Drobo today announced shipping the Drobo Mini and Drobo 5D. The Drobo Mini and 5D products are the industry’s first storage arrays to include high-speed Thunderbolt connectivity, USB 3.0, automated tiering that supports solid state drives (SSDs), enhanced reliability features and storage-array portability. The new products are designed to use SSDs with hard disk drives in a fashion similar to Apple’s Fusion Drive technology to rapidly accelerate workflows.
Both new products include Drobo’s Data-Aware Tiering technology, which embraces the use of SSD storage in conjunction with traditional hard drives. Customers can add SSD technology to the new Drobos, increasing transactional performance by up to 12 times over previous Drobo models. In addition, Drobo is the only storage array that offers both Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 interfaces in one device.
Drobo Mini accommodates four 2.5-inch drives, an SSD accelerator bay, two Thunderbolt ports and a USB 3.0 port in a package that is small enough to fit in a portable travel bag. The product weighs in at 3 pounds fully loaded with drives installed, and can hold up to 3TB of usable and protected data. The Drobo mini is available now, and starts at $649.
The 8.5lb Drobo 5D holds up to five SATA 3.5-inch hard drives, with an additional bay for a SSD accelerator. Two Thunderbolt ports and a single USB 3.0 port provide connectivity to the array. A Drobo 5D can be purchased now for $849.
Drobo Mini
Drobo 5D
