It’s time for the new Drobos that you proactively and explicitly helped us design. And it’s time for all the Drobo goodness AND much higher performance.
- It’s time for hard drive capacity AND SSD performance in a single Drobo
- It’s time for Thunderbolt AND USB 3.0 (yes, with the cables included)
- It’s time for more enhanced data protection features AND extended warranty
- It’s time for a “Drobo To Go”
And it’s time for pre-orders! We’re completely overwhelmed with the response we’ve gotten on the new Drobo 5D and Drobo Mini (our highest website traffic and signups ever) – so, make sure to get your pre-order in and secure your place in line.
We have fantastic partners in the list below who are taking pre-orders on the new Drobo 5D and Drobo Mini starting today. You can place your pre-order(s) with any of them or on our own DroboStore:
The following partners will be ready to take pre-orders soon (we’ll let you know when): CDW and Tiger Direct.
Products will be shipping by the end of September. Note that your credit card won’t be charged or your purchase invoiced until the ship date.
As always, we encourage your thoughts, questions or comments. E-mail me at tom@drobo.com, call me at 408-276-8621, comment on this blog, tweet @drobo, or send a self-addressed, stamped envelope (really?!) to us here at Drobo.
Tom Buiocchi
Tom Buiocchi is CEO of Drobo. He joined Drobo after serving as an Executive in Residence at Mohr Davidow Ventures. Prior to Mohr Davidow, Buiocchi held executive-level roles at Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. where he was instrumental in sales and marketing strategies that resulted in significant market share gains and revenue growth from 2003 to 2008. Prior to Brocade, Tom spent more than 20 years in a range of marketing and strategy management positions for leading technology companies, including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Apex Systems, and Rhapsody.
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http://blog.drobo.com
Hi Tom. Good news! My pre-order is in. What are you planning to place as the standard warranty on the 5D?
Hi Steve, responding for Tom – the hardware warranty on the Drobo Mini and 5D in new – 2 years standard and you can extend 1 year and get enhanced support with DroboCare. It’s simpler than on current products and you can find details @ http://www.drobo.com/support/drobocare.php. Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
The Drobo 5d sounds very tempting for editing in FCPX. When will performance figures be published? Also will you be providing some kind of recovery software in case a drobo fails (I have read lots of places on web that people who have had failed drobos cannot use standard recovery software since drobos are proprietary) – this is my biggest concern? I love the ideas of these products and the price is good!
Hi Alex, I’m finding out when performance figures will be published – also following up on your other questions. Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
OK, some insight into your second comment about recovery software. (from Solutions Architect) While Drobo technology is unique, common file system and drive utility applications can still be used in many cases for problems if the volumes are accessible. Drobo volumes appear to computers as typical disks, not proprietary. In cases where too many hard drives have failed, there are 3rd party recovery companies that can recover data from drives associated with a Drobo disk pack. DriveSavers and The Data Rescue Center are 2 options. More information @ http://support.drobo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/538. Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
End of September??? Oh no…. people….. why do products always take so long to launch. Pretty sad. I do hope you will have a quiet noise level…. thanks. And looking forward for good resellers in germany. But until september…. so sad, will probably have to go for a synology nas instead
I don’t want this to sound like an excuse, but in our case, we are making sure that it works as describes, including performance. Yes, a quieter box for sure. Wait, wait for September. OK, that’s my pitch
Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
Pre-order only for US citizens?
Hi, you can pre-order from EMEA DroboStore @ http://www.drobostore.com/store/droboeu/en_GB/DisplayCategoryProductListPage/categoryID.54837600. Best regards, Victoria Thomas, asmin
WOW, Didn’t realize the ship date is September. So does that mean your funds are locked in until then bummer. Guess FS and 2nd Gen will keep working.
Hi, well, at the risk of sounding like a politician, it depends on what you mean by “locked up”. When you pre-order, your credit card doesn’t get charged until the product ships. Is that what you meant? Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
Where are the performance specs!
Sorry – didn’t see this yesterday. Performance numbers will be available closer to product ship at the end of September. Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
The 5D FAQ says to register on “http://www.drobo.com/solutions/more/thunderbolt.php” to be notified for updates, but there is no place to register. Please keep me updated & fix the site!
Hi Allen, sorry, you got caught as we were transitioning the website from “register to get info” to “publishing info”. Tom’s recent blog gives you the most current info about pre-ordering. Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
For the Drobo Mini, its mobility is restricted by the requirement of an external power source being required. Is there any plan to have battery power for this, so I can dump data in the field?
