Drobo 5D and Mini w/Thunderbolt

[Digital Skunk]

FINALLY!



What's best is they INCLUDE the TBolt cable. After owning about three of their boxes and having never encountered any of the issues I read about online I am saving my pennies to replace my Drobo S. I wasn't looking forward to new storage options just yet, but this may have to be put into the 6 month plan along with some 3TB drives.

The Drobo Mini is HUGE, and not what I'd call a drive for road warriors especially since it doesn't seem to be bus powered (given the 4 2.5" bays) but it'd be a nice addition to mobile media pros that need to setup a competent workstation in a press room or press box. Or just anyone that wants to save space. Let's hope they put the necessary firmware in for outfitting it with SSDs.

 

[Nemic]

I have a Drobo FS, which I really love - although it could be a tad faster, and won't work with iMovie :-(

I can't wait for this to be available, looks fantastic

 

[laxman101]

Still too expensive... Why can't they just give us a single drive enclosure?

 

[nuckinfutz]

Still too expensive... Why can't they just give us a single drive enclosure?

Because the whole point of Drobo and BeyonRAID is redundancy.

 

[Digital Skunk]

Still too expensive... Why can't they just give us a single drive enclosure?

Because the whole point of Drobo and BeyonRAID is redundancy.

That, and when you put it into perspective the price is right around where the original Drobo S was when it was first introduced.

These boxes aren't for your everyday users that just need to backup some large files. Even a single drive enclosure with TBolt would be too expensive once you look at the USB3.0 options.

 

[cuestakid]

I think the mere fact they are including the thunderbolt cable is cause for celebration. $800 for the 5-bay is actually cheaper than I thought they would do. I may upgrade my 4-bay FW800 one, assuming performance is good (though my green drives will have to be taken into the equation).

 

[nuckinfutz]

I was honestly expecting more expensive Drobo models as well.

Two TB for daisy chain and SSD options that don't take up a drive bay.

 

[Digital Skunk]

I think the mere fact they are including the thunderbolt cable is cause for celebration. $800 for the 5-bay is actually cheaper than I thought they would do. I may upgrade my 4-bay FW800 one, assuming performance is good (though my green drives will have to be taken into the equation).

So far, from what I can see and have read, they are the first to include the TBolt cable. The original 5-Bay was introduced near to or exactly that price. I remember being excited to see the price get down to $550 before I bought my original 5-Bay with USB2.0.

The speed is definitely dependent on the drives. I have green drives in my 4-Bay as well, and over FW800 it's a snail. The 5-Bay is connected to a LaCie eSATA TBolt hub and has Hitachi 7.2k drives in them and is keeping up with their SATAII interface.