Unfortunately, I had no idea Drobo filed bankruptcy. I found out the hard way when I had to erase my MAC due to an issue with the operating system. Now my mac won’t mount to the Drobo 5D3 and I don’t have the Drobo dashboard or software on my computer. Does anyone know of a way to get the MAC to recognize the Drobo? Would it mount if I was able to get the dashboard software? My Drobo still works. I just want to get my data and move on. I have decades of data on it, sadly.
Hi @Michelle_Murphy, the good news is that it should still work if you install the Drobo Desktop, I would hold off any further MAC updates however until you complete the data extraction.
I note that the Drobo web site is no longer available, hence you can’t download the software, however I have a copy and I’ve PM’d you a link to download from my OneDrive.
Install it, grab your files & power down the Drobo and forget about it. Just a shame that I can’t find anything that is a “modern” update, at it’s core this is still a fantastic solution that was ahead of its time even when I purchased my 5D3 many years ago.
Hello, would it be possible to get a copy of the software as well? My dad’s Mac had to be reset and don’t have any installation of Drobo Desktop.
Sure no problem @SMac, here is a link, it’s time bombed after a week or so.
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ap-76uo9S9_agYImSZWYnB8ab_bQCA?e=ckwQ8o
If anyone else gets into a spot of bother after that link doesn’t work, let me know, happy to share it again.
But please, be actively migrating away from Drobo’s, mine only just works with Sonoma 14.3.1. Not just in a week, but today.
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You are a life saver. I was able to download the installer…thank you. And thank you for your detailed experience with Dashboard on Sonoma 
PS - I have a 5N2 that I will be getting rid of soon if anyone is looking for you.
Thanx!
Wondering if anyone on this thread has experienced hangs while transferring files from Drobo to another external drive?
This happens to me on 3 different laptops all running Sonoma, ,1 is fresh build, the other relatively new, less than 6 month. All laptops have plenty of memory, 16 Gb - 32 GB, and disk space if that matters.
Any insight is appreciated
I’m afraid that I’ve given up on my Drobo, it exists as a file vault at the moment (ie turned off and I’ve got no idea what is on it).
Good luck.
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So, recent victim of a Drobo death. My Drobo 5c started dismounting on its own, lost complete connection to Drobo dashboard, then a blinking red light in one of the drives. Progressed to solid red light, then data protection, eventually tried to replace bad drive, got all solid orange lights and then on starting up would shut itself down. This all happened over several days. Borrowed another person’s power cord and that did not help. I think the box was just fried.
I had already ordered a Thunderbay 4 unit which arrived today. Sadly, no local back up of 7 TB of data. Awaiting Backblaze restore hard drive which may take 3-4 weeks to get to me.
Wondering if anyone has an empty but functional Drobo unit (empty) and functional power cord I could get to see if I can recover my files. Or, I will just wait it out til Backblaze drive arrives.
I will second the recommendation to migrate to a new system as soon as feasible. This has been very stressful.
Where are you based?
Minneapolis, minnesota
Sadly that is a bit far from Melbourne/Australia, else you’d be welcome to try to recover from my 5D3.
Good luck!
Thanks anyway!
Hopefully the Backblaze restore will go fine.
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Netvet007 - I’ve been helping a friend with their Drobo challenges and I know they are trying to get rid of their 5N2 and a 5D. I’m also in Minneapolis. Reach out if any interest.
Hi - my 2018 Intel Mac Mini is still on Ventura (13.6.8) and my Drobo 5Dt is still working 
I want to upgrade to Sonoma 14.6 as I like to wait many months between OS upgrades, but would like to know if anyone’s Drobo is still working with Sonoma 14.6? I appreciate any feedback.
Separately - I also have Parallels on my Mac and was wondering if it could work in a Monterey OS VM setup that I have (I haven’t tested it yet but curious if anyone got that to work as a potential backup solution in keeping the Drobo connected). Thanks.
My experience was that getting my 5D3 working with Sonoma was challenging and resulted in an unreliable experience. My Drobo often wouldn’t mount, for days at a time & the Dashboard wouldn’t load reliably.
If you need to keep using your Drobo, don’t upgrade your macOS.
