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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.

Drobo Direct Attached Storage (DAS) Performance

If you need to edit high-definition videos, store a large photo library, or simply backup terabytes of data, the Drobo direct attached products deliver the perfect combination of speed, simplicity, expansion, and protection. Drobo products are designed from the ground up to meet the data storage needs of today’s media creators and demanding professionals. Products include cutting-edge USB Type C and or Thunderbolt™ 3 interfaces which connect directly to your computer to provide faster access speeds. The Drobo DAS line includes Drobo 5C, Drobo 5D3, and Drobo 8D.

Here are some Resources to help you choose the perfect Drobo.

Need Help Choosing?

  • Which Drobo is Right?
    Our 4 easy steps to help you choose the right Drobo.
  • Capacity Calculator
    Approximates the space utilized with various mixed disk configurations.
  • Drive Selector
    Balance acquisition costs and performance requirements vs. capacity requirements.
  • Drobo Migration
    When it comes to upgrading your Drobo to a larger or newer version, you have several options.
  • Drobo Resource Center
    View a library of the latest Case Studies, White Papers, Solutions Briefs, and Datasheets.
Family Drobo

Leave Your Limitations Behind... Go BeyondRAID®

Built on our award-winning BeyondRAID technology, the Drobo 5D3 protects your data without any intervention - even in the event of multiple drive failures. You can even switch from single to dual disk redundancy with a single click, ensuring enterprise-level dual parity data protection when required. Drobo's with BeyondRAID are also self-healing and have virtual hot-spares. If a drive happens to fail, Drobo will automatically re-layout the data to return to a protected state without disruption. Drobo takes the up front guess work out of determining the amount of capacity you require. Buy the capacity you need today, and when you need more storage, simply replace your smallest drive with a larger one and immediately use that capacity in seconds. You can even mix and match drive brands, capacities and speeds. To further enhance your experience, every Drobo comes with Smart Volume technology. Smart Volumes® are thinly provisioned volumes that automatically utilize capacity as needed from a common pool of storage. Additionally, as data is deleted, free capacity is returned to that common pool, immediately increasing the available capacity. BeyondRAID along with Smart Volumes deliver next-generation storage technology by bringing together enhanced data protection, reliability, expandability, and ease-of-use. Learn More
Enhanced Backup for Time Machine

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. Learn More: Drobo and Time Machine for Backup
Compact, Expandable Design

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 tell you exactly what to do. The innovative, user-friendly industrial design allows you to add or hot-swap larger capacity drives, without tools, on the fly, for storage expansion with zero downtime. Expand your capacity without missing a beat while safely storing and backing up all personal data with ease and peace of mind. It’s that simple!
Capacity and Performance

Capacity and Performance

Drobo 5D3 includes a built-in Accelerator Bay, with an mSATA card holder (mSATA card not included). 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! Learn More
Connectivity Without Compromise

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 macOS.
Power Protecting Your Critical Data

Power Protecting Your Critical Data

The Drobo 5D and 5Dt do not just protect from drive failures, it also includes a battery backup system that protects all data in memory or cache. That’s right, Enterprise grade data protection for you on your Drobo 5D and Drobo 5Dt! If power spontaneously goes away, the Drobo stays alive long enough for the data to be written to disk, ensuring your important information is always safe. The onboard battery recharges itself and is designed to last for the life of the product.
Capacity and Performance

DroboCare™

Our world-class DroboCare support offers powerful protection for all Drobo products. Whether you depend on Drobo for your photo collection or critical business data, our trained professionals are available around the clock to help. In addition to extending technical phone support, DroboCare* offers a wide array of benefits over our standard warranty including migration assistance, expedited hardware and rescue kits to ensure you get everything you need, when you need it. *Please note that DroboCare does not cover failed hard drives. Learn More

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 protect your personal and business data.

*ThunderboltTM 3 on 5D3 is a Mac only interface, USB-C can be used on both Windows & Mac

Drobo Direct Attached Storage (DAS) Performance

If you need to edit high-definition videos, store a large photo library, or protect terabytes of data from a hard drive failure, the Drobo direct attached products deliver the perfect combination of speed, simplicity, expansion, and protection. Drobo products are designed from the ground up to meet the data storage needs of today’s media creators and demanding professionals. Products include cutting-edge USB Type C and or Thunderbolt™ 3 interfaces which connect directly to your computer to provide faster access speeds. The Drobo DAS line includes Drobo 5C and Drobo 5D3.

Here are some Resources to help you choose the perfect Drobo.

Need Help Choosing?