Hi Patrick, Drobo Mini includes a battery that protects all data in memory, or cache, that is, data on its way to the drives. Yes, Drobo Mini actually has room for a big battery (barely)! When power spontaneously goes away, the battery keeps the Drobo alive long enough for the data to be written to non-volatile storage, ensuring your important information is safe. This battery recharges itself and is designed to last for the life of the product. No worry anymore about the battery coming on and running out before power is restored. The fact that the battery protects all data in memory, or cache, a new feature in these new products. These products will not only protect all data (metadata and user data) in memory, but after a power fail event, it will also write all of that data to non-volatile storage (an industrial-grade USB drive inside) and then turn off the battery. Internally, we are calling it “hibernate mode.”
How do you know this you ask? Well, it’s part of an internal FAQ – which we’ve been gradually rolling out on the website @ http://www.drobo.com/products/faq-drobo-mini-5d.php. We’ll add some more color on the website to the battery question now that you’ve asked. Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
I own a second gen Drobo and the fan noise is my biggest complaint. Had to dissect it to put in a quieter fan that pushes more air. I’m tempted to get a Drobo Mini, so I’d like to know how loud the fans are because it’s gonna sit on my desk. I’d also like to see the performance with SSDs over Thunderbolt.
Hi Frank, noise is reduced on the new Mini. Talked to the Product Manager and he says performance numbers for Thunderbolt products will come closer to ship. Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
I would like read a review about data transfer rates of drobo mini before place per-order. Is that possible? Thanks
Hi Angel, we’ll have performance numbers closer to the ship date at the end of September and will publish when they come out. Lots of requests for performance data! Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
I need to take a deep dive into what this little unit can do. We are a service provider and have a need for this in our cloud offering.
I need to know if this will take the place of the Drobo S for videographers and photographers?
I am hoping it will be faster and better than the Drobo S.
The Drobo 5D will be a perfect storage solution for videographers and photographers. It will be faster than the Drobo S! Best regards, Victoria Thomas, admin
What brand and model number of externals drives are you recommending for the Drobo 5D?
I need the fastest and most reliable drives. Please give me both the regular hard drives and the solid state brands and model numbers. Thank you
Hi Danny, can you please take a look at this page: http://www.drobo.com/products/choose-drive.php. If you have any follow-up questions let me know and I’ll steer you in the right direction. Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
I’ve been very excited about Drobo since the original (which I had) and I’m even more excited about the 5D (USB 3.0 & Thunderbolt on the same box is a show stopper for working professionals). You have great products. And I want to see Drobo to continue to succeed. That said, here is my unsolicited constructive criticism to the way the latest two products were announced.
It is frustrating to see a product get announced in June…with no price, no date, and no performance specs. Now, let’s look at Apple. Apple really, really understands how to announce a product and close the sale. They only announce products with a price, a release date (usually within 30 days), and performance specs together because they understand the consumer. The quickest, smoothest and happiest sale happens when you have all three because the consumer can’t make an informed decision without all of them (and any release date beyond 30 days causes frustration). And you can really gauge response when a product gets announced without all three together (look at the reaction to how Microsoft announced the Surface tablet).
And to be frank, if you’ve got a product in the pipeline and it’s either nearing or already in manufacturing, but you don’t have performance specs, I have to ask the difficult question: what are you doing? What if it doesn’t perform that well? While most consumers won’t articulate it this way, businesses are constantly sending non-verbal messages about their professionalism, their ability to have a vision and execute a plan, and these are at the very core of what’s important in human psychology.
Good luck, Drobo!
Hi David, we appreciate your taking the time to post your comment and I will make sure it gets in front of Tom B., our CEO. We are also admirers of Apple and strive to meet their high standards in our products! Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
OK Victoria, since you are planning to get Danny’s comment in front of Tom B. this is just a note to let you and Tom know that Danny is far from alone in his thinking on this.
Most disturbing to me is the lack of any performance data till September. As Danny noted, if the product is finished enough to manufacture, someone should know how well it performs. The fact that you won’t say (other than a vague marketing reference to “up to 5 times faster” .. BTW, faster than what??), gives those of us out here a great deal of concern.
