Am using 3 3tb wd's at the moment and want to switch to the Drobo 5N. Must I fill all the bays with inboard drives all at once?
327895
Also you need to backup your data before you use your new drobo because it will wipe out your hard drives
327896
Nope, add what you want. Don't know about inserting already used (data on board) drives. I've always placed 'new' / clean drives in. There isn't a requirement to fill all slots. I have (3) 1TB drives in my 5N.
327897
you can use as many drives as you want and it scales to match if I remember correctly.
327898
No. You can use any number of bays and it will still work exactly as stated.
327899
No you don't have to but if you start with 3 that should be good so in your case 3 tb per hard drive you will get 6 tb only out of 3 hard drives but worth it
327900
no, but you do need at least 2 drives to start with to have redundancy & data protection from a drive failure. this is not a RAID - named "shares" are created and grow dynamically. additional drives can be added at any time and just increase the available space. the device allows for the addition of a mSATA SSD (plugs into a bottom slot, not a bay) - used for caching and can speed up read access considerably. the capacities of the drives in the bays do not have to match. I started with 2X 3tb HGST drives, later added 3X more and finally added a Plextor 256gB mSATA SSD. I run from a new Apple APE 802.11 AC - wireless clients and performance is still quite good. no, but you do need at least 2 drives to start with to have redundancy & data protection from a drive failure. this is not a RAID - named "shares" are created and grow dynamically. additional drives can be added at any time and just increase the available space. the device allows for the addition of a mSATA SSD (plugs into a bottom slot, not a bay) - used for caching and can speed up read access considerably. the capacities of the drives in the bays do not have to match. I started with 2X 3tb HGST drives, later added 3X more and finally added a Plextor 256gB mSATA SSD. I run from... » Read More no, but you do need at least 2 drives to start with to have redundancy & data protection from a drive failure. this is not a RAID - named "shares" are created and grow dynamically. additional drives can be added at any time and just increase the available space. the device allows for the addition of a mSATA SSD (plugs into a bottom slot, not a bay) - used for caching and can speed up read access considerably. the capacities of the drives in the bays do not have to match. I started with 2X 3tb HGST drives, later added 3X more and finally added a Plextor 256gB mSATA SSD. I run from a new Apple APE 802.11 AC - wireless clients and performance is still quite good. « Show Less
327901
No there are multiple configurations. Check out this link http://www.drobo.com/products/capacity-calculator/
327902
No add them as you need them. You do need at least 2 or 3 (I don't remember which) for their flavor of RAID to work for data protection. Drives will be reformatted when inserted!
928100
I used 4TB Drives from WDC and Seagate, they work fine. I don't know if 5TB drive would work or not.
140744
you would have 18 bays, * 4TB drives for a potential of 72TB of space.... HOWEVER - actual space will depend on the RAID mode you choose and the security and peformance you desire. Also a formatted 4TB doesnt really give you 4TB so you will probably have 3.2-3.6 TB from each drive. The real issue IMHO is the quality of 4TB drives and the performance. Unless you dont care about your data I wouldnt create a single volume that big.
1110136
I am not an expert on the matter ... Don't know for sure but, I will doubt you can maintain the data as the Drobo needs to rewrite the disc to assure their structure... Not sure if will allow partitions either. Perhaps contacting Drobo directly you might find the right answer
1536120
from what i've read, it can handle up to 15tb....i'm running 5 (3TB) wd reds for 15tb.....might have to research that.
2057671
Yes. Transfer the files on to one or two of the drives, put the other 2 in the drobo and initialize them, then transfer all the files to the drobo, then put the other 2 drives in the drobo and they will be formatted and all the files will be protected.
1598051
NO.I've tried this configuration as well and realized that NAS only recognizes the first HD in bay. Could not find any workaround for that so, I decided go for a 4 bay NAS storage. Currently I use this NAS as printer server only.