  • Which Drobo is Right?
    Our 4 easy steps to help you choose the right Drobo.
  • Capacity Calculator
    Approximates the space utilized with various mixed disk configurations.
  • Drive Selector
    Balance acquisition costs and performance requirements vs. capacity requirements.
  • Drobo Migration
    When it comes to upgrading your Drobo to a larger or newer version, you have several options.
  • Drobo Resource Center
    View a library of the latest Case Studies, White Papers, Solutions Briefs, and Datasheets.
Family Drobo

Leave Your Limitations Behind… Go BeyondRAID®

Built on our award-winning BeyondRAID technology, the Drobo 5D3 protects your data without any intervention – even in the event of multiple drive failures. You can even switch from single to dual disk redundancy with a single click, ensuring enterprise-level dual parity data protection when required. Drobo’s with BeyondRAID are also self-healing and have virtual hot-spares. If a drive happens to fail, Drobo will automatically re-layout the data to return to a protected state without disruption. Drobo takes the up front guess work out of determining the amount of capacity you require. Buy the capacity you need today, and when you need more storage, simply replace your smallest drive with a larger one and immediately use that capacity in seconds. You can even mix and match drive brands, capacities and speeds. To further enhance your experience, every Drobo comes with Smart Volume technology. Smart Volumes® are thinly provisioned volumes that automatically utilize capacity as needed from a common pool of storage. Additionally, as data is deleted, free capacity is returned to that common pool, immediately increasing the available capacity. BeyondRAID along with Smart Volumes deliver next-generation storage technology by bringing together enhanced data protection, reliability, expandability, and ease-of-use. Learn More

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. Learn More: Drobo and Time Machine for Backup
Enhanced Backup for Time Machine
Compact, Expandable Design

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 tell you exactly what to do. The innovative, user-friendly industrial design allows you to add or hot-swap larger capacity drives, without tools, on the fly, for storage expansion with zero downtime. Expand your capacity without missing a beat while safely storing and backing up all personal data with ease and peace of mind. It’s that simple!

Capacity and Performance

Drobo 5D3 includes a built-in Accelerator Bay, with an mSATA card holder (mSATA card not included). 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! Learn More
Capacity and Performance
Connectivity Without Compromise

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 macOS.

Power Protecting Your Critical Data

The Drobo 5D and 5Dt do not just protect from drive failures, it also includes a battery backup system that protects all data in memory or cache. That’s right, Enterprise grade data protection for you on your Drobo 5D and Drobo 5Dt! If power spontaneously goes away, the Drobo stays alive long enough for the data to be written to disk, ensuring your important information is always safe. The onboard battery recharges itself and is designed to last for the life of the product.
Power Protecting Your Critical Data

Specifications

Connectivity
  • 2 x Thunderbolt 3 ports; second port for daisy chaining Thunderbolt devices, including 5K and dual 4K displays (Mac OS X only)
  • 1 x USB 3.0, Type C port
Drives and Expansion
  • Up to five (5) 3.5″ SATA II/III hard disk drives or solid state drives (sold separately).
  • Drobo Accelerator Bay for increased performance with one (1) mSATA solid state drive (card sold separately).
  • Drives of any manufacturer, capacity, spindle speed, and/or cache can be used. No carriers or tools required. Click here for drive recommendations
  • Expandable by adding drives or hot-swapping drives with larger ones. Use the Capacity Calculator to estimate available storage in various configurations.
BeyondRAID Features
  • Thin Provisioning
  • Instant Expansion
  • Mixed Drive Size Utilization
  • Automatic Protection Levels
  • Single – or Dual-Disk Redundancy
  • Virtual Hot Spare
  • Data Aware
  • Drive Re-ordering
More Specs
Management
  • Drive bay indicator lights, capacity gauge, status lights
  • Drobo Dashboard version 3.1.1 or later
Operating System Support
  • macOS: 12.x, 11.x, 10.15.x
  • Microsoft® Windows® 11, 10, 8”
File System Options
  • Apple® macOS: HFS+
  • Microsoft® Windows: NTFS
Hardware Features
  • Carrier-less Drive Bays
  • Power Fail Protection with Internal Battery
  • Metal Chassis and Cover
  • Kensington Lock Port for Security (lock not included)
Additional Software Features
  • Hot Data Caching
  • Maximum System Capacity: 64TB
  • Drive Spin Down
  • Dim Lights
  • macOS Time Machine Support
Warranty
  • Two (2) year warranty
Size and Weight
  • Desktop Form Factor
  • Width: 5.9 in (150.3 mm)
  • Height: 7.3 in (185.4 mm)
  • Depth: 10.3 in (262.3 mm)
  • Weight: 8.5 lb (3.9 kg) without hard drives, power supply, or packaging
Power and Cooling
  • 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
Box Contents
  • Drobo 5D3
  • 3.3 ft (1 m) Thunderbolt 3 cable
  • 6 ft (1.8 m) power cord with power supply
  • Quick Start Card
Product Part Numbers
  • Americas: DRDR6A21
  • Europe, Middle East & Africa: DRDR6A31
  • Asia Pacific: DRDR6A61 / DRDR6A51

Drobo 5D3

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