Hi Paul, we’re talking to Erik in Product Management to get some more insight into performance tuning and testing. Hoping to post something early in the week. Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
This is not an insignificant investment for an individual. Over £700 ($1,100) in the UK. (not to mention the cost of the mSata plus the cost of drives.)
Speed is being touted as the flagship feature and the key reason why existing users would upgrade, yet there’s not even preliminary/prototype/sneak preview benchmarks to give us a rough idea.
I wholeheartedly agree with David above. The slow drip of information is frustrating and it worries me. Shouldn’t this thing we will be trusting our important data to be fully baked enough this close to release as to release at least some preliminary benchmarks?
The Apple routine of demonstrating a real working near- finished product, releasing pricing and availability etc all at once and a release date within 4-5 weeks would have filled me with more confidence and frustrated me less.
The only rough measure of performance we have is “We are expecting performance to be up to 5 times faster than previous generation Drobos” and that is little too carefully phrased for my liking!
and don’t get me wrong as being overly negative.
My frustration stems from wanting this thing to be the all-singing all-dancing storage second coming it has the potential to be.
There is a reason why I’ve held off buying any other Thunderbolt drive and that’s the little FW Drobo sitting under my desk.
It’s just strange that we are being encouraged to pre-order when you aren’t yet sharing all the facts that we need to make an informed decision. Particularly about the primary selling point for existing customers.
As much as I love Apple gadgets, there’s no way i’d pre-order the next iPhone without knowing all the facts.
Hi Mark, just posted a response to Paul – check in early next week and I’ll get a statement from the dev guys re: performance testing and tuning. Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
Hi ! Is it possible to have a pre-order for France ?
Thank You.
Hello Florent, for the time being you can pre-order from the Europe Drobo Store @ http://www.drobostore.com/store?Action=DisplayHomePage&Env=BASE&Locale=en_GB&SiteID=droboeu&Token=VlBRAVEDa2Nmf3RzdQQFe3NmCgZGcZKQIpoA. Best regards, Victoria Thomas, admin
Why is there no mention of what this device costs?
Hi Chuck, Check out the media release: http://www.drobo.com/news/press-releases/2012/press_release_2012_07_24.php
Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
Thanks Victoria, I will be looking forward to what Eric has to say. Meanwhile, like everyone else here, what I really want is a time machine to take me to Sept 30 and let me bring back my new 5D.
Maybe a dumb question, but is the “Seagate Momentus XT 750 GB 7200RPM Hybrid drive” compatible for the Drobo 5D?
Also, am I to understand that with as little as 2 drives (& no SSD) that my data will survive a single drive failure?
The SSD drive will just improve performance, correct?
I’m intending to get at least 2 x 3TB drives and an SSD, but trying to figure out the configuration you’d recommend. Thank you
Hi Garren, checking on that model of Seagate for you. Yes, with 2 hard disk drives, you data will survive a single drive failure. I’ll try and get some more info on drive configurations posted and I’ll send you a link when it’s there. Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
I’d love to know more about brand drive options SSD vs HDD offered by Drobo or it’s vendors. That’s brand offerings and pricing if one does 2 SSDs and 3 HDDs vs 1 SSD and 4HDDs or 5HDDs? I presume the reason to leave 3 ports open for expansion would be larger or cheaper or better quality drive availability later? Any other reason? Can you tell me more about the boost thing above and beyond the drive ports? THanks
Paul
Hi, still waiting for a detailed supported drives list from development. The best guidance in on the choosing drives web page: http://www.drobo.com/products/choose-drive.php (hmmm, it looks as if you may have already consulted that page). Yes, the reason for leaving 3 ports open is for capacity expansion. No other reason. You might find this blog post from Erik helpful in understanding the SSD acceleration on the new models: http://blog.drobo.com/?p=1072. Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
I pre-ordered! But thought it was shipping in August, was planning on migrating files during summer break. Guess not anymore. Can’t wait, I’ve been waiting for this for awhile.
Now my company is using Drobo.It is solid, Synology NAS too, just kind of depends what you’re after. If it were me though, I’d do a multi-drive NAS with another directly attached HDD over USB. I use a 2-bay Synology for time machine backups and storing media files, with a WD external hard drive that runs backups of the Synology.
Will a gigabit edition like the FS be following? Something with more speed & reliability like the 5D?
