Pictures and videos are getting larger and people are creating more and more of them. As the size and number of photos — moving or still — grows, the need for fast, protected storage does as well.
Drobo 8D — big, fast, protected storage available today
While size certainly matters when it comes to holding the terabytes of photos and videos that seem to increase all on their own, it’s critical to have all of those memories or work product for that matter, stored in a way that when (not if) a hard drive fails the data is protected and available. That’s what Drobos have always done. They are protected storage that keeps data safe and available when a drive fails and is replaced in the unit.
As the need for more and more space on a single volume increases, Drobo has added to its product line. Today the StorCentric company is releasing the Drobo 8D a desktop attached storage (DAS) behemoth that offers a single volume of 128 terabytes and, with Thunderbolt™ 3 blazing fast read/write speeds.
8D overview
Photofocus publisher Rich Harrington sat down with StorCentric V.P. of Engineering Rod Harrison at a private briefing in New York City.
Drobo style
The Drobo 8D shares the same look and physical characteristics as the other three 8-bay devices in the line — the B810n (network attached storage or NAS), the B810i (iSCSI device) and the iSCSI highly popular DroboPro. The black metal case and dark drive cover with drive and capacity indicators carry the Drobo logo and nothing else.
Features
- 8 bays for hard drives
- Two Thunderbolt™ 3ports
- 128 TB volume support
- First Drobo with NEW Intelligent Volume Management
- Supports two 4K monitors or one 5K monitor
- First 8-bay with Rear Slot Accelerator Bay for 2.5″ SSD
- Dual fans for cooling efficiency
- Internal power supply
The flip side
The back of the Drobo 8D shows two powerful but practically silent fans to keep the drives and the internal processor cool running. The power supply is integrated into the case. A 2.5″ SSD slot sits between the two fans. An SSD inserted in the slot serves as a high-speed cache to make file access remarkably fast. Dual Thunderbolt™ 3 ports support up to two 4K or one 5K monitor downstream from the 8D. Finally in the lower right corner is the power button.
Free SSD 2.5″ drive with purchase (limited time)
The Drobo 8D is available now from the Drobo Store. Units purchased through 11/27/2018 will receive a free 250GB SSD for the accelerator bay. The suggested MSRP is $1,299.00.
Are there any published speed test. Even theoretical that we could reference before purchasing?
Hi Justin, Watch the video that accompanies this post. On the left of the frame is a MacBookPro running the Drobo Performance app. The screen shows data transferring continuously at just under 1000 megabits per second. The rate is around 118 megabtyes a second. (8 megabits make up 1 megabyte.Divide the reading in megabits by 8 to get the speed in megabytes. This works for internet speeds as well.) The display The Drobo 8D in the video has eight 12-Terabyte Seagate 7200rpm drives and a 2.5″ SSD drive in the accelerator slot in the back. While not “published”, I was… Read more »
So no TB3 for windows support and they say lighting fast but don’t provide any numbers. Drobo drops the ball again. Nothing new here..so sad :(
Hi…
In the video featuring Rod Harrison, the Drobo Performance app is running on the MacBookPro on the left of the frame. (The reading is in megabits. I divided the reading by 8 to get the number of megabytes per second.) Is shows read performance at close to 120 MB per second. I’ll check on Thunderbolt™ 3 support for Windows and post it here.
Ok.
Drobo is in development on Thunderbolt™ 3 support for Windows. Expect delivery sometime at the end of the first quarter 2019 or fairly early in the second quarter 2019.
Can a Drobo 5D3 disc pack be moved to an 8D drive?
Hi Henry,
Yes. The drive pack from a 5D3 can be physically moved to the 8D. The only restriction is the volume size is limited to that of the 5D3 disc pack. Full details for moving drive packs from older Drobos to new ones are covered on the website under Drobo Migration.
What is required to achieve the bi-directional 40Gbps performance for daisy chained 8D (or 5D3) drives mentioned in the Drobo 8D Spec Datasheet? The box includes a 1 m Thunderbolt 3 cable for 20Gbps. In other words, what type of cables are required for the 40Gbps TB3 performance with daisy chained drives?
Hi Henry,
My understanding of Thunderbolt™ 3 is that the speed decreases as the chain of devices increases. To get the maximum speed from the 8D it must be the first device in the chain.