Drobo 5C 20TB: 5-Drive Direct Attached Storage (DAS) Array with Seagate HDDs - USB 3.0 port, type C (DDR4A21-20TB)

The unboxing and ease of use remind me of Apple products. The ability to dim the outer LEDs on a customizable ten-point scale is a nice touch. I've also been very impressed with the speed. My observed speeds are as below, using a Drobo 5C connected directly to a retina iMac (which supports USB 3), loaded with four 3 TB Western Digital Red and one 1.5 TB Western Digital Green drives: Backing up a FireWire 400 drive to Drobo 5C: ~20-30 MB/s Backing up a USB 2.0 drive to Drobo 5C:~30-40 MB/s (this one was interesting, as FireWire has usually had better speeds in general for me) Backing up a USB 3.0 drive to Drobo 5C: ~80-90 MB/s Transferring directly between Drobo 5C and iMac: 90-170 MB/s, with speeds mostly sustaining in the 130-150 range (I hope that those speeds help set people's expectations as to what speeds might be like when backing up from other hard drives) I bought the Drobo intending for it to be more of a storage and retrieval archive, rather than a drive used for actively processing data. Just to experiment, I put my Aperture photo library on the Drobo and it was very fast - a bit faster than when I've used it on an external USB 3 drive, and worlds faster than when I had my library on a FireWire 400 drive. I am now rethinking my intended usage, and may process media files directly off of it. I have yet to experience a drive failure, so I can't vouch for the ease of that process, but I have confidence that the process will be pretty painless. Setup and usage has been largely flawless so far; the experience makes me want to get a Drobo 5N for the family to use...

This thing is amazing if you use it correctly. And half the price of the 5D3. Some tips: -DON'T USE SEAGATE DRIVES! I've only had luck with Western Digital drives in this thing. Seagate drives show as "failed," but test fine once you take them out of the Drobo. I'm not risking my data on the off chance the Drobo is actually correct. Luckily, since the Drobo handles redundancy automatically, I just swapped in a new WD drive and didn't lose a single byte. -Turn OFF "Disk Drive Spindown" under Drobo Settings in the Drobo Dashboard app. My Drobo constantly became unresponsive when I had this enabled--on both MacOS and Windows. Now that I've disabled it, I never even have to think about the Drobo. -If you fill this with cheap drives, it will be slow. Don't use cold storage drives if you want high-speed storage! I've got 2 WD Red 8TB drives and 3 WD 4TB (blue?) drives in mine, and the transfer speed is incredible (500 MB/s) until the blue's caches fill up, then it drops to ~100 MB/s. If you want lightning fast transfer speeds, use NAS drives! (When I had 4TB and 5TB Seagate cold storage drives in there my speeds maxed at ~150MB/s and dropped to ~40. Just swapping those two for the NAS drives made all the difference.) -If you get slow transfer speeds even though you have good drives in there, flip the USB-C cable. It's ridiculous, I know. USB-C is reversible, you say. It won't make a difference, you say! But it works. And Drobo's website will tell you the same. I use mine to host my movie and TV media collection, and it's fast enough to simultaneously handle play back of high-bitrate content and downloads that saturate my 150Mbps internet connection. If you're looking to use this as a drive to work from (editing video, etc.) you MAY be better off with the 5D3, especially if you plan to be working with 4K or higher footage. But for playback, the 5c is more than adequate.

4/29/2020 - The Saga Continues On 3/30/20 I sent an email to Drobo regarding my malfunctioning unit since there had been no response to my message sent on their web site. I got an email the next day detailing what I needed to do to trouble shoot the unit. I promptly went through the steps suggested (I had already done most of them) and emailed them the results. On 4/8/20 I got an email that said my trouble shooting results indicated they would need to replace my Drobo. On 4/10/20 they acknowledged receiving the tracking number for the Drobo I sent to them for a replacement. On 4/18/20 I received an email from them saying the case was "closed" but that it could be reopened within 14 days. I incorrectly assumed that this meant my replacement Drobo was on its way. On 4/23/20 having not received any tracking information or other indication the Drobo was on its way, I contacted them again. On 4/29/20 they sent me an email saying the unit I sent them was on the bench getting checked out. On 5/6/20 my repaired Drobo was delivered by Fedex. I like the Drobo when it works but product support is PATHETIC. I doubt I'll ever buy another one but rather rely on other means to back up my important data. --------------------------------------------------------------------- This is an update of my previous review and is being made on 4/6/20. I purchased this unit in 2018 and in April 2020 and within the 2 year warranty period it stopped working. I contacted the makers of the unit last week and got an email the next day detailing what I needed to do to troubleshoot it. I had already done most of the suggested things but I did them all over with the addition of the additional few things they suggested. I've now sent them two emails detailing the results of my troubleshooting and have received no response. My previous review from shortly after I bought the unit is below. --------------------------------------------------------------------- My old Drobo which saved my information during two incidents where my iMac malfunctioned quit working. It had functioned great for quite a few years (I definitely got my money's worth out of it) so I decided to get another one to replace it. My new Drobo 5C is finally working as it should but the process was tedious. There is no phone number for technical support and, of course, no useful printed manual with the device. Technical support is via email at their convenience and my experience was that the person didn't really understand what the issue was though I explained it as well as I could. It is finally working due in large part to the great amount of time spent by me fiddling with it. I wouldn't say don't get one but if you're not at least a little familiar with troubleshooting computers, good luck if it doesn't work right.

Reliable storage that you just set up and forget.

Paring this drive with 5 x Seagate Iron Wolf Drives has been the best decision for my commercial Photography backup solution. I have looked at many setups and found this to not only be a very great price but also since using it, a very simple, secure and a solid archive solution. I have it set to two drive redundancy which lowers the amount of useable space however adds an extra layer of protection to my onsite storage in conjunction with my offsite and cloud backups. I found this drive to be great for the purpose of simply backing up and storing my files without fuss, I do not work of this drive so the speed is never an issue. I found the app & time machine volume features very intuitive and effective to use. I highly recommend this product! For my uses I didn't see the need to run the Drobo 5D3 or opt for a NAS solution, it saved both money which I put into higher capacity drives - if your simply just wanting to store files, have the option to upgrade size easily and know the health status of your backup then this is for you. One tip: If using the newer version of the MacBook Pro with USB C, I highly recommend ordering a USB C male to male cable rated for high-speed transfers as you will get the most out of this unit in terms of the speed it's capable of. Definitely recommend!

Me encanta mi nuevo Drobo, excelente para las fotos y videos que necesitaba almacenar ya que constantemente los fosfatos externos me fallan.

This company and the Drobo series NAD/DAS are amazing. Had a Gen2 for 8 years and it started to have issues... upgraded and within 2 minutes I was back up and running. All family photos, songs, and movies safe as can be. The hot swap drives are incredible. Never misses a beat. A huge upgrade over standard RAID protocols.

No lo he podido usar... me reporta problemas con los discos....