DroboPro™ is the first business class direct-attached storage array that manages itself. Engineered to be both simple and scalable, the revolutionary BeyondRAID™ technology incorporated into DroboPro frees businesses of making the difficult and confining choices commonly associated with storage management. Why trade simplicity for safety, or stability for expandability? DroboPro delivers both enterprise-level data safety and unprecedented expandability, featuring single and dual disk redundancy combined with instant capacity expansion. Once you experience DroboPro, you just might forget the differences between all eleven traditional RAID levels. If you do, don't panic. You're experiencing the peace of mind that comes with every Drobo® product. Up to 8 Disks of Instant Expansion to 16TB and Beyond Grow your storage in line with your data capacity needs with minimal effort. To add capacity, simply insert a new hard disk or replace your smallest disk with a larger one, even when all eight disk bays are full. Unlike traditional RAID systems, the BeyondRAID technology found in DroboPro enables you to mix n' match disk brands, capacities and speeds. This allows continuous expansion as disk capacities grow. With DroboPro expansion is automatic, instantaneous and access to data is always maintained. No Headache Dual Disk Redundancy Enable the Dual Disk Redundancy option to protect against the simultaneous failure of up to two hard disks. It's all done with a single click, without ever losing access to your data. Running out of space? You can even switch back to single disk redundancy with a click. For instance, unlike moving between RAID 5 and RAID 6, there's no need to reformat or migrate data off of the array, potentially saving you hours or days. Triple Interface Featuring iSCSI Attach DroboPro directly to the server or workstation that requires storage or to a shared server or workstation on your network that can provide access to multiple clients. Interface options include: - iSCSI (utilizes Gigabit Ethernet)
- FireWire 800
- Hi-Speed USB 2.0
Unfamiliar with iSCSI? It's a high performance protocol that has become extremely popular with businesses, but it can often be complex to manage. DroboPro changes that by introducing zero click iSCSI connection establishment for both Windows and OS X. The Virtues of Smart Volumes™ Create new volumes in seconds and manage up to 16 x 16TB volumes over time with ease. The innovative and timesaving Smart Volume management technology integrated into DroboPro allows volumes to pull storage from the common pool of disks rather than a specific physical disk allocation. The labor of resizing and migrating volumes is replaced with the simplicity of intelligent engineering. Rack Mount Ready, Desktop Quiet DroboPro is equally at home in a rack mount environment as it is on your desktop. Dual smart fans automatically manage their speeds to optimize both cooling and operating noise. (DroboPro Rack Mount sold separately.) Large Capacity Drives For more information on support for larger capacity drives, those greater than 2TB (e.g. 3TB), please click here. Additional Features Green Means Go. DroboPro is equipped with a series of LEDs on its front-side that shows you all you need to know about how DroboPro is doing and how much free capacity you have. If you've ever successful navigated a traffic signal, you're a certified DroboPro expert. Also, DroboPro takes bare hard drives with no need for screws and screwdrivers, drive carriers or any other impediments to your storage needs. DroboPro knows where each block of data is stored on each hard drive. This allows DroboPro to provide a capacity meter to let you know when it's running out of space and enables it to automatically protect data and recover from drive failures more quickly than traditional RAID. Unlike inflexible traditional RAID solutions, DroboPro can utilize the capacity of different size hard drives. Using an intelligent mixture of industry-standard practices to protect your data, DroboPro offers significantly more storage capacity than other RAID solutions. It functions just as you would expect storage to work: add drives or replace smaller drives with larger ones, and get more space. No matter what combination of disks you use, DroboPro will almost always be as efficient, or more efficient than traditional RAID. Hard drives get bigger and cheaper all the time. Save money - don't buy storage capacity until you need it. It's so easy to add drives to DroboPro, you can start with the fewest drives or minimum capacity you need today and just add or replace drives to increase capacity later. Now, you can take advantage of regular disk drive capacity improvements and pricing declines. Add drives to DroboPro at any time. Mix 'n match capacities, brands or speeds. No downtime, data migration, or waiting to access new capacity. No need to buy an entirely new system when DroboPro is full. As long as disk drive capacities continue to increase beyond the capacities you have purchased, you can upgrade DroboPro simply by replacing your smallest drives with larger ones.
