Thunderbolt 3 five-bay Drobo 5D3 RAID storage array with dual 4K support launches
Drobo has extended its line of storage peripherals with the five-bay Drobo 5D3, a Thunderbolt 3-equipped storage array capable of connecting a pair of 4K displays downstream of the enclosure.
The Drobo 5D3 can connect five 3.5-inch drives, and also has an "accelerator bay" to install a mSATA card for faster caching. Besides the pair of Thunderbolt 3 ports, it also has a USB 3.0 Type C port for peripheral or display connection.
Using one Thunderbolt 3 port, and the USB 3.0 type C port, a pair of 4K displays can be connected to the unit with video provided by the host computer. Drobo notes that the LG Ultrafine 5K display can be connected as well, but no other displays are supported in that configuration.
The 5D3 provides 15W of charging power to a connected computer. A built-in battery backup allows the array to shut down in an orderly fashion in the event of a power failure.
Mac HFS+ is natively supported, as is Time Machine. There are no restrictions on type or manufacturers of drives that can be installed in the enclosure.
Prices for the Drobo 5D3 range from $699 for an empty enclosure with included six-foot Thunderbolt 3 cable to $1899 with four 6TB drives. Amazon is offering no interest financing if paid in full within 12 months using the Amazon.com Store card, while B&H will not collect sales tax on Drobo 5D3 units shipped to addresses outside NY and NJ.
The Drobo 5D3 can connect five 3.5-inch drives, and also has an "accelerator bay" to install a mSATA card for faster caching. Besides the pair of Thunderbolt 3 ports, it also has a USB 3.0 Type C port for peripheral or display connection.
Using one Thunderbolt 3 port, and the USB 3.0 type C port, a pair of 4K displays can be connected to the unit with video provided by the host computer. Drobo notes that the LG Ultrafine 5K display can be connected as well, but no other displays are supported in that configuration.
The 5D3 provides 15W of charging power to a connected computer. A built-in battery backup allows the array to shut down in an orderly fashion in the event of a power failure.
Mac HFS+ is natively supported, as is Time Machine. There are no restrictions on type or manufacturers of drives that can be installed in the enclosure.
Prices for the Drobo 5D3 range from $699 for an empty enclosure with included six-foot Thunderbolt 3 cable to $1899 with four 6TB drives. Amazon is offering no interest financing if paid in full within 12 months using the Amazon.com Store card, while B&H will not collect sales tax on Drobo 5D3 units shipped to addresses outside NY and NJ.
Comments
2) If you optimize the RAID for performance (RAID1+0?) and use 7200 RPM drives can you exceed even Read speeds so that TB would be a benefit over USB 3.0, even with the mSATA "accelerator bay"?
BeyondRAID is proprietary and Drobo isn't a normal RAID box. That may not matter to some folks but the Drobo Death Spiral is a thing you can google and decide for yourself.
On the other hand it's not like you can pop drives from an array from one brand and expect it to work in another brand's enclosure so there's a bit of lock in regardless.
Given how much the software has gotten better from most folks like Synology setting up a RAID isn't as obscure as when Drobo first came out so IMHO there's no reason to go Drobo vs traditional RAID. YMMV.
APFS may not work out of the box...for example ext4 is/was in that maybe it works limbo but it ain't supported category.
Personally, I'd never buy one. Too many stories on the photography forums of bad customer service and dead Drobos.
Just remember when you read all of the horror stories online, there are likely many more happy customers that have no reason to bitch about their experience.
Drobo proprietary
The software then re-orgs and all it ok.
If you remove the drive and run full diagnostics on it, it shows no problems. Zero the drive and put it back in and it works for a few weeks.
Three different drives (2 different makers) all show this "feature". The software has been updated but still the problem exists.
As far as I'm concerned, Drobo is junk and I'll never get another one. Gone back to my ancient QNAP NAS and it is working fine.
I like Apple products not just because I feel they are good value (even if not inexpensive) but because I've gotten good service from my local Apple Store.
I'm not a huge fan of OWC either. I too had a bum RAID enclosure that they didn't really want to work to resolve (it worked but the fan rattled like crazy) and I wrote it off eventually.
I fear the lock-in; if the enclosure dies the only way to read your drives is with another Drobo. I avoid keeping it primary for anything now, and anything that is primary is backed up to CrashPlan online. This way, if the Drobo dies I won't replace it with another Drobo. If I bothered with an array at all (single drives are so big now), I'd do RAID 0 w/ backup or RAID 10.
I wouldn't get too excited about TB3 on a Drobo. They aren't known for being the fastest redundant storage solutions around. Even when they added SSD caching to newer models, tests showed that the SSD made almost no difference.
There are users like myself, where the units have operated as expected, protected their data through drive failures and they simply upgrade / migrate to a newer unit as time and technology moves along. While others never seem to get out of the gates properly.
My original Drobo served my requirements well (it was part of an overall Data Protection Strategy for my personal data which includes at least 2 Off-site Cold Storage Backups) and protected me through the Seagate Firmware Issues a number of years ago where my entire Disk Pack contained drives which from one day to the next decide to no longer spin up. It even survived being in my checked luggage (The Drobo only. The Disk Pack went via Carry-on) during a move overseas then later back home.
That same Drobo, then went on to perform the same task for my sister after I upgraded to the 5D and with her shift to the 5N2, it's now being setup for my Father.
I've grown to love the set and forget nature of the device and that it truely is a "black-box" and I don't have to know what it's doing or how and can simply get on with doing what I need to do.