring manual data migration, and also for increasing storage capacity of the unit without downtime.
Type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Computer hardware Computer data storage |
Founded | San Jose, California, US (May 2005 ) |
Founder | Geoff Barrall Julian Terry Ken Rosen |
Headquarters | , US |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Mihir H. Shah, CEO Mike Edwards, CFO Rod Harrison, CTO |
Products | Drobo |
Website | drobo |
The company Drobo, Inc. changed its name from Data Robotics in 2011 since the familiarity with the Drobo name (which had only been the name of their product line until then) far exceeded the Data Robotics name.[1] Drobo, Inc. merged with Connected Data, Inc. in June 2013, with the new company taking the Connected Data name. In May 2015, Drobo was acquired by an investment group composed of seasoned tech executives and changed the company name to Drobo, Inc.[2] The company's acquisition by StorCentric was announced in August, 2018.[3] Drobo products have been Out of Stock since the beginning of 2020 with fans of Drobo wondering about the lack of communication addressing the shortage and the future of the company. The store on drobo.com lists all Drobos as 'sold out' as of February 2021. Fixes for the Drobo 5D (directly attached) version to allow it to connect through Thunderbolt to a Mac running OSX 11 (Big Sur) is available at:
Products
Consumer models
Drobo (1st) | Drobo (2nd) | Drobo (3rd) | Drobo 5C | Drobo S | Drobo S (2nd) | Drobo 5D | Drobo 5Dt | Drobo 5D3 | Drobo 8D | Drobo FS | Drobo 5N | Drobo 5N2 | Drobo Mini | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Model Number | DR04DD10 | DR04DD14 | DDR3A21 | DDR4A21 | DRDR3A21 | DRDR4A21 | DRDR5A21 | DRDR5A21-T | DRDR6A21 | DRDR7A21 | DRDS2A21 | DRDS4A21 | DRDS5A21 | DR-Mini-1P11 |
Release Date | 5 June 2007 | 8 July 2008 | 28 May 2014 | 4 October 2016 | 23 November 2009 | 16 November 2010 | 2 November 2012 | 21 June 2016 | 27 June 2017 | 13 November 2018 | 6 April 2010 | 13 December 2012 | 21 March 2017 | 26 October 2012 |
Status | Discontinued | Discontinued | Discontinued | Available | Discontinued | Discontinued | Discontinued | Discontinued | Available | Available | Discontinued | Discontinued | Available | Discontinued |
Type | DAS | DAS | DAS | DAS | DAS | DAS | DAS | DAS | DAS | DAS | NAS | NAS | NAS | DAS |
Drive Bays | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5+1* | 5+1** | 5+1* | 8+1*** | 5 | 5+1* | 5+1* | 4+1* |
Redundancy | Single drive | Single drive | Single or dual drive | Single or dual drive | Single or dual drive | Single or dual drive | Single or dual drive | Single or dual drive | Single or dual drive | Single or dual drive | Single or dual drive | Single or dual drive | Single or dual drive | Single or dual drive |
Hosts | Single | Single | Single | Single | Single | Single | Single | Single | Single | Single | Up to 10 users | Single | ||
Data-Aware Tiering | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
USB | 2.0 | 2.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 (Type C) | 2.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 (Type C) | No | No | No | No | 3.0 |
FireWire 800 | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Gigabit Ethernet | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | 1x (AFP and CIFS/SMB) | 1x (AFP and CIFS/SMB) | 2x (independent, bonded, or failover links) | No |
eSATA | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Thunderbolt | No | No | No | No | No | No | 1.0 | 2.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 | No | No | No | 1.0 |
Max Storage | 16TB | 64TB | 64TB | 16TB | 64TB | 64TB | 64TB | 128TB | 16TB | 64TB | 64TB | 64TB | ||
Max Volume Size | 16TB | 64TB | 64TB | 16TB | 64TB | 64TB | 64TB | 256TB | 16TB | 64TB | 64TB | 64TB | ||
Largest size drive | 4TB | 12TB | 14TB | 4TB | 14TB | 14TB | 14TB | 14TB | 4TB | 14TB | 14TB | 12TB |
Business models
DroboPro | DroboPro FS | B800fs | B810n | DroboElite | B800i | B810i | B1200i | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Model Number | DRPR1A21 | DRDS3A21 | DR-B800FS-4A21 | DR-B810N-5A21 | DREL1A21 | DR-B800I-2A21 | DR-B810I-3A21 | DRB1200I1A21 |
Release Date | 7 April 2009 | 5 October 2010 | 8 February 2011 | 25 October 2015 | 23 November 2009 | 8 February 2011 | 23 February 2016 | 8 February 2011 |
End of Support[6] | 14 December 2014 | 30 May 2012 | 19 September 2016 | N/A | 30 May 2012 | 19 September 2016 | N/A | 7 August 2019 |
Status | Discontinued | Discontinued | Discontinued | Available | Discontinued | Discontinued | Available | Discontinued |
Type | DAS | NAS | NAS | NAS | SAN | SAN | SAN | SAN |
Drive Bays | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 12 |
Redundancy | Single or dual drive | Single or dual drive | Single or dual drive | Single or dual drive | Single or dual drive | Single or dual drive | Single or dual drive | Single or dual drive |
Hosts | Single | Up to 25 users | Up to 100 users | Up to 100 users | Up to 16 | Up to 8 | Up to 24 | |
Data-Aware Tiering | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
USB | 2.0 | No | No | No | 2.0, Admin only | 2.0, Admin only | No | No |
FireWire 800 | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Gigabit Ethernet | 1x (iSCSI) | 2x (AFP and CIFS/SMB) | 2x (AFP and CIFS/SMB) | 2x (AFP and CIFS/SMB) | 2x (iSCSI) | 2x (iSCSI) | 2x (iSCSI) and 1x (Management) | 3x (iSCSI) and 1x (Management) |
Max Storage | 32TB | 32TB | 32TB | 64TB | 32TB | 32TB | 64TB | 128TB |
Max Volume Size | 16TB | 16TB | 16TB | 64TB | 16TB | 16TB | 64TB | 64TB |
Largest Size Drive | 4TB | 4TB | 4TB | 14TB | 4TB | 4TB | 14TB | 8TB (SATA) 6TB (SAS) |
References
- Owens, Jeremy (2011-07-21). "Data Robotics officially changes name, moves to San Jose". MercuryNews.com. Retrieved 2015-09-10.
- "Drobo Acquired by Investment Group Comprised of Seasoned Tech Executives". drobo.com (Press release). Santa Clara, California: Drobo. May 20, 2015. Retrieved July 11, 2018.
- "StorCentric to Acquire Drobo and Nexsan". storcentric.com (Press release). 2018-08-21. Retrieved 2019-05-18.
- "Drobo Mini". drobo.com. Retrieved 2015-09-10.
- Bolander, Jane (2016-06-21). "Drobo Announces the Drobo 5D Turbo, the Only 5 Bay DAS With Thunderboltâ„¢ 2 and USB 3.0 for Power Users". drobo.com (Press release). Retrieved 2016-11-27.
- "End of Life Announcement". Drobo. Drobo. Retrieved 17 December 2019.