Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Update: Drobo finally confirmed both units were indeed faulty. Completely unreliable and untimely support, plus only 90 day technical support, not 1 year. First off, I have been an IT professional for over two decades, and have personally set up and recommended many Drobos (from the standard Drobo to the Drobo Pro) for various businesses. The past Drobo units have worked exceptionally, but when I purchase the new Drobo 3rd generation for myself, it is nothing but failures. The first unit would eventually be found to be dead on arrival. Out of the box it would refuse to connect, as other times it would connect, then disconnect randomly after a while. The same thing occurred on USB 3.0 as well as USB 2, and with different cables and USB 3.0 cards (as even Drobo says on their website it is picky in what USB 3.0 cards it likes). Even one card on their verified list was tried and had the exact same issues. Note that none of my other external drives, USB 3.0 or 2, had any such problems and always stayed connected. The Drobo even rejected a HDD I would later find was completely fine, passing all manufacturer's diagnostic tests and currently running flawlessly in another system. When the Drobo finally appeared to be running after many many hours of troubleshooting, data was copied to it. By the next day the Drobo drive was coming up as unformatted or showing as 'local disk', and even Drobo support verified all the data was gone and the only option was to reformat. After much more troubleshooting with Drobo support over many days, they verified it was bad and I requested a brand new Drobo to be shipped to me overnight, which they did. Even though Drobo support has failed to resolve the Drobo issues, they appear to be American based support with minimal to no hold times and reasonable support hours. After the first Drobo was declared failed, I had to take one of the four Drobo drives from the array and use it for my data backup, which should not be an issue because the new Drobo can rebuild the data from the 3 remaining drives and I can add another blank disk later. I put the 3 drives in the new Drobo and it rejects one of the known good drives, and will not spin it up properly in any of the Drobo's bays. This is the 2nd time Drobo has failed to protect my data, and the second time Drobo has rejected a known good drive because I would later test that drive in my system, and it spins up perfectly every time, and 100% passes all manufacture diagnostic tests & is running in a different system perfectly. Drobo support said it is unusual that the new Drobo is rejecting a drive the other Drobo was okay with, and it would have rebuilt properly if the Drobo was not rejecting a known good drive. Support said to reformat the array. The format took over 30 minutes, which should normally take about 5, and even Drobo support said this was odd. The new Drobo ran perfectly fine for a few days until one night before bed I receive a Drobo email alert from the Drobo email alerting system I setup. It said that the Drobo was critically low on space and to add a new drive immediately. I know the array was only a fraction of the way full and nothing was being added to it. But sure enough the Drobo unit and the Drobo dashboard said it was completely full. I could still see data on the drive, and verified Drobo was inaccurately reporting what was on it. As I was taking screenshots and documenting this for Drobo support, the Drobo drive disconnects from my system, and from that point forward, it never reconnected again. It would only show up as 'local disk', not formatted, or not show up at all. It also made my mouse pointer & computer lag majorly when the Drobo was connected and turned on. Keep in mind, none of the other external USB drives connected to my computer had any issue, even when connected to the exact same ports the Drobo was. This is the 3rd time in less than a month's time that Drobo has failed to keep my data intact and lost it. Drobo support would usually take days to respond to me, and would often require my prompting for them to respond. Even during the times I stated I would call in, they said the tier 2 or 3 support agents would call me back, but never did even when they promised they would. Two different days they promised to call me back, but never did. As an IT professional, I know how good documentation is to troubleshooting, and I proved them detailed screenshots, Drobo diagnostic logs, system logs, troubleshooting notes, even a video of the Drobo troubleshooting, and I would often be asked back simple questions that they would not have had to ask for if they would have simply looked at the screenshots I carefully provided. After nearly a month of dealing with Drobo and all their problems, I have had enough and have since returned both Drobo units. I cannot recommend Drobo anymore. There is clearly something wrong with this new generation Drobo, as other reviewers are saying much of the same thing. Support is lacking, does not respond promptly, and does not keep their promises. If your Drobo shows any of the following symptoms, ditch it: -If you power on the Drobo with all drives inserted, Drobo dashboard will not see it. -If you power on the Drobo with all drives removed, Drobo dashboard will see it. -Random disconnects of the drives. -Not showing up in the Drobo dashboard. -Suddenly showing the entire array as full. -Your Drobo drive saying it is not formatted, or showing up as 'local disk'. -Slow computer and/or mouse performance when the Drobo is connected & turned on, but performance immediately comes back as soon as you disconnect or turn off the Drobo. -Long time to format a drive. -Drobo rejecting known good drives, even drives that pass the manufacturer's tests 100%. -Extremely slow transfers. -Transfers that will eventually time out. -Support that cannot resolve issues, slow to respond taking up to a week or more, and promises to call you back multiple times and never does. Drobo on 10/16/14: "Thank you for the very detailed update! I'll pass your case information and diagnostics to our Development department for review. I'll be in contact again as soon as I hear back from them." 10/23/14 A week later, still no response. This is not uncommon for a week or more to go by before Drobo support responds, and this is now after being escalated to "our highest tier of support". Potential buyers should be wary of this. 11/6/14 Three weeks later, and no response from followup@drobo.com, or "our highest tier of support". This only affirms what I have said and the lack of Drobo support. 11/7/14: Received an automated email from Drobo stating that for the 1 year warranty on the unit, tech support would end in 30 days. Drobo is selling their units as 1-year warranty, but will only offer technical support on it for 90 days. This is completely unacceptable and deceptive. Drobo's warranty description on their official website: "One (1) year warranty in the US or outside the EU or two (2) year warranty in the EU." Drobo's bait & switch warranty from the email I received: "Thank you for the purchase of your Drobo. This e-mail is to confirm that our records show your Standard Warranty will expire on 09/08/2015, and to remind you that the 90 days of technical support coverage included with your Standard Warranty, will expire in 30 days." 11/21/14 Over a month and Drobo did not respond. I emailed them due to their lack of response, and they only responded back after a month because I contacted them. Drobo says they are still 'investigating', but did confirm that both units were defective as I originally suspected. "Thanks for checking in. Sorry for the delay we are very thoroughly investigating your issue." "I suspect the units both had something wrong with them from diagnostic output. Also the diagnostics output for each looks slightly different, so the issue each had is suspected to be different."