So, I can’t comment on product roadmap, but it would definitely be great to have a Thunderbolt-powered 5-bay file sharing Drobo …. Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
I’ve been supplying my clients with the Drobo FS for editing Final Cut. Started out with the USB 3 but had to switch to the ESATA because of conflicts on the USB3 – Running better. On my own system with ESATA it’s still having trouble playing 1080i ProRes HQ data without bogging down when playing back a long segment. Do you see the 5D solving this this kind of bottleneck? Any provision being made for an upgrade path on the chassis for us dedicated users?
Hi,
What ever happened to Eric in Project Management?
Funny you should ask. Right at this very minute he’s talking on Thomas Hawk’s Photo Talk Plus, Episode 33. And since he’s just said publicly in response to a question about performance numbers, “We’re still tuning the new products and still have a lot of tuning left to do.” That being said, I’ll ping him again! Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
Hi,
Could I please ask why the drobo 5D costs 899 euro on the EU drobostore, which is equivalent to 1110 USD, and it only costs 849 USD on the US drobostore??
And when will we get a specific date about when the drobo 5D will be officially released? Adorama says its expected on September 30th. Is that confirmed and does that mean that Data Robotics will ship the items to the online stores (the ones which you gave links to) on the 30th, or that the online stores will ship the items to the customers who pre-ordered on the 30th?
Hi Simon, Our EMEA pricing on Drobo Store includes local value added tax (eg 20% in UK alone). Note that channel partners will be posting and quoting in the next few weeks – they have same price as US. Checking on your other question about actual availability. Best, Victoria Thomas, admin P.S. Enjoying the Olympics, if you’re in the UK, congratulations on a great event!
And you can actually only put 9.5mm drives into the drobo mini? None 12.5 oder 15mm?
Right – here are specs from the website: Form Factor – … The Drobo Mini accepts 2.5″ drives that are between 7 mm and 9.5 mm in height. The Mini is pretty small! Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
Thanks for the quick reply!!
I just have one more question:
On your website, on the Drobo 5D page, it says the Drobo 5D will have a battery built-in that will protect all the data on the hard drives in case there is a power outage during a file transfer. My question is does the Drobo S USB 3.0 also have a built-in battery, for the same purpose, and if so then why is it not mentioned on the Drobo S page on your website?
I’m asking because I read somewhere that all Drobos have built-in batteries for this purpose.
You should have made it a tiny bit higher and allow 15mm drives. People would be able to use 2TB drives, so it would hold up to 8TB or 6TB secure. Now you are stuck with 3TB.
And why isn’t it possible to run the Mini without extra power? User USB it’s probably not possible, and I don’t know too much about the thunderbolt port yet, but if it provides as much power as the Firewire Port did … then its absolutely no problem. I’m daisy chaining 2 G-Raid Mini (4 drives) and a IOMEGA Firewire drive, so 5 2.5″ drives, only with the power from FireWire. I guess it’s not that portable if you always need to plug it in. When you are out in the field as a film maker or photographer, you usually can’t plug anything in for extra power …
I like the Mini, but there are some super important things to me that are missing
Me again … just got my original Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter … seems as Thunderbolt is a pretty crapy port in terms of power running through -.- … I’m not even able to run my G-Raid Mini with the adapter. So I understand why you didn’t use the power of the port. Sorry
Which idiot developed Thunderbolt -.-
Hi, comments passed along to the Product Manager. If he has any further comments, I’ll post them. Best, Victoria
I did.
Thunderbolt allows up to 10 W of power to be passed along the data cable. Firewire allowed 45 W . 10 W is plenty for single hard drives, but, as you noticed, not enough for multiple drives.
This 5d looks great. Won’t preorder until I see some performance numbers though. I am with a few of the others above and am surprised the preorder went up before the specs were published. GREATLY looking forward to those numbers.
That aside. Will the size of the MSATA drive in the bottom matter? Will a 60GB drive MSATA add as much benefit as a 256 GB MSATA drive?
Thanks so much.
Hi Chris, you’re correct, the size of the mSATA drive in the Drobo Accelerator Bay on the bottom of the 5D doesn’t really matter – but wait until we publish more specific specs for that drive before you purchase. Best regards, Victoria Thomas, admin
Where in Europe can I preorder a Drobo 5D? …every store I try directs me back to US stores?
I am looking forward to seeing how the drobo5d performs. I have a Drobo pro and a drobo FS and both are SLOW SLOW SLOW. But they work and so far i havent lost any data. My biggest issue with buying another Drobo product is your tech support. The few times i have called, they have not only been NOT helpful, they have been boarderline rude.
