There are so many different external hard drives out there that do the same things. Plug them in to your Mac, and they can hold extra content, or back up your machine using Time Machine. Drobo is, and always has been different. The company has created a line of desktop storage options that use a technology it calls BeyondRAID, allowing you to easily protect your data, and expand the storage capacity as needed. Newest among them is the third generation of the flagship Drobo ($349+), with a lower price and more advanced features.
Drobo can hold up to four 3.5” hard drives, for a total of up to 24TB of storage. You can either provide the drives yourself, or order them from the company at the time of purchase. That’s the maximum capacity, but you can change it on the fly. Have a handful of non-matching drives? Pop them in, and Drobo will automatically arrange the storage array using its proprietary software. This version includes USB 3.0, is three times faster than the previous generation, and has a backup battery. It also plays better with Time Machine, allowing you to set aside a specific amount of storage just for automatic backups.