1122621
The DROBO allows you to slide 4 separate drives into it, it then automatically formats them and creates a RAID type system. It does contain its own power supply and cooling fan for the drives. You get a redundant back-up of anything you copy to the DROBO, so if one drive fails, all your data is safely on the other drives. You simply replace the bad drive and march on. Yes - you can use 4 separate 4TB drives. Be aware though, that since it creates a redundant back-up of your data, you will not have 16TB of total storage, but just under 11TB. I suggest you visit the DROBO website, it has excellent documentation on everything. The DROBO allows you to slide 4 separate drives into it, it then automatically formats them and creates a RAID type system. It does contain its own power supply and cooling fan for the drives. You get a redundant back-up of anything you copy to the DROBO, so if one drive fails, all your data is safely on the other drives. You simply replace the bad drive and march on. Yes - you can use 4 separate 4TB drives. Be aware though, that since it creates a redundant back-up of your data, you will not have 16TB of total storage, but just under 11TB. I suggest you visit the DROBO website, it has... » Read More The DROBO allows you to slide 4 separate drives into it, it then automatically formats them and creates a RAID type system. It does contain its own power supply and cooling fan for the drives. You get a redundant back-up of anything you copy to the DROBO, so if one drive fails, all your data is safely on the other drives. You simply replace the bad drive and march on. Yes - you can use 4 separate 4TB drives. Be aware though, that since it creates a redundant back-up of your data, you will not have 16TB of total storage, but just under 11TB. I suggest you visit the DROBO website, it has excellent documentation on everything. « Show Less
663100
No. If you use Synology Hybrid RAID, you can expand with the same or larger drives. With 5 bays, there are numerous expansion options and multiple volume options. There is a lis of options on Synology's website support.
506083
Unless I'm mistaken, there isn't a "newer" drobo. The drobo 5d is currently the latest and greatest and as far as I know you can put any hard drive into the drobo 5d. In fact, can even mix different drives and sizes.
932551
Currently running four 4T WD drives , Win 7, 64 bit machinr. No idea if they support boot, using all for storage with four other 2T and 4 other 1T drives. Most are Seagate.
1107731
The largest drives this unit supports are the Seagate Constellation ES.3 (Model number ST5000NM0024) which is a 5TB drive. Filling every bay with these 5TB drives will grant you 40TB maximum storage in RAID0 or JBOD modes, but in order to allow redundancy (if a drive fails you don't lose your data) you will need to set it up as RAID 5, giving you 35TB of space (one drive is treated as 'parity' which means if another drive fails, that spare drive will maintain your backup data). To see all drives that are compatible with the unit, go to the QNap Product site, and click on the "Compatibility" link under "Products". From there, click on the 3.5" link and select the model you wish to see the drive compatibility of. It will give you a huge list of every drive manufacturer, and each model number of drive they have tested, verified works, and support.
1905072
I have the same Synology 1813+ DiskStation, set up in a RAID 6 (with data protection) configuration, and I have temporarily filled only 5 of the 8 drive bays, as I do not need the entire 8-bay (4TB each) amount of the storage, and in addition, I don't want to use these drives yet to extend their useful lifetime. Additional drives can be added one-by-one as needed. So yes, what you are asking will work fine. And this unit is a GREAT feature-packed NAS! I've had it for 8 months now, and love it.
17637
Check out on of the Drobo enclosures. Drobo Beyond Raid 4-Bay USB 2.0/FireWire 800 SATA 6GB/S Storage Array with Drobo PC Backup DR04DD10
195135
I would strongly advise Against swapping the drives out for a DR purpose, as there is NO guarantee that you would be able to re-build the RAID on the system in the event that you lose both drives. You would be better keeping the drives singular out of RAID for that purpose, unless you are fully bringing down / rebuilding a RAID each time you swap the drives.. which gets costly / time consuming.
104431
I too have 4 Western Digital Red 3TB drives in mine. No problems. Assuming that your drives are the same physical size as these, you should be OK.
1531894
Yes. The populated version comes with WD Red drives. Should read that in the description.