- Easy to expaand
- Tool-less design
- Great read/write speeds
- Expensive
- Thunderbolt cable not included
Creating digital content in a digital world can take its toll on modern equipment, but there are some things you can do to offset and make things more efficient. Digital storage is a big deal when it comes to digital content creation. High resolution digital video and still files can not only take up a lot of space, but can also require a lot of computing horsepower.
Digital storage is something people who create digital content should not skip over either. There are are few options out there when it comes to storing your digital files. Some will be just that, storage. Others can be storage and allow you to work with some devices used to backing up your content. Today, we will look at a storage solution that grows with you, the Drobo 5D.
Who/What Is Drobo?
Drobo makes data storage products for small and medium businesses, as well as professionals. The products typically come loaded with sophisticated data protection and management features, coupled with affordable capacity in an easy-to-use design. Their products range from five-disk desktop enclosures to network accessible enclosures to rack-mounted data storage systems.
In this instance, the Drobo 5D is a 5-disk desktop attached storage solution. Some key specs and features include:
- 2x Thunderbolt 2 Ports
- 1x USB3.0 Port
- Up to 5 3.5″ SATA II/III drives or solid state drives (sold separately) up to 64 TB
- 1 mSATA in the Drobo Accelerator Bay (sold separately)
- Drives can be any make, capacity, etc.
- Expandable by adding or hot-swapping
- Tool-less design
- BeyondRAID
- Drobo Dashboard
- OS Support: MacOS, Windows
- File System Support: HFS+ or NTFS
What’s in the Box?
Okay, so my son is not part of what came inside the box, but he liked laying on top of the box. So what is included?
Drobo in a Bag! That’s right you get a nice quality reusable (shopping) bag that your Drobo unit is wrapped and shipped in. Okay, but what else does the Drobo 5D come with?
Not entirely a lot as you can see from the above photo. The Drobo 5D comes with, the unit itself (drives sold separately remember), a 6-foott power cable and power supply, a 6ft USB 3.0 cable and the typical quick start and other paper documents. There is even a cool Drobo sticker included! There is no Thunderbolt cable included in the 5D version, but that cable comes with the 5Dt version which also comes with a mSATA card (separate purchase for a 5D) for the Drobo Accelerator feature.