Drobo Adds Thunderbolt Support, Solid State Drives

Drobo introduced the Drobo 5D and Drobo Mini on Thursday with improved performance thanks to the introduction of solid state drives, and Thunderbolt interfaces.

The Drobo drives are data storage systems that support hot-swapping hard drives to gain additional capacity or to replace defective drives.

The Drobo 5D with dual Thunderbolt portsThe Drobo 5D with dual Thunderbolt ports

Both models include two Thunderbolt ports along with USB 3.0, a redesigned hardware and software architecture for improved performance and reliability, and by adding what the company is calling SSD acceleration the Drobo D5 and Drobo Mini offer substantially faster data transfer speeds.

The Drobo drive arrays use the company’s own BeyondRAID technology, and both include built-in batteries to help prevent data loss during power outages.

The Drobo 5D supports up to five hard drives and includes an extra bay for an SSD drive, and can hold up to 16TB of data.

The Drobo MiniThe Drobo Mini

The Drobo Mini is a portable drive array that measures seven inches long and two inches tall, weighs under three pounds, and can hold up to four 2.5-inch SSD or traditional hard drives.

Drobo plans to release the Drobo 5D and Drobo Mini in July. Pricing hasn’t been announced yet.