Selecting Drives - Drobo 5N2 User Manual

1.1.4.1 Selecting Drives

The Drobo 5N2 supports both standard 3.5" SATA hard disk drives (HDDs) as well as SATA solid state
drives (SSDs) for added performance. For HDDs, these drives can be from any manufacturer and with
any capacity. For SSDs, please visit our web page for compatible drive options.
In addition, the Drobo 5N2 has a Drobo Accelerator Bay, which accepts an industry-standard mSATA
SSD. When the mSATA SSD is installed, Drobo's Hot Data Caching feature is enabled, accelerating
performance when reading data from your Drobo device. Having an mSATA SSD installed leaves all
drive bays available for high-capacity hard disk drives (HDDs) so that you can get both high-capacity
and accelerated performance out of your Drobo device.
Note
Make sure that you are not using SandForce SSD's or mSATA.
Using only SSDs in the main drive bays of your Drobo 5N2 provides the fastest performance when
reading and writing data to and from your Drobo device.
In summary, here are the recommended number and type of drives you can use with your Drobo
5N2:
2 to 5 HDDs in the main drive bays - enables you to maximize capacity
●
2 to 5 HDDs in the main drive bays plus an mSATA SSD installed - enables you to maximize
●
capacity and accelerate read performance
2 to 5 SSDs in the main drive bays with no mSATA SSD - enables you to maximize read and write
●
performance
Note
In the event of drive failure, you need to insert 5 drives in the drive bays to ensure that
your data is protected and to avoid any formatting issues.
For a performance comparison of these options, see the image below.
Drobo5N2 User Guide 15