DroboPro Product Specifications Disk Interface - Eight-bay capacity
- 3.5" SATA I or SATA II hard disk drives
- No carriers required
- Mix and match capacities, disk brands and speeds¹
Capacity Continuously upgradeable with larger and faster drives. DroboPro Size | | Width | Height | Length | | Inches | 12.17 | 5.46 | 14.1 | | mm | 309.1 | 138.7 | 358.1 | Weight: 16lbs 3ozs (without hard drives or packaging) 3U for a standard 19" rack Host Interface - iSCSI (utilizes Gigabit Ethernet)²
- FireWire 800
- High Speed USB 2.0
Accoustics³ Normal operation: 30.4 dB Box Contents - DroboPro
- 6' USB 2.0 cable
- 6' FireWire 800 cable
- 6' Ethernet cable
- User Guide and Quick Start Instructions
- Resource CD includes:
- Drobo Dashboard application
- Help files
- Electronic Documentation
Certification: Emissions FCC Part 15 Class B and Safety: UL, cUL Security Kensington lock port (lock not included) Power Specifications Idle system (standby, drives off): 13 watts
Typical idle system - idle, drive spin down mode (eight drives): 25 watts
Typical busy system (eight drives): 82 watts Operating System Support Windows 2008 Server
Windows 2003 Server
Windows XP (Service Pack 3)
Windows Vista (Service Pack 1)
Mac OS 10.5 or later (Mac OS 10.5.6 or later required for iSCSI)
Mac OS Server 10.5 or later (Mac OS 10.5.6 or later required for iSCSI)
Linux4 using EXT3 File System Options | | Windows: | NTFS | | Mac OS X: | HFS+ | | Cross-Platform: | FAT32 | | Linux4: | EXT3 | Warranty One (1) year warranty in the US or outside the EU, or two (2) year warranty in the EU (as provided by EU law). ¹ Refer to support page for more details. ² iSCSI support for Windows XP Server and Vista utilizes the Microsoft Windows iSCSI Initiator; for OS X Drobo Dashboard is required as OS X does not have an integrated iSCSI initiator. Drobo Dashboard includes iSCSI initiators for Windows and OS X free of charge and enables zero click iSCSI connection establishment. For Mac OS, 10.5.6. or greater required for iSCSI. ³ Acoustics tests performed 1m from the front of DroboPro with eight 1TB Western Digital GreenPower™ drives during a file copy to DroboPro. DroboPro has a smart, multi-speed fan system governed by internal temperature sensors that operate the fan at optimal speeds. The fan is programmed to minimize noise, but never at the expense of disk integrity. The fan will switch to higher speeds if necessary in hot operating environments or during strenuous usage to keep the temperature within the drive manufacturer’s specifications. 4 Linux support currently in Beta.