Donald, thanks for letting us know about your support experience and that you don’t have a specific open issue at present. New products will definitely be faster. Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
I’m on board for the preorder from what I can tell. A few things…
1) Is the Drobo 5D a bootable device? I’m assuming the answer is a big yes, however I’m planning on installing OS X Mountain Lion on to it as the primary boot drive, all 12TB of it. Any issues running OS X 10.8 on it as a primary drive? (I’m an iMac user who needs more internal real estate.)
2) Would I be able to partition it? Again, I’m assuming the answer here is yes…
3) Does the 5D natively support Time Machine backups to it?
Thanks!
Hi, getting some answers … stay tuned. Victoria, admin
Thanks a ton Victoria! Awaiting your/their response.
OK, here is some info:
1) Drobo 5D and Mini will not support booting off of Thunderbolt in Mac OS X initially. This is functionality we are investigating and evaluating. Since Drobo 5D and Mini have USB 3.0 ports, we are testing booting from those. Stay tuned.
2) Drobo Dashboard does not have a volume partitioning feature. While we primarily recommend using one large volume with a Drobo, you can partition it using Disk Utility. Once the Drobo is partitioned, it is not recommended to re-adjust the sizes of the partitions.
3) Time Machine will work with these Drobos. See this Knowledge Base article:
http://support.drobo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/610/kw/time%20machine
Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
Hi guys,
I saw mention of an EMEA preorder, can we get access to preorder down in Asia, particularly Australia?
If not, do you have a list of resellers that will be offering the Drobi 5D in the US post September as I will be traveling over conferences in Oct & Nov.
Cheers,
Gavin.
Hi Gavin, you should be able to order in Australia from current Drobo resellers listed on http://www.drobo.com/where-to-buy/index.php. Best, Victoria
This delay until the end of September is problematic for me. Detail some reasons why the Drobo 5 will be better than the Pegasus available now? Thx.
Victoria,
Based on the Solutions Architect response, I’d assume the following but I’d like to double check. I would like to use my Drobo 5D as a permanent mass storage device upwards of 11TB. I’m hoping that my online cloud backup (www.CrashPlan.com) will not have any issues reading the raw data from the Drobo and subsequently uploading it. Could you verify this?
Thanks again!
Jesse
Checking …. Victoria
Confirmation from Solution Architects that there should not be any issues with online cloud data backup from the Drobo 5D – we’re just testing right now. Best, Victoria
Hi Guys,
Will the new Drobo’s be available in Hong Kong?
Thanks
Hi Shaun, yes, for details of availability, can you please send a message to Philippe Cazaubon, pcazaubon@drobo.com. Best, Victoria, admin
Hi, this might be a rather stupid question, but here goes. What’s the deal with mSATA SSD? Isn’t it a lot slower than standard SSD? Does it do something that standard SSD doesn’t, or is it just the fact of fitting it into the package? If it really is that much slower, wouldn’t you rather sacrifice a slight size variance to allow for the better drives?
I currently own a 4 bay gen 2 Drobo, and am looking forward to the upgrade, just wondering about the specs of it all.
Thanks
Hi Jason, we’re working on additions to the choose drives page on drobo.com (http://www.drobo.com/products/choose-drive.php) and here is some of the content that will be added re: drive configs for models that support SSDs.
SSDs only: 2 SSDs required, 3 open drive bays for expansion, Drobo Accelerator Bay open for performance boost
Advantage = Highest performance
Disadvantage = Most expensive, lowest capacity
HDDs with mSATA in Drobo Accelerator Bay: 2 HDDs required, 3 open drive bays for expansion, mSATA SSD in Drobo Accelerator Bay
Advantage = Highest capacity, best price per TB of storage, SSD accelerated
Disadvantage = Very fast, but not as fast as using all SSDs
Does this help answer your question? Best, Victoria, admin
Hi – this sounds great. If I but a 5D, can I power down my existing Drobo S, pop the drives into the 5D and then be back in business? Or will I have to start from scratch?
YES WE CAN! Sorry, I got carried away because it’s election season. But I am happy to tell you that you will be able to migrate the drive pack from your Drobo S to the Drobo 5D. You can check out details @ http://www.drobo.com/products/migrations.php. Best, Victoria
I currently have a Netgear NAS setup but am looking to replace it with a Drobo5D… is there any way to transfer my disks from the Netgear unit to the Drobo5D without wiping my data or am I going to have to buy all new disks to stick in the Drobo and transfer over?
