Drobo Releases Pricing for Thunderbolt Storage Devices, Preorders Start Monday

My drobo

I am so glad this internet thing work and this news really helped me to see ZX-Series NAS.Now my company is using Drobo B800fs.It is built on BeyondRAID technology.It can hold up to 24TB of raw storage and beyond. This is my favorite feature.I get the coupon code from this website before buying this products in drobo.com - http://share-coupon.com/drobo-promotional-code
I got $150 off through the web site.

Drobo 5D ordered:

Makosuke said:

The price on the 5D is actually relatively reasonable, even if you completely ignore the Thunderbolt interface on the 5D.

The Drobo 5D is a 5-bay "smart" RAID box that can do the equivalent of both RAID5 and RAID6, can hot-swap drives, can do live array resizing, has an additional SATA slot for an SSD drive for caching (big deal if it actually works, software-wise), AND a built-in battery back-up to avoid the write-hole (very big deal). That's a full set of enterprise-grade features for $850, which really isn't unreasonable, or out of line with the pricing of Drobo's other products. That it comes with a Thunderbolt port as an option is just a bonus.

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I took the plunge and ordered everything from amazon.com:
Drobo 5D
5 x HGST Ultrastar 3.5-Inch 3TB 7200rpm Enterprise 24x7 Duty Cycle
Crucial m4 128GB mSATA

Never owned a Drobo before, but I think the concept is really cool, especially the mSata SSD cache. I'm intrigued by this unit and am looking forward to setting it up and seeing how it works. I have seen more negative Drobo reviews than positive ones, so I know this is a gamble.
I will attach this to my iMac and share out the drive in a few different ways throughout my home. I plan on putting all my movies/T.V., fcpx media/scratch, and my softcopy installs media on the drive. The drive will be backed up to a OWC 8TB drive I already have.

kennyap said:

I took the plunge and ordered everything from amazon.com:
Drobo 5D
5 x HGST Ultrastar 3.5-Inch 3TB - Enterprise 24x7 Duty Cycle
Crucial m4 128GB mSATA

Never owned a Drobo before, but I think the concept is really cool, especially the mSata SSD cache. I'm intrigued by this unit and am looking forward to setting it up and seeing how it works. I have seen more negative Drobo reviews than positive ones, so I know this is a gamble.
I will attach this to my iMac and share out the drive in a few different ways throughout my home. I plan on putting my movies, fcpx media/scratch, and installs on the drive. The drive will be backed up to a OWC 8TB drive I already have.

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Looking forward to reading your thoughts on the Drobo.

nuckinfutz said:

Looking forward to reading your thoughts on the Drobo.

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Right, I'll definitely post back here after I've had a chance to evaluate the unit.

Kaibelf said:

The real joke is failing to grasp that brand-new technology costs a lot and that the price drops over time. The other joke is ignorantly being dismissive of it based on the initial high price, despite the fact that Dell is about to bring supporting devices to market, and pretending that everything won't change after that.

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It's all FireWire again just worse. With such pricing an availability of options it will still be a new technology and DEAD, because no one will use it. Just like it is now to find a good external drive with FireWire 800. You basically have 4 or 5 good options.

Does that make any sense to you?

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gnasher729 said:

Just saying: My 2010 MBP copies large files from one USB drive to another at precisely 34 MB per second. It doesn't matter one bit how full the disks are. And it reads at 34 MB per second from ony USB port, while simultanesouly writing to the other port at 34 MB per second.

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The key being "large files" which is not what everyone is using external disks for.

kennyap said:

I took the plunge and ordered everything from amazon.com:
Drobo 5D
5 x HGST Ultrastar 3.5-Inch 3TB 7200rpm Enterprise 24x7 Duty Cycle
Crucial m4 128GB mSATA

Never owned a Drobo before, but I think the concept is really cool, especially the mSata SSD cache. I'm intrigued by this unit and am looking forward to setting it up and seeing how it works. I have seen more negative Drobo reviews than positive ones, so I know this is a gamble.
I will attach this to my iMac and share out the drive in a few different ways throughout my home. I plan on putting all my movies/T.V., fcpx media/scratch, and my softcopy installs media on the drive. The drive will be backed up to a OWC 8TB drive I already have.

