Totally agree - I use mine as just another tertiary backup, so not a huge loss if I eventually lose access to it. But I wanna keep her running as long as I can (might as well) 
Really just sharing my experience in case others want to do any OS upgrades, etc. on their macs in relation to Drobo units.
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I thought that might be the case. But I hate it when people lose their files, photos, memories, etc. when a word from someone might have prevented it.
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Wow, great to see you still getting some value from your Drobo so many years later. Iāve passed along my 5D3 to a friend who uses it to store video and media files that he doesnāt care about.
He is a Windows user, so it works just fine for him.
Personally I replaced my Drobo with 4 x Thunderbolt 4 Enclosures from Satechi with high speed SSD MVME cards. One is setup with a MacOS RAID 1 Mirrow and the other two just swinging in the wind. Works wonderfully well for what I need.
And donāt forget to backup important data. Time Machine and Backblaze are my go-toās.
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When my poor Drobo dies, I will need another JBOD solution in order to backup a portion of my ever increasing media server hosted on Synology. It sucks using multiple individual external harddrives to backup this content 
, so Drobo is great for this purpose until it dies on me. I even have a spare Drobo power supply in case that dies on me again.
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I updated to 15.4 and Drobo will not mount on my Mac I rebooted and same thing. I do have green lights on the Drobo though as if it is connected.
Iād run my 5D3 up and test, however sadly canāt find the power cable.
The end is close no question, but letās see if you can squeeze out another minor revision of MacOS update.
First letās see if the kernel extension is available and running.
- Open System Information
- Navigate to Software/Extensions and type āDroboā to skip forward
- Hopefully it looks like this
If it does, Iām honestly not sure what to suggest. I had intermitted issues with mounting when I gave up last year sometime, so it might come good with some good old fiddling.
If it doesnāt, this might be an issue with the kernel extension just not working with 15.4. You can try to run these commands to see if they help:
1 - Check that the Kernel Extension actually exists
kextfind |grep -I Drobo
2 - Try to manually load the Kernel Extension, warning this requires root permission (ie sudo) however shouldnāt pose any major risk to your system:
kextutil -load /Library/Extensions/DroboTBT.kext
Failing all that, you might like to try to remove and re-install the Drobo Desktop (let me know if you need a download location), donāt forget you will need to confirm specific boot settings (system security changes). I canāt remember what, but it was thingā¦maybe?
PS - Did you try both Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C connection?
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Iām also upgrading my MacStudio now to 15.4, it has the Drobo software still installed and the Kernel Extension running. Iāll see if that is still the case after the install and report back.
After upgrade to 15.4, the Kernel Extension appears to be still available and loading.
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Thanks for the help and tips!
It is running - here is mine:
Yes - it appears to be running. Here is my returned result from Terminal:
/Library/Extensions/DroboTBT.kext
I may try this. I found my saved copy of the installer:
I gave up on Thunderbolt last year because that stopped working for me, so Iāve been using the USB 3.0 port. I may play around with this again.
I appreciate the help! Seems like MacOS just does not like that kernel extension anymore since it appears to be loading and running on my system. 15.4 seems like a bit of a rough upgrade with certain programs.
I have no real knowledge about Drobos, but one ānice thingā of the 15.4 update is that Apple is asking to grant permission again for all apps that previously already had received the clearance for access to the local network.
I have no idea if the Drobo connection falls under this category, but just in case:
Could it be a permissions issue? Are there other permissions under Privacy and Security for the Drobo Dashboard that have to be granted? If so: turning them off and back on again may be an idea.
I did notice this when I installed 15.4. I donāt recall a prompt for Drobo though.
I just now checked this and there is no entry for Drobo. I donāt know if Drobo was present prior to 15.4?
I do still get this pop-up if I open Drobo Dashboard:
Iāll give this a try. Thanks.
I got her working! 
