Drobo 5D is not trustworthy

By believing the ad from Drobo, I brought a Drobo 5D June 2013. I installed a Plextor PX-128M5M as an SSD Cache and 5 WD30EFRX for storing with 2 disks redundancy. For using with OSX, I format it with HFS+ in Drobo Dashboard.

After 2 weeks, it’s failed. The partition cannot be mounted, neither fixed by OSX. After checked by engineer from DiskWarrior, I know the partition is too severely damaged and not possible to recover. I contact the support of Drobo. After 45 days waiting, I get the respond. The problem is partition-related (offset) and should be fixed by firmware 3.0.5. But the my Drobo 5D is shipped with firmware 3.0.7. Finally, the Drobo says there is no way to repo in the lab, and I lost all my home videos for 5 years.

For preventing this issue again, I rebuilt the partition and sent the log to Drobo engineer. After checking the log, the engineer confirmed it’s looks great now.

But, it’s failed again after 2 months. Same behavior, same problem confirmed by DiskWarrior. The funny thing is the support engineer from Drobo. After I submit the ticket again, first response is:

“Western Digital has emailed customers warning them about possible data loss issues between external hard drives and the latest version of Apple’s Mac software, OS X Mavericks (10.9).” taken from this article below:
http://www.zdnet.com/western-digital-warns-customers-os-x-mavericks-may-destroy-drive-data-7000022800/

On another note, not sure whether it is related, your mSATA card may not be entirely compatible, it is not found from the list shown here:
http://support.drobo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/662/

Should I worry about WD software? I guess not. for mSATA SSD cache thing, the PX-128M5M removed from the supported list, without any explanation, and not be put in to incompatible list either. It’s just gone.

After I tell the support I didn’t use WD software but Drobo Dashboard and prove the PX-128M5M WAS on the compatible list by searching mirroring sites, Drobo does like before, just ignore you and do not reply any more.

Now, this Drobo 5D is on my shelf to warn me and my friend: NEVER BUY THE DROBO PRODUCTS.

4 thoughts on “Drobo 5D is not trustworthy

  1. DROBO RAID— DON’T BUY THIS DROBO whether it is Drobo 5N, 5 D, Drobo mini. Warn people about DROBO!!!

    I fully agree with you Drobo 5D is an evil RAID and I lost 10 TB of my data with photos and videos I treasured and archived for over 20 years. The support from Drobo is simply terrible and pathetic.
    I wrote to the CEO but there is no response as well. All they want to do is to keep asking you to submit ticket and log which could never be retrieved since you cannot connect to the stupid drobo box.

    Raid is supposed to help safeguard my data but it crashed and in the process also brought down another of my internal harddisk in my pc and I had to spend USD 3000 to recover this. But all my 10TB of data in the STUPID EVIL DROBO 5D is lost forever.

    I tried to get the local DROBO office to help in my country but they told me I can only submit a ticket and they will not entertain walk in. The guy Patrick says he will be sack if he provides walk in support for Drobo.

    Spread the word around so that other people do not suffer my fate.

    Drobo 5D is a nightmare
    Drobo 5D is evil
    Support from Drobo is pathetic
    Drobo is an unstable and slow RAID
    Drobo is unreliable.

    I just found out that there are so many bad review of Drobo in CNET and so many people have suffered this fate.

    I am so angry with this stupid drobo thingy. Unlikely you I am planning to take a video of me crushing the stupid Drobo box by driving over it after I have exhausted other measures to recover my data and post it to warn people. Placing Drobo on your table does not warn people.

    We have to get together to bring this evil Drobo to take responsibility for wasting one week of my time thus far, USD 3000 , one 3 TB Seagate internal harddisk and 5x3TB Seagate harddisk with 10TB worth of data inside. and pain, suffering , agony and regrets.

    http://reviews.cnet.com/external-hard-drives/drobo/4505-3190_7-32470303.html

  2. Why didn’t you have a backup of the data stored on the Drobo? Any device that is used for “primary” storage means you still need to safeguard your data by keeping it in an _additional_ place. This is Redundancy 101.

      1. Agreed; Waiting 45 days for a support response is inexcusable.

        But I think it’s important to remember too that the RAIDs-in-a-box are pretty advanced appliances, and are extremely dependent on compatibility with the disks a user installs into them. Many of the failures I have seen haven’t been the RAID enclosure’s “fault”, but the disks themselves.

        That may or may not have been the case for you, but fully blaming the manufacturer of the RAID enclosure only isn’t always fair. Thanks for the response.

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