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Please do post back when you get it, and once you've set it up and tinkered with it for a while. I'm really interested in this as a long-term storage solution for tons of family pictures and some videos. Not a lot of data (maybe 2Tb total), but absolutely priceless.

mjuarez said:

Please do post back when you get it, and once you've set it up and tinkered with it for a while. I'm really interested in this as a long-term storage solution for tons of family pictures and some videos. Not a lot of data (maybe 2Tb total), but absolutely priceless.

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I'll be putting my home videos/pics on as well.
I should have it first week of next month, after this I'll post my impressions of the unit (setup, function) and also my transfer speeds.
I'm getting these 'enterprise' rated hdd's, cost a pretty penny but at least I figure they won't be a weak link. Hopefully Drobo have improved their product over previous generations, i.e., QC and performance. My expectation is that it's a quality product. I guess I'll see soon.

Ok, so my eight month old OWC 8tb Firewire 800 drive woke me up last night with an incessant beeping. Still working (degraded), but their tech support needs me to ship it to them for repair/replacement.
So...I've taken the opportunity to order a Synology DS1512+, 4tb drives (non-enterprise), and the 2gb ram upgrade. I will soon have the chance to test the Drobo 5D & Synology unit side-by-side -- thunderbolt on the one, and ethernet on the Synology, and see how they really perform in my home network.
Besides the broken OWC I have five (separate) usb drives of various sizes with which I've been doing backups. With all the years of videos, pics, etc that I've accumulated I am sick how I've been working things, I just want a totally secure system with no chance anymore of losing my data. I'm pretty sure once I get both these new units up I'll feel pretty good.

Drobo should be sending me a Drobo Mini to review soon. I've been informed they should be getting hold of some review units next month. As soon as I've reviewed it the video will go up on my YouTube channel.
Although at the moment I feel as though its massively overpriced, I'll see what's so special about it when it arrives!

kwikdeth said:

$650 for that? The joke that is thunderbolt just gets funnier and funnier. Not even firewire had this kind of early adopter penalty...

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This price quote has absolutely nothing to do with a Thunderbolt connector. The Drobo system is very expensive all by itself, regardless of the connector type. Just do a search for drobo and you'll see the prices.

doctor-don said:

This price quote has absolutely nothing to do with a Thunderbolt connector. The Drobo system is very expensive all by itself, regardless of the connector type. Just do a search for drobo and you'll see the prices.

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I don't think the Drobo pricing is too high considering what the device offers, compared to, for example the Synology DS1512+. I've ordered both these units (the Drobo 5D) and compare them as follows:
1. Both are 5-bay units
2. Both offer 'upgradeable features' - Drobo the SSD mSata cache module, Synology the 2gb ram module to bring it to 3gb total.
3. Both offer a few enterprise-grade features (though the features are different for both units). I won't list these here.

Granted they are functionally different (thunderbolt and NAS).
prices (without drives)
Drobo 5D - $849
Synology DS1512+ $799

Making the assumption the Drobo is a quality product, I foresee using this as my primary and backing up to the Synology. Then, as a plus utilizing some of the Synology features (cloud services, multimedia apps, etc).

Here's an observation I've made, but you decide for yourself: looking at the reviews on amazon.com, the drobo units are rated fairly high for these mid-range units, which is what I've been shopping for, the avg. reviews are higher than other DAS and NAS products such as Buffalo, Iomega, Netgear (of course Synology is sparkling). This is contradictory to what I've seen on various forums, but over time I've found the reviews on amazon.com to be reliable. Take this for what it is I guess.
Kenny

withdrawn

The last time I read a Drobo review, it sounded as if the device is so freaking SLOW that a Thunderbolt connection is completely unnecessary. I think even USB 2.0 may be too fast for it.

This is an older review of the Drobo FW800, but the 25MB/sec transfer speed says it all (that is less than USB 2.0 throughput on a FW800 device).

http://geraldbrandt.com/2010/02/25/drobo-speed-vs-linux-raid5-speed/

Another commentary:

http://gdgt.com/question/what-causes-drobos-to-have-slow-speeds-189m/

The new versions (particularly with SSD drives) may be faster, but I think the Drobo itself appears to be a massive bottleneck. Unless I needed one giant drive from many smaller drives (even then I'd go RAID 5), I'd just assume use multiple 3TB USB3.0 drives and save myself a small fortune (even with the extra backup drive needed, it'd STILL cost less and operate far faster).

