
Review Summary
40TB (5x8TB) HDD
2x Thunderbolt 3 ports; second port for daisy chaining Thunderbolt devices, including 5K and dual 4K displays (Mac OS X only)
1x USB 3.0, Type-C port
Up to five (5) 3.5" SATA II/III hard disk drives or solid state drives.
Drobo Accelerator Bay for increased performance with one (1) mSATA solid state drive
Drives of any manufacturer, capacity, spindle speed, and/or cache can be used. No carriers or tools required.
Expandable by adding drives or hot-swapping drives with larger ones. Use the Capacity Calculator to estimate available storage in various configurations
Thin Provisioning
Instant Expansion
Mixed Drive Size Utilization
Automatic Protection Levels
Single - or Dual-Disk Redundancy
Virtual Hot Spare
Data Aware
Drive Re-ordering
Drive bay indicator lights, capacity gauge, status lights
Drobo Dashboard version 3.1.1 or later
Apple Macintosh macOS 10.11 and higher
Microsoft Windows 10
Microsoft Windows 8
Microsoft Windows 7
Apple macOS: HFS+
Microsoft Windows: NTFS
Carrier-less Drive Bays
Power Fail Protection with Internal Battery
Metal Chassis and Cover
Kensington Lock Port for Security (lock not included)
Hot Data Caching
Maximum System Capacity: 64TB
Drive Spin Down
Dim Lights
macOS Time Machine Support
Windows Backup Support
Desktop
External Power Supply: AC Input - 100-240VAC-2A, 50-60Hz, DC Output - 12V, 10A, 120W max
Fixed, 120mm variable speed cooling fan, 15W of power to slow charge a Thunderbolt 3 Laptop
5.9 x 7.3 x 10.3" (14.99 x 18.54 x 26.16cm)
8.5 lbs (3.86kg) without hard drives and power supply
816604021248
Lightning Fast Storage
For Media Professionals, Content Creators and Small Businesses
The Drobo 5D3 is the 3rd generation 5 Bay direct-attached storage (DAS), reimagined for media professionals, content creators and small businesses. Lightning fast Thunderbolt 3 technology delivers the speed, while Drobo's fully automated BeyondRAID functionality provides the simplicity. Not only is the 5D3 fast, but it's easy to use, expandable, flexible and protected. You can safely edit, store and view photos and videos in your 4K/5K workflow, as well as backup your personal and business data.
Leave Your Limitations Behind Go BeyondRAID
Built on award-winning BeyondRAID technology, Drobo 5D3 simply protects your data against a single or dual disk drive failure. Drives can be added, hot-swapped and updated in real time for storage expansion with zero downtime. If you're running low on space, the lights on the front provide guidance. Just add a drive in an empty bay or remove a smaller drive and replace it with a larger one. In addition, Smart Volumes are thinly provisioned volumes, that automatically utilize capacity as needed from a common pool of storage.
Enhanced Backup for Time Machine
Time Machine and Drobo: A Perfect Pairing
Apple's Time Machine was designed to make backing up your files simple and painless. Pairing Time Machine with Drobo improves your data protection by ensuring your data is safe in the event of hard drive failure.
Control How Much Storage Time Machine Uses
Apple's guidelines are to set the storage space for Time Machine at twice the size of the Mac's hard drive that is to be protected. Time Machine users know that it will gradually use all available disk space without an easy way to stop this from happening. With Drobo you can easily control the maximum storage space available for Time Machine backups through Drobo Dashboard. When you install a Drobo, Drobo Dashboard prompts to see if you want to create a dedicated storage volume for Time Machine's use, allowing you to set the size of this volume.
Compact, Expandable Design
Expanding your storage capacity with a Drobo couldn't be easier. There's no long, risky process to add capacity to a Drobo - no need to go through the time consuming and complex administration of destroying your RAID sets and recreating with larger drives; and then finally restoring from your backup. When it's time to add storage capacity to a Drobo, simply insert additional disk drives or replace the smallest disks with larger ones. The unique compact, carrier-less drive-bay design results in an attractive, efficient storage array that won't dominate your valuable desk space.
If you're running low on space, the lights on the front of the Drobo 5D3 provide guidance. The innovative, user-friendly design allows you to add or hot-swap larger capacity drives, without tools, for storage expansion with zero downtime. Simply expand storage, while safely storing and backing up your personal data with ease of use and peace of mind.
Capacity and Performance
Drobo 5D3 includes a built-in Accelerator Bay, with an mSATA card holder. Our patented, Accelerator Cache technology keeps a copy of your most frequently accessed data to deliver blazing-fast speeds. The accelerator cache will dramatically speed up loading large photo libraries and other I/O intensive operations, smooth out your workflow and optimize your productivity.
To keep capacity of your Drobo 5D3 at a maximum, the Drobo Accelerator Bay accepts an industry-standard mSATA SSD, leaving all five 3.5" drives bays available for high-capacity HDDs. For the fastest performance possible, you can also load up every drive bay with SSDs. Drobo 5D3 gives you the flexibility to choose!
Connectivity Without Compromise
Drobo 5D3 is equipped with dual, Thunderbolt 3 ports for daisy chaining. Connect up to six Thunderbolt devices and/or a non-Thunderbolt monitor at the end of the chain. 5D3 supports one, 5K monitor display or two, 4K monitors. With multiple 5D3 arrays in a chain, you can have up to 300 TB of usable capacity and achieve maximum throughput by enabling the bi-directional 40 Gb/s performance of Thunderbolt 3. This latest generation Drobo also offers high-performance connectivity and is backward compatible with any computer running supported versions of Mac OS X.
Power Protecting Your Critical Data
In addition to drive failure protection, Drobo also protects against potential data loss during a power outage. In every Drobo we include battery backup technology to protect data in memory or cache. When power spontaneously goes away, Drobo moves any in-flight data to onboard flash in your Drobo, so it will be protected and moved to your disk drives once power is restored. This ensures your important information is safe and sound. Even better, your battery recharges itself and is designed to last for the life of your Drobo.