The only use case that I can see for Drobo is for any kind of data that is absolutely temporary in nature, that you don’t care at all if it is lost.
Using it for a primary backup, no way.
Using it for a secondary or tertiary backup, possibly ok.
Else, purchase yourself a cheap NUC, install windows and use your Drobo with some form of stability.
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I took the plunge today and upgraded 2018 Intel Mac Mini to Sonoma. Everything is working … I never had such a seamless trouble-free OS upgrade before Drobo is fine … even my old Parallels is still working (along with the original TextExpander). I think I’ll keep it frozen on Sonoma though as I plan to get a Mac Studio next year with an anticipated refresh … just happy to finally take advantage of its features and have it work seamlessly with my other iOS devices (I like having the widgets for one, and Notes is now fully compatible).
My Mac is actually running even better now overall with Sonoma, especially with Google Drive. Ventura did not like Google Drive with the amount of CPU and RAM it was always using (at least on my machine). Now that has fully gone away 
I like your idea of using a NUC for Drobo in future. I will have a spare one once I get a Mac Studio next year (Mac Mini will then be repurposed for something else that NUC is currently doing). I’ll keep using Drobo until it dies … not a problem if it does die on me as it’s used as a tertiary backup.
Hi Steve, I have just found this post. Big sigh… My Drobo stopped working quite a while ago, showing one of the hard drives was not working. I ordered a new one, but had not installed it till just now (very slack of me, I know, but so many competing priorities). About 3 months ago, I accidentally drove over my MacBook Pro running Sonoma and knew I had no recent backup. So purchased a refurbished machine and a tech was able to retrieve most of my data from my hard drive. But I really wanted to get my auto backups running again.
From what I am reading here that is not really an option. I have the Drobo 5N with 4x2Tb hard drives. So I just wasted that new red WD 2Tb drive? Sigh
When I booted up the Drobo just now, it shows the red light in the top corner. And this ‘new’ MacBook does not have Drobo Dashboard installed.
There is data on there that was not on the damaged MacBook Pro that I would like to retrieve.
Plus what suggestions for where to go from here? I loved my Drobo… Simply backup to an external drive manually?
And what about retrieving that data on the Drobo? Plus will those 4x 2Tb hard drives be useful for anything else???
Thanks for any suggestions and assistance.
Hi Suzy, sounds like a rather nasty situation.
The first thing to try would be to install the Drobo Dashboard, it will ask you to go and change some security settings, however might just work to help you get your data onto another destination.
I’ve uploaded it again, here is the link (password = macpowerusers)
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ap-76uo9S9_agYImosYGctuFxM2cgQ?e=owiomr
If you can’t get the Drobo Dashboard to work on this newer laptop, I’m sure someone in your life has an older MacBook somewhere that you could borrow for the purpose of installing the dashboard and freeing up your data.
Perhaps if you can share what country and city you are in, others here might also be able to help?
As to your new 2TB drive, and what to do with your other remaining 2TB drives once you’ve managed to free your data. My recommendations:
If you wanted to keep using a direct attached storage solution, OWC has a ThunderBay solution that is similar to Drobo however is a bit more open and flexible.
Most people went over to using Network Attached Storage, Synology are a great place to start.
With both solutions it’s important to note that as you move your drives over, they will need to be reformatted, none of your previous data would survive the process.
Good luck & if we can be of more help please yell out.
Steve
I was feeling brave so I went ahead and upgraded my 2018 Intel Mac Mini to Sequoia. Drobo 5D did not mount, so I panicked a bit. I kept at it after researching online and eventually got it to successfully mount again.
In short, I upgraded my Drobo Dashboard from 3.5.2 to 3.6.1 (thanks @SteveMac for the software!), and it still wouldn’t mount or show in the Dashboard. So I then uninstalled 3.6.1 and rebooted a few times, checked all permissions in System Prefs, and it eventually started to work (it would then mount and show in the Dashboard). On Day 2 now of it working
My standard advice for anyone that still uses a Drobo is to immediately copy your data to something more reliable. Like the cheapest, out of box, hard drive in the bargain bin at your local Best Buy. 