We covered the new Thunderbolt-equipped Drobo units last month, and they are looking like promising additions to the company’s lineup. Both Drobo units were slated for a July release, and they are right on track. You can now pre-order the Drobo 5D and Drobo Mini from a number of retailers including Amazon, NCIX, B&H Photo, and Tiger Direct among others.
For the uninitiated, the Drobo 5D is a five bay Drobo S with upgrades. It features USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt interfaces as well as an mSATA SSD to improve performance. Like the predecessor, it will accept standard 3.5-inch desktop drives. You can pre-order it now for $849.
The Drobo Mini on the other hand forgoes desktop drives to achieve a much smaller form-factor. It will accept up to four 2.5-inch laptop hard drives (or SSDs if you want crazy speeds). The Drobo Mini is further able to connect to your computer using either USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt. Like the Drobo 5D, it has an integrated mSATA port (not included). You can pre-order this little redundant storage system for $649.
You can find more information about the new Drobo products on the company’s website. The full press release is available here..
650????….whats the damn
650????….whats the damn bill of materials on these things
hehe, I’m not sure but my
hehe, I'm not sure but my guess is that you are paying for the Drobo magic redundant storage stuff 😉
Don’t forget to add the Drobo
Don’t forget to add the Drobo S warranty, after the first year. It’s $100/year. And if you want tech support after the first 90 days, you’ll need the warranty, too, I believe.
After losing 6tb of data on
After losing 6tb of data on one of two drobos that were three months old and having to deal with the complete black box that a Drobo is, I probably won’t ever be buying another. (The extent to which you can troubleshoot your own drobo is that you can dump a diagnostic file that only their support can make use of).
They’d have to come out a hell of a lot cheaper for me to ever bother with them, again.