D

Drobo

Other B2B Software · San Jose, United States · Founded 2004

Drobo, formerly known as Data Robotics, was a computer hardware company that specialized in external data storage solutions. Founded in 2005 by Geoff Barrall, Julian Terry, and Ken Rosen, the company was established to simplify data protection and expandability for a market that included consumers, creative professionals, and small-to-medium businesses. Barrall, a serial entrepreneur with a background in the storage industry, aimed to create a storage device that was powerful yet simple enough for anyone to use. The company's core offering was a series of Direct Attached Storage (DAS) and Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices, also named Drobo. These devices were built around a proprietary technology called BeyondRAID. The key benefit of BeyondRAID was its flexibility; it allowed users to mix and match hard drives of different capacities and manufacturers within the same unit, a significant departure from the restrictions of traditional RAID systems. This system provided data redundancy to protect against single or dual hard drive failures and allowed for seamless capacity expansion without downtime or complex manual data migration. Drobo's product line included models with varying numbers of drive bays (from four to twelve) and a range of connectivity options such as USB, FireWire, eSATA, Ethernet, and Thunderbolt to cater to different user needs and performance requirements. Drobo's business model revolved around the one-time sale of its hardware units. The company initially targeted consumers and prosumers, particularly in the photography and media creation fields, who needed to manage large volumes of digital data. It later expanded its focus to include small and medium-sized businesses with products like the DroboPro FS. Over the years, the company went through several structural changes, including a name change from Data Robotics to Drobo Inc. in 2011, a merger with Connected Data, Inc. in 2013 (a company also founded by Barrall), a spin-off and acquisition by an investment group in 2015, and finally, an acquisition by StorCentric in 2018. Despite its initial popularity, Drobo faced increasing competition from cloud storage services and other NAS providers. After struggling with supply chain issues and financial difficulties, its parent company, StorCentric, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in mid-2022, which was later converted to Chapter 7 liquidation in April 2023. As of January 27, 2023, all Drobo products and official support were discontinued, with the company transitioning to a self-service support model through its online knowledge base. Keywords: Drobo, Data Robotics, BeyondRAID, external storage, data storage, NAS, DAS, storage solutions, storage appliance, RAID, data protection, storage robot, Geoff Barrall, StorCentric, direct attached storage, network attached storage, file storage, data redundancy, hard drive enclosure, backup solution, data management