DroboPro: RAID without Regrets BeyondRAID™ Technology Every Drobo product comes with the revolutionary BeyondRAID storage technology — the next generation of redundant disk protection. BeyondRAID will not only keep your data safe, but also will increase uptime and availability. BeyondRAID technology offers several improvements over traditional RAID-based storage systems, including the flexibility to replace failed disks, increase capacity and with a single click switch between single and dual disk redundancy all without costly downtime. Key features of BeyondRAID include: - Data protection against two simultaneous hard disk failures
- Instant capacity expansion without downtime
- Self-management
- Automatic healing
File System and Operating System Agnostic DroboPro and its underlying BeyondRAID technology currently support the Windows, Mac and Linux* platforms, with file system support for NTFS, HFS Plus, EXT3 and FAT32. Since DroboPro is a block level system, it easily adapts to almost any environment. Mixed Drive Capacity Utilization Grow storage in line with data capacity needs with minimal effort. To add capacity, customers can simply insert a new hard disk or replace the smallest disk with a larger one, even when all eight disk bays are full. Unlike traditional RAID systems, the BeyondRAID technology enables IT managers to efficiently mix n' match disk brands, capacities and speeds. This allows for continuous expansion as disk capacities grow. Now, expansion is automatic, instantaneous and access to data is always maintained. Redundantly Safe Utilizing dual disk redundancy, DroboPro's BeyondRAID technology can ensure your data is safe even if up to two disks fail simultaneously — all without a moment of downtime. You can even switch between single and dual disk redundancy with a click. You'll feel safer knowing that if disks do fail, DroboPro automatically enters a state of self-healing wherein it relays out your data across the remaining healthy disks and sectors. Proportional Rebuild Times The time it takes DroboPro to rebuild data after a drive failure or removal is proportional to the amount of data stored in the pool — meaning the less capacity that is used, even on a 2TB disk, the shorter your rebuild times will be. This is superior to traditional RAID, which lacks proportional rebuild times, and is forced relay out every bit even if it does not contain user data. Since DroboPro is "Data Aware", it tracks where data is on each disk, so it can differentiate between used and unused portions of disk. This expedites rebuild times and reduces your risk of losing data to an additional disk failure. In short, your data is safer on a Drobo. Self-Healing When DroboPro detects a "bad" hard disk, it proactively advises you with a series of warnings ranging from a blinking red LED on its front panel, to pop-up alerts in Drobo Dashboard, to email alerts. What DroboPro does next is exceptional. Entering a self-healing mode where it repairs around the bad sector or disk, DroboPro will work until it returns to the safest state possible. If DroboPro has sufficient time and free capacity (indicated by all lights returning to a solid green state), it can even withstand additional hard disk failures — that's the power of self-healing. Smart Volumes™ Create new volumes in seconds and manage up to 16 x 16TB volumes over time with ease. The innovative and timesaving Smart Volume management technology integrated into DroboPro allows volumes to pull storage from the common pool of disks rather than a specific physical disk allocation. The labor of resizing and migrating volumes is replaced with the simplicity of intelligent engineering. And increasing the available pool of storage on DroboPro is as simple adding or upsizing drives. Storage Virtualization BeyondRAID was designed from the ground up to allow the storage capacity of the array to expand and contract. BeyondRAID makes this a simple process by utilizing a technology called "virtualization." Virtualization provides a layer of abstraction between the data requested by the file system and the physical location of that data on the disk drives. A given piece of data can be located on any drive, and on any physical location on that drive. This is what makes adding a drive to a Drobo so simple. The new drive just provides additional places to store data. Virtualization is what enables BeyondRAID to effortlessly change the data arrangement on the drives, for example, changing data stored as a mirror into data stored as parity stripe, say, without interrupting the user access to data. Virtualization completely decouples the physical space available in the array from the space reported to the operating system. This is how BeyondRAID is able to remove the need to manually expand/contract the file system as more space becomes available or is removed. Thin Provisioning Thin Provisioning is a technical term that describes how the BeyondRAID technology communicates with your operating system. BeyondRAID communicates with your OS about how much disk space you have, up to 16TB per volume (this varies with older operating and file systems). Specifying a larger amount of storage than is physically available allows you to grow into the volume without having to reformat or migrate your data in order to add capacity. BeyondRAID automatically also reclaims space as you delete files. Self-Managing DroboPro is storage that manages itself. There are no complex configuration screens, DIP switches, confounding choices, web consoles or other complications that prevent so many other storage devices from working out of the box. Drive Reordering One long-standing requirement inherent in traditional RAID-based systems was that if for some reason you needed to remove the drives, you'd have to replace the drives in the exact same order. When you remove your disks from DroboPro, you can put them back in any order you like. * Linux support in Beta
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