# Drobo

Drobo was a manufacturer of a series of external storage devices for computers, including DAS, SAN, and NAS appliances. Their main product was also known as Drobo. Between 2005 and 2011, the company was known as Data Robotics.

## History

Data Robotics was founded in San Jose, California, in 2005. The company changed its name to Drobo 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. Drobo, Inc. merged with Connected Data, Inc. in June 2013, with the new company taking the Connected Data name. In May 2015, the storage appliance business was spun-off as Drobo, Inc. and acquired by an investment group composed of seasoned tech executives Drobo was later acquired by StorCentric in August, 2018.
All Drobo products had been out of stock or severely inventory constrained in both the Drobo Store and retail channels since the beginning of 2020. Drobo initially blamed this on supply chain issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In November, 2021, Drobo stated that more devices would be available in "the next few months". In June 2022, StorCentric filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. After failing to find a buyer or reorganize the company, it shifted to Chapter 7 bankruptcy in April 2023.
From the Drobo website: As of January 27th, 2023, Drobo support and products are no longer available. Drobo support has transitioned to a self-service model. The knowledge base, documentation repository, and legacy documentation library are still accessible for your support needs. We thank you for being a Drobo customer and entrusting us with your data.
As of February 8, 2024, the Drobo website at www.drobo.com is no longer accessible.

## Products
### Overview

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, for increasing storage capacity of the unit without downtime, and for data protection against drive failure.

#### 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 |
| 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 | 4TB | 16TB | 64TB | 64TB | 16TB | | 64TB | 64TB | 64TB | 128TB | 16TB | 64TB | 64TB | 64TB |
| Max Volume Size | 2TB | 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 | 18TB | 12TB |
    * Plus one mSATA SSD slot for Data-Aware Tiering
    **Plus one 128 GB mSATA SSD card for Data-Aware Tiering
    ***Plus one 2.5" SATA SSD bay for Data-Aware Tiering

#### 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 | 14 December 2014 | 30 May 2012 | 19 September 2016 | N/A | 30 May 2012 | 19 September 2016 | N/A | 7 August 2019 |
| 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) |