Maybe the new versions are night and day better, but I have yet to find a review to prove it so I'll just assume things are only somewhat better at best for now (just found a claim by Drobo themselves that they've updated the hardware and that this new model is 3-5x faster than the old model. That still wouldn't even saturate FW800, let alone USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt (i.e. 75MB/sec isn't even in the same realm as a single Sata drive from 2009, let alone the potential benefits you could get from RAID 5 multiple high speed Sata 3 drives, which could potentially saturate USB 3.0 in short order with multiple SSD units). Thunderbolt is overkill here.

MagnusVonMagnum said:

The last time I read a Drobo review, it sounded as if the device is so freaking SLOW that a Thunderbolt connection is completely unnecessary. I think even USB 2.0 may be too fast for it.

This is an older review of the Drobo FW800, but the 25MB/sec transfer speed says it all (that is less than USB 2.0 throughput on a FW800 device).

http://geraldbrandt.com/2010/02/25/drobo-speed-vs-linux-raid5-speed/

Another commentary:

http://gdgt.com/question/what-causes-drobos-to-have-slow-speeds-189m/

The new versions (particularly with SSD drives) may be faster, but I think the Drobo itself appears to be a massive bottleneck. Unless I needed one giant drive from many smaller drives (even then I'd go RAID 5), I'd just assume use multiple 3TB USB3.0 drives and save myself a small fortune (even with the extra backup drive needed, it'd STILL cost less and operate far faster).

Maybe the new versions are night and day better, but I have yet to find a review to prove it so I'll just assume things are only somewhat better at best for now (just found a claim by Drobo themselves that they've updated the hardware and that this new model is 3-5x faster than the old model. That still wouldn't even saturate FW800, let alone USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt (i.e. 75MB/sec isn't even in the same realm as a single Sata drive from 2009, let alone the potential benefits you could get from RAID 5 multiple high speed Sata 3 drives, which could potentially saturate USB 3.0 in short order with multiple SSD units). Thunderbolt is overkill here.

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I read the links you provided and hear what you're saying. Still waiting for my Drobo 5D to be delivered before I can make a judgement on whether or not the product has improved.

But I received my Synology DS1512+ and I couldn't be more pleased with the transfer speeds. Every ethernet-connected computer in my home is clocking transfer speeds of >105MBps. Having this transfer speed to my iMac even tops the speed of my old 8TB FW800 drive that was connected directly to it. Very nice indeed.
There is a problem, however, with Final Cut Pro X working together with the Synology; because it is neither directly connected to my iMac, nor is it a SAN Volume, FCPX doesn't recognize it as storage. A workaround is using disk utility to create a Blank 'sparse disk image' from the Synology DS1512+ (the unit is present in Finder) which I could mount in FCPX, but this method is screwy in my opinion. I'll wait for my Drobo 5D to arrive and test the Thunderbolt transfer speeds before I consider doing this.

Also waiting for a new giga switch I ordered that has IEEE 802.3ad support so I can enable link aggregation on the Synology unit. I hear this will increase transfer speed when multiple devices are accessing the unit simultaneously. Still playing with the unit's other functions.
UPDATE: setup 'EZ Internet' which allows connecting to the Synology unit from anywhere through an internet browser. Working flawlessly.

kennyap said:

I read the links you provided and hear what you're saying. Still waiting for my Drobo 5D to be delivered before I can make a judgement on whether or not the product has improved.

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Well I've received word that Drobo 5D shipments are delayed until the week of Oct 14th, so I guess I'm looking around Oct 21st or so to receive mine. I've looked for another Thunderbolt equivalent but the closest thing is the Promise raid box. I've already received my hard drives and mSata card I ordered to put in the Drobo 5D so it looks like I'll be waiting...

Drobo 5D received!

I received my Drobo 5D yesterday, here are my first impressions + some data transfers I did:

I populated the unit with five 4TB drives and a 128GB SSD mSata. This installation required no tools at all. I then connected it to my iMac via Thunderbolt and formatted the drive using the Drobo Dashboard utility (formatting took about 1 minute).

The enclosure is solid, well designed and easy on the eyes; definitely a product worthy to sit next to my iMac. The unit sits along with my Synology DS1512+ and has the same noise level when idle (a low hum), but is almost silent in comparison when active.