Not sure which of the following steps worked in the end, but this is what I did and now it mounts and appears in Drobo Dashboard (I never did uninstall/re-install anything):
- Shut down mac, unplugged Drobo from USB, then manually powered OFF the Drobo
- Restarted mac in Admin mode
- Updated Onyx to latest version and ran all the Maintenance tasks
- Logged back into Admin, then logged out, then back into my main account, then shut down mac again
- Plugged Drobo back into USB and manually powered Drobo back ON
- After Drobo green lights appeared as normal, I powered up mac and logged into main account
- Voila - all is right with the world (well at least for my mac anyways - Iāll leave the rest of the world out of this)
Drobo kept a-rolling all night long ā¦ Drobo kept a-rolling all night long ā¦
I think I might be the very last Drobo user in this forum 
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Youāve got me tempted to get mine out and fired up again. Just for a tertiary backup device.
Might as well continue to get use out of it until it truly no longer works. I have a spare power supply for it when that goes. Itās useful to have these extra backups in place on it (so itās not the end of the world when it truly dies). When it dies, Iāll need a new DAS housing for these 16TB harddrives in it.
Iām tempted to get an M4 Max Mac Studio though soon to replace my 2018 i7 Mac Mini (which still works with everything). I was gonna wait a few more years but wondering if now is a good time to get it with everything going on in the world. M4 Max Studio seems more interesting to me now than the M4 Pro Mac Mini (pricing-wise with what you get). Hopefully Drobo works okay though with M4 Macs.
My last Drobo (Drobo 2, purchased in 2009 or something like that) is still in active use with a friend who uses it for media storage for files he doesnāt care about.
He has three spare power supplies (it goes through one every 2-3 years or so.
That is over 15 years of 24x7 always on service, canāt fault that for ROI.
Trick here is Windowsā¦a bit more forgiving for older hardware driver support.
Wow - that is amazing. I bought my Drobo in 2017 with two RMAs since then (last one in 2022 right before bankruptcy). So not sure how much longer this RMA unit will last.
Iām seeing some comments out there that the M4 Mac Studio works with Drobo - so I should be good if I decide to get it.
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Well I couldnāt help myself and bought an M4 Max Mac Studio ā¦ man this thing flies compared to my 2018 intel i7 Mac Mini. Iām still setting it up since I have to deal with ARM stuff to get everything like before, but was able to get my Drobo 5Dt working on it. Everything works including the dashboard. I did have to reduce permissions at the Mac security level to support the Drobo extension (I suggest doing this part first (and reboot) before plugging the Drobo in to avoid hangups with the system):
Reduce Drobo Security Permissions
To use Drobo Dashboard on a Mac with Apple Silicon, you need to reduce security permissions and allow user management of kernel extensions from identified developers. Here are the steps to follow:
1. Shut down your Mac and hold the power button until you see āLoading startup options.ā
2. Click āOptionsā and then āContinueā to enter Recovery Mode.
3. In the Recovery Mode, go to āUtilitiesā and select āStartup Security Utility.ā
4. In the Startup Security Utility, select āReduced Securityā and enable āAllow user management of kernel extensions from identified developers.ā
5. After enabling these settings, reboot your Mac and go to System Settings >> Privacy and Security >> Privacy.
6. Scroll to the bottom under the Security heading and select the radio button for āAllow App Store and identified developers.ā
7. Under Full Disk Access, enable āDDService64dā and allow the Drobo Dashboard app.
These steps should help you manage your Drobo with macOS updates.
Wow that would be a spectacular upgrade, whilst the Intel Mac mini would still be doing ok (just like my MacBook Pro from 2016 that my kids use) the magnitude of that upgrade will be outstanding.
Enjoy & thanks for letting us know that your Drobo still lives (at least for the moment).
<insert standard disclaimer here about what a Drobo is currently useful forā¦given if it dies & you donāt have another chassis or the driver stops working on computers you can accessā¦you wonāt be able to recover data >
Shame that a good solid hardware RAID 5 bay DAS isnāt something the market generally wants.
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picked up a drobo only this Saturday , it sits next to my Synology DS420J 4 BAY
0NLY Ā£40 works excellent to back up my back up .
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