Features and Benefits of Drobo FS

You told us what you wanted, and we listened. The revolutionary Drobo FS was designed with one purpose in mind: to deliver the best file sharing experience ever. From the moment you plug it in and see it instantly appear on your desktop, you'll know there's nothing like it. The all-in-one Drobo FS is perfect for any connected home, home office, or small office environment needing a simple, safe device for sharing and backing up files over the network.

Like all Drobo storage products, Drobo FS provides redundant data protection without the complexities of RAID. Just plug in your Drobo FS, and your data protection is all set up with no configuration required. We call this BeyondRAID™ technology. You'll call it peace of mind.

	Share your data on a Gigabit Ethernet Network Drobo FS connects directly to a Gigabit Ethernet network to make sharing your data easy. Just plug it into any switch or wireless router and you areready to go.
	Supports the Computer of Your Choice Connect to your Drobo FS using any Windows, Mac, or UNIX/Linux computer.¹ Whatever system you have, it's likely you'll be able to connect to it over your network quickly and easily
	Easy Expansion to 10TB and Beyond Drobo FS holds up to five drives allowing you to effortlessly grow your storage to meetyour data capacity needs. To add more space, simply insert a new hard drive or replace your smallest drive with a larger one, even when all drive bays are full. And unlike traditional RAID systems, the BeyondRAID technology in Drobo FS enables you to mix and match drive capacities, brands and speeds. This unprecedented flexibility allows for continuous expansion as available hard drive capacities increase. With Drobo FS, expansion is automatic, instantaneous and access to data is always maintained.
	Backup Your Network Drobo FS is the perfect backup appliance. Use the free DroboCopy utility to create backups for every machine on your network, or use your favorite backup software.
	Protection from up to Two Drive Failures Enable the dual-drive redundancy option to protect your data from failure of up to two hard drives. It's all done with a single-click and you never lose access to your data. Running out of space? No problem. Switch back to single-drive redundancy at any time. Unlike moving between traditional RAID levels, there's no need to reformat or migrate data off of the Drobo FS — potentially saving you hours or days of downtime.
	Self-Healing Technology With the self-healing technology incorporated into Drobo FS, your data is safer than ever. When sitting idle, Drobo FS will proactively examine the blocks and sectors on every drive, flagging questionable areas. This preemptive " scrubbing" helps ensure your data is being written only to the healthy areas of your drives. When a drive fails, Drobo FS keeps your data in the safest state possible by moving your data to the available space on the remaining healthy drives.

Seamless Integration with Apple Time Machine
The Drobo FS enables network backup for Mac users at home, home office or small offices. The Drobo FS delivers the most seamless support for Apple Time Machine of any network storage system on the market today. Using Time Machine with Drobo FS is as easy as clicking one box in the Drobo Dashboard software, with no need for confusing, complex command line work.

Model Comparison of Drobo Storage Appliances

Model Comparison
Description	4-bay, FireWire 800 and USB 2.0	5-bay, eSATA and FireWire 800	5-bay, Gigabit Ethernet
Type	Direct-Attached	Direct-Attached	File Sharing (up to 10 users)
Drive Bays	4	5	5
Drive Type	3.5" SATA	3.5" SATA	3.5" SATA
Interfaces	USB 2.0, FireWire 800	USB 3.0 / 2.0, FireWire 800, eSATA	1 x Gb Ethernet
Form Factor	Desktop	Desktop	Desktop
BeyondRAIDTM
Thin Provisioning
Drive Protection	Single	Single or Dual	Single or Dual
Smart Volumes	Automatic	Automatic	Automatic
Drobo Apps	N/A	N/A
Power / Cooling	Fixed	Fixed	Fixed
Management	Drobo Dashboard	Drobo Dashboard	Drobo Dashboard
Drobo CareTM	Optional	Optional	Optional
Model	Shop Drobo	Shop Drobo S	Shop Drobo FS