OK, yes, you guessed it – you already know, don’t you? You found the breadcrumbs, you saw it in Drobo Dashboard, and you connected the dots. Yup, you’re right.
We have another fast new Drobo: Drobo 5N (next-generation Drobo FS) coming soon to a home or small business network near you.
Yes, it leverages all of the cool new architecture and capabilities under the hood in the new Drobo 5D and Mini, including SSD support, with an Ethernet port to connect to your network rather than Thunderbolt and USB. That’s all I’m saying right now.
And exactly when is it coming? Well, I made this mistake once (recently, thank you very much), so I’m not going too far out on a limb. But luckily I don’t have to go very far out. It’s very close and with a lot more certainty, because the Drobo 5N is a close sibling to what we already have. I certainly wouldn’t buy another networked storage device in the next few weeks if I were you.
Click here to tell us that you want to receive information as it becomes available.
More to come soon, but my guess is you’ll figure it out pretty quickly. And I’ll get back to you after the holidays.
Thanks,
Tom
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.
#
http://blog.drobo.com
Interested
I’ve been looking forward to this one for a long time. I’m currently using a first generation drobo along with a DroboShare. Will there be any type of promotional trade-up program?
Hi Steve, no, not at present. Best, Victoria, admin
One of our Art Directors wanted me to create a 12 TB partition on our main network Drobo for him to archive his files. I think getting a Drobo 5N for him is a better solution. I will tell him to wait a few weeks.
Drobo 5N sounds very interesting, and the performance stats on the linked page for 5D and Mini are extremely impressive. However, surely Gigabit Ethernet won’t let you get anywhere near those speeds on a networked box. If you provide two networks ports which can be bonded – with a suitable switch that could double the throughput (in ideal conditions), but that still delivers a maximum around 200 Mbps – which even the Mini can beat. Given Gig E’s speed limit, I wonder what advantages your SSD option brings to a networked product? Perhaps improved response for many clients making multiple small transactions. Anyway, great developments, I look forward to seeing what you come up with!
So no Thunderbolt AND Ethernet on the 5N?
HI Steve, Gigabit Ethernet on the 5N – will perform at wire speed. Best, Victoria, admin
I also am still on a first-gen Drobo (which, with great credit to your development team, has grown to four 2TB drives over the years with nary a whimper), looking forward to the Thunderbolt interface and have been following your announcements. And greatly enjoy your remark “…I made this mistake once…” Anyone in R&D can read between those lines! Thanks for waiting to get it right – I am looking forward to one fine machine.
Best,
Jeff
Thunderbolt is still faster then Ethernet though..?
Hi… I think I may be missing some info. What would be different on the 5N vs. the Drobo FS that I own? I have the Drobo FS connected to my Ethernet network…
Hi Raul, Drobo 5N is the follow-on product to the Drobo FS. In addition to support for an mSATA drive in the Drobo Accelerator Port on the bottom of he unit, as you can imagine, it will benefit from firmware enhancements as Tom stated, “… it leverages all of the cool new architecture and capabilities under the hood in the new Drobo 5D and Mini, including SSD support” Best, Victoria, admin
Will there be an upgrade option from FS to 5N ?
Can I migrate my disk pack over?
Duncan, yes, you will be able to migrate your disk pack from Drobo FS to Drobo 5N. Best, Victoria, admin
I would like The Drobo Pro FS data copy from/to an offsite unit to be a feature of 5N, and I would like it to be bacward compatible with Drobo FS so we can buy drobo N for all of our family members and back up info across the country to avoid a natural disaster problem.
Noted and passed along to Drobo Product Management. BTW, you can migrate a disk pack from the Drobo FS to Drobo 5N, I’m checking to see if it’s a one-way trip or if the use case you’ve described is supported. Best, Victoria, admin
This sounds interesting. Two quesitons:
A.) Will the price be like the Drobo 5D or significantly less? (I presume the Thunderbolt connection is expensive)
B.) How much will the mSATA SSD give as speed increase over Gigabit Ethernet for random and sequential reads/writes?
Hope to see this product soon…
Best regards
Will the new 5n have the ability for 5 discs or 8? I had presumed 5 but if one is able to migrate their disc array from drobo fs as stated above it leads me to believe it will be 8.
Hi Jonathan, it has 5 bays and looks much like the 5D with the exception of the connection at the back. I’ll double-check on the migration options. Best, Victoria, admin
Any chance of a Mini FS? That would solve almost everything!
Hi, hmmm, I’ll have to see if PM thought of that! Best, Victoria, admin
I am so happy the NAS market was not abandoned by Drobo.
I love my FS and look forward to the 5N.
I have a Drobo 2d Gen. and look forward to the release of the 5N because one of my Mini servers lacks a Thunderbolt port. Until I found this blog I had -assumed- that the architecture of the 2nd gen. and the FS were the same and moving the disk pack from old to new would be supported. Now I think I should ask the question. Will I be able to migrate a disk pack from the 2nd Gen. to the 5N?
Hi David, can you please check it out on the Migrations page @ http://www.drobo.com/products/migrations.php. Best, Victoria, admin
So, I must admit to being a little confused by that table. The description says that most upgrades are possible, but moving across the graph, the check marks only correspond where the individual product matches in both columns. The exception seems to be the Drobo 2 – which I take to mean 2nd Gen. That one has check marks across to the 5D includes an ominous exception about firmware, which probably includes mine and anyone else who bought one when they first came out and then sought to keep their equipment reliable with the firmware updates that were recommended. But then a note from above seems to trump that asterisk for the product that is currently sold (the 5D), but of course doesn’t address the 5N which is still just a rumor.
So, I ask again, if I have a gen 2 (which was updated as newer firmware came out), will I be able to transfer the disk pack directly?
Hi David, Just checked with PM and here’s the scoop: the architecture of the DAS products (Drobo, Drobo S, DroboPro, Drobo 5D) is different from the networked models (Drobo FS, Drobo 5N) so you can’t move a disk pack from a DAS model to a networked model. Since you mentioned a Drobo 5N in an earlier comment, I was wondering if you’re looking to move a disk pack from a gen 2 Drobo to a Drobo 5D or a Drobo 5N? Best, Victoria, admin
Thanks for the reply. I certainly intend to purchase a 5N when they are released. Your information tells me I have to employ a different strategy to get my data in there though :-/
Yes, that seems wise. Victoria
Will it come with any new apps, or is it basic like the FS?
Will the apps I have on the FS work on a 5N?
Definitely looking forward to the 5N, I had planned on purchasing the 5D once it came out but it took a while and my needs changed. The 5N with improvements is definitely what I’ll be purchasing, so I’m hoping for a quick release
Hi, I’m glad it worked out (sorry that the 5D took so long …). Best, Victoria
I was in the same boat as Simon…waiting for the 5D, even had it in my cart several times to pre-order, but never pulled the trigger. Network attached storage will work so much better for my setup. So glad I waited!!!
10GigE card plz thx
Dear Drobo,
Will the new model 5N have Thunderbolt port also or will it be network only? For my needs it would be ideal to have a fast NAS directly attached with my main PC via thunderbolt, but which directly communicates with the rest of the network separately and not through my main PC. I believe that to be a rather common situation so I look forward to your reply.
Best regards.
Hello, the networked Drobo 5N has one Gigabit Ethernet port – alas – not a Thunderbolt port. Best, Victoria, admin