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 NASDAS 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 USB FireWire 800 Gigabit Ethernet eSATA Thunderbolt 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 USB FireWire 800 Gigabit Ethernet 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