Hi, well, it’s somewhere in between. You can move your disks from the Netgear unit to the Drobo 5D (check out this page on drobo.com for more about migrating disk packs: http://www.drobo.com/products/choose-drive.php. But doing this will wipe your data. Best, Victoria
Hey Victoria,
we are in the last week of September – when are you updating the Pages in regards to Specifications, everybody is waiting for (?!) like Performance & Noise Levels?
I am sharing an 3Bedroom Apartment
and the Drobo, sits in my Room, which also is my Bed Room.
My current 2nd Gen Drobo is filled with 4x 2TB 7200RPM Drives hosting my extensive iTunes Library – so I am keen to find out if the Drobo 5D will be quieter.
My MacMini runs 24/7, that connects to the Drobo, so that Season Passes can download while I am at work and I can access Files on the Go via Back to my Mac, while my Flatmates connect to my Music Library via SONOS…
Hi Max, I’ll have news in a day or so. The Drobo 5D will be quieter, so you should be able to sleep well (or at least better than me, I have two big dogs, one of whom sleeps across the bed!). Best, Victoria
When are you shipping. I see Shipping sometime in September, but it’s the 29th today, and I don’t see any newer details. Any updates ?
Hi Scott, check out Tom B’s blog post from Friday. Best, Victoria, admin
I wait for two months, I preorder the drobo 5d, and now I have to wait till November to get it? What kind of product launch is this? Did you only manufacturer a dozen? Completely dissatisfied with this experience.
Why did you remove the FireWire 800?
http://www.engadget.com/photos/drobo-mini-prototypes-hands-on/#5107547
Hi, The Drobo S and Drobo Mini include modern, high-speed connectivity for performance and compatibility. Thunderbolt is the fastest interface available to professionals and USB 3 can be connected to any computer (through a USB 3 or 2 port). Drobo is one of the only Thunderbolt-capable storage solutions that also gives you another method of connectivity. With the focus on these two interfaces, legacy connectivity of FireWire and eSATA had to be removed. Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
So when exactly is this going to be released?
September has come and gone and we’ve nearly finished up with October.
Glad to say I didn’t pre-order now…
Can’t seem to find any info on if the Drobo 5D can support 2 solid state drives in each of its 3.5″ bays? Essentially allowing for 10 solid state drives plus the mSATA drive. Also, specs and a ship date would be nice…
Hi Kyle, you’ll find info on choosing drives and drive config @ http://www.drobo.com/products/choose-drive.php. Specs are on the product page @ http://www.drobo.com/products/professionals/drobo-5d/index.php. Click the Specifications tab under the grey box. Ship date coming really soon …. Best, Victoria Thomas, admin
what is soon…
i heard these sentence often sice the last 6 weeks…
and until now nothing happens even the drobo mini is not available…
as far as is a lot of words but no facts…
Kyle,
It sounds like you’d like to have 2 x SSDs per 1 x 3.5in Drive bay…maybe by using a 3.5in adapter? I’d also be curious to see if this were an option since the specs on the page doesn’t really address that specific question.
I have to assume however that it probably won’t work. I’m new to the Drobo platform (that is, if my preordered Drobo 5D ever ships -_-) but I’d think that unless you’re introducing some third party adapter / port multiplier, you wouldn’t have enough data/power ports to link up to beyond 5. I expect the box only has 5 of each.
That’s what I would assume also… I was hoping the admin would address the questions or ask the engineers. I’m guessing if the raid card/software inside the drobo could handle 10 drives plus the mSATA it wouldn’t be a problem. Power shouldn’t be an issue since solid state takes way less than a spinning disk. Just an idea… Drobo could sell the kits and make even more money.
Then again. Windows 8 “storage spaces” seems to do what the drobo does without certain limitations… I do like the whole setup of the drobo though. Decisions… decisions…
The DroboFS was discontinued?
Yes it is discontinued.
Any official word on the shipping time? I pre-ordered mine from Amazon (thought I’d take advantage of fast shipping). But I just received an email yesterday, that instead of the guaranteed shipping time of Nov 5-7 (which was the revised one from end of Sept), it now has a new shipping time of “before Dec 24″. Really??? And no official word from you guys? I pre-ordered the day you guys announced this product because I’m excited by it but now might go with another solution.
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