Drobo 5D First Look

The Drobo 5D is the first dual USB 3.0/Thunderbolt RAID system from Drobo. It had a long anticipate wait, but now I have one in my possession. Was it worth the long wait? Lets see!

This is a first look at the newest Drobo. I will follow up with a more comprehensive take/review later.

My Drobo 5D setup:

Five Seagate ST3000DM001 3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 

Crucial M4  mSATA 6gb/s 128GB SSD w/ latest firmware 01MG as the cache accelerator drive.

My set-up gives me 10.89TB useable space (15TB of drive, actual size 13.64TB).

I quickly added a mSATA SSD and loaded it up with drives.

Depending on how it is connected, you will see a unique icon on the Mac desktop. You will easily tell if you are connected via USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt.

Loading up the Dashboard software, you will be greeted with various configuration and monitoring tools.

How does it compare to other drives I have in my possession? That will be the topic of my next post as I get more familiarized with the Drobo 5D. A full review of the Drobo 5D will appear on this blog shortly.

Update: You can read my full review here : http://fortysomethinggeek.blogspot.com/2012/11/drobo-5d-usb-3-and-thunderbolt-review.html