Can I add pre-formatted disks into drobo or will I have to format them first?
2010994
Yes. They will be reformatted as part of the process so it doesn't matter if they are unformatted or have data on them.
2010995
I'm pretty sure it has to format them. When you put a drive in it will look at it and say that to use it it will need to format it and ask if you want to do that. But I'm not 100% sure. Drobo.com has a pretty good support section where I bet you can find the answer.
228619
Yes, though i have not done it from the sn-301 directly. Go into the settings and explore the options for "format hdd". This may be what you're looking for.
851074
This hooks up to your computer, and then yes you can format the disks. I've done it so I know you can. Hope this helps and answers your question
2223309
This is an mSATA drive. The Drobo5N specs state an mSATA solid state drive is compatible.
871205
Thats a broad question... It depends on the codec your using, I use this as a archival for projects and media. Most of the time I use 4TB G-Raids because I edit in Apple ProRes HQ and occasionally in Uncompressed 444. I haven't tested the speeds of the Drobo for anything other than archive. The other thing you need to consider is the speed of the drives your using in the Drobo, you shouldn't use anything slower than 7200 rpm drives. You'll regret buying the cheeper 5600 rpm drives because it will drop frames if it plays at all. I hope this helps. Jeff
58974
All new drives tend to come needing formatting. Choose NTFS, not FAT32, that simple
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.
577668
Yes, you could format it as a NTFS or FAT32. Mac (as well as Windows obviously) supports both.
548967
Yes you can. In fact the first time you set your Time Machine up have to decide what not to back up because the default is your entire system. That is including all disks connected to it.
1925073
You can set the disks to be seperate drives if you wish, details on doing this are under the section titled 'using JBOD' in the managing storage section in the manual.
506900
Hello Edward. You definitely can. In this case you should select SHR RAID type, so you can add the other disk later. I personally would recommend you to begin with both disk, because, with them you could use SHR or RAID 1 (mirror disks) so in case of failure of one of the disks all the information will be in the other one. This is one of the main features of a RAID system that makes it a better option than an external USB disk that you should use from the very beginning.Hope it helps.
1776683
Yes it is.....when you get the drive reformat it to Mac os extended journal
506085
Something else to think about... Whether or not newer, larger capacity drives will be compatible with any current Drobo model, your will still probably be limited to the current 16 TB max volume size limitation.
1069147
Sorry I don't have an answer for you, the drive is for a Drobo Raid and it's not something that concerned me when I made the purchase. It was however physically an exact match to the Older drive it replaced, I hope that helps.
1820780
Yes they can. The drobo 5n is network storage and compatible both with Windows 7 and a Mac. I have set up machines in this configuration without issue. Don't forget to install the drobo tools on one or both of the machines for managing the shares, user accounts, etc. You do not need the tools on a machine that simply needs to see the shares, but you will need them to be installed on a machine that needs to create and manage shares and users.
906181
Practically you will need to put your drives into another DiskStation - I've done this and the data was migrated with no problems and no action needed from me. However, mind that you can't put 7 discs into a 4 bay box - but if you have only 4 drives in your 8-bay box, you can put them in a 4-bay box and they will show. They also must be put in the new box in the same order as they were in the old box.
196551
Actually no. In fact Drobo states as such on their Web site. It does make a substantial difference with traditional hard drives.