Drobo 8D 8-Bay Thunderbolt 3 Enclosure

Designed to meet the needs of data-intensive workflows and SMBs that require high-capacity storage solutions, including Apple Final Cut Pro X, Adobe Lightroom, and more, the 8D 8-Bay Thunderbolt 3 Enclosure from Drobo is equipped with eight 3.5" SATA drive bays. Built with two integrated Thunderbolt 3 ports, the 8D is compatible with systems running macOS 10.12 and later with the HFS+ file system. While one of the Thunderbolt 3 ports is used to connect the 8D to your compatible Mac, the second one is used to daisy-chain up to six Thunderbolt devices together, including one 5K display or two 4K displays. The Thunderbolt 3 ports also provide 15W of charging power for Thunderbolt 3 laptops.

To help complement the speeds of Thunderbolt 3, the 8D has been built with Drobo's Accelerator Bay, which uses an separately sold 2.5" SATA SSD in a dedicated 2.5" drive bay to boost system performance. It accomplishes this by placing data that is read or written into SSD storage. When the data is active, it is stored in the SSD and will be moved back to the hard drive tier as its use decreases. SSDs can also be used in the front bays of the 8D for Data-Aware Tiering, allowing for transactional data to migrate to the SSDs. This helps ensure that both reads and writes are accelerated.

To facilitate data protection, Drobo's BeyondRAID technology enables single or dual-drive redundancy. If there are any empty drive bays, BeyondRAID allows additional drives to be inserted into the array, where they would be automatically configured. If all drive bays are occupied, simply replace the smallest capacity drive with a larger one and BeyondRAID will handle the rest. BeyondRAID is also what allows drives of varying capacities to work in the same unit, which helps enable future expansion as larger drives become available.

Additional data protection is provided by the internal rechargeable battery, which helps protect data stored in the 8D's cache. If there were to be a sudden power loss, the battery allows the Drobo to stay powered long enough for the cached data to be written to non-volatile storage. Cooling is provided by dual fixed cooling fans and once installed, the hard drives can be configured to spin down when they're not in use, helping to further reduce noise and energy. Also, the LEDs can be dimmed to reduce light pollution when working in sensitive environments. The Drobo 8D includes a 3.3' Thunderbolt 3 cable and a 6.0' power cord with a power supply that operates using 100-240 VAC at 50-60 Hz. Protection is provided by a limited 2-year warranty.