Very pleased so far with the quality and ease of use of the product. Before I purchased this I was also considering the Pegasus Thunderbolt units, but now I am glad I held out for this. Pegasus has some nice reviews, but the Drobo 5D is definitely a more advanced unit and has some nice features that Pegasus doesn't.

From iMac internal SSD Drive to Drobo:
4GB in 20 seconds (200MB/sec)
11.8gb in 62 seconds (190MB/sec)

From iMac internal 1TB hard drive to Drobo
785MB in 7 seconds (112MB/sec)
2GB in 18 seconds (111MB/sec)

From Drobo to SSD
7GB in 27 seconds (222MB/sec)
1.15GB in 5 seconds (230MB/sec)

kennyap said:

From iMac internal SSD Drive to Drobo:
4GB in 20 seconds (200MB/sec)
11.8gb in 62 seconds (190MB/sec)

From iMac internal 1TB hard drive to Drobo
785MB in 7 seconds (112MB/sec)
2GB in 18 seconds (111MB/sec)

From Drobo to SSD
7GB in 27 seconds (222MB/sec)
1.15GB in 5 seconds (230MB/sec)

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That's more like it! Finally a Drobo where you don't have to make excuses about the performance.

nuckinfutz said:

That's more like it! Finally a Drobo where you don't have to make excuses about the performance.

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Any further thoughts on this unit?

I'm still using a 2010 iMac but will probably upgrade to one of the newer units with Thunderbolt early in 2013 so I was hoping to get a RAID device to run on Firewire 800 for now, then be able to just plug it in to the new unit via TBolt once I upgrade and the Drobo is the first unit to support that (Promise R4/6 are nice but thunderbolt only of course)

Kaibelf said:

The real joke is failing to grasp that brand-new technology costs a lot and that the price drops over time. The other joke is ignorantly being dismissive of it based on the initial high price, despite the fact that Dell is about to bring supporting devices to market, and pretending that everything won't change after that.

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then why weren't usb3 devices priced this high by that logic?

cschmelz said:

Any further thoughts on this unit?

I'm still using a 2010 iMac but will probably upgrade to one of the newer units with Thunderbolt early in 2013 so I was hoping to get a RAID device to run on Firewire 800 for now, then be able to just plug it in to the new unit via TBolt once I upgrade and the Drobo is the first unit to support that (Promise R4/6 are nice but thunderbolt only of course)

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The Drobo 5D only has Thunderbolt and USB 3.0

kennyap said:

The Drobo 5D only has Thunderbolt and USB 3.0

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Yeah I just figured that out...Oh well, will have to wait until I get my new iMac....

Hardware RAID

kennyap said:

The Drobo 5D only has Thunderbolt and USB 3.0

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Other company has TB/eSATA/USB3.0, why Drobo does not?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AJWJMRG/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller=

The only way they can justify those prices is if they include at least a 750Gb drive in each bay from the outset (with the exception of the SSD). They're scandalously expensive considering they're nothing more than a thunderbolt to SATA bridge in an enclosure with some control circuitry that's roughly the equivalent to RAID 5. There's numerous NAS and Firewire equivalents for a quarter of the price.

barkmonster said:

The only way they can justify those prices is if they include at least a 750Gb drive in each bay from the outset (with the exception of the SSD). They're scandalously expensive considering they're nothing more than a thunderbolt to SATA bridge in an enclosure with some control circuitry that's roughly the equivalent to RAID 5. There's numerous NAS and Firewire equivalents for a quarter of the price.

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They offer a unique solution and a unique technology, and as a result, they demand a price premium. If you want to use something that's archaic compared to a Drobo, and pay a lot less for it, then that's your choice.

BiggAW said:

They offer a unique solution and a unique technology, and as a result, they demand a price premium. If you want to use something that's archaic compared to a Drobo, and pay a lot less for it, then that's your choice.

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Buy that marketing. They probably paid handsomely for it

There's only 1 reason they charge that much, lack of competition. It's no more unique than early Firewire drives were.

It's a new connection standard based on 2 existing connection standards that have ample controller chips and existing hardware built for them (PCIe and Displayport). It's barely more than the controller circuitry of a PCIe RAID card in a case with Thunderbolt instead of a PCIe connector.