Both Seagate & WD are shipping internal version of their 3TB SATA-II 3.5" drives as early as last week. Any idea when DRI will release the new firmware for all Drobo models to support that?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2IMo4OhLsg&feature=related
What have you heard/read about the Seagate drive? The WD greens sounds idea for my Drobo but I really want a 3TB 7200rpm internal to go in my computer.
Warning in case you’re intending to use a 3TB drive as a system drive…
If you’re a Windows person, your system needs to support EFI (not traditional BIOS) in order to have a GPT boot volume, and a volume needs to be GPT in order to be >2TB.
Otherwise you’re forced to make the boot volume MBR which limits you to 2TB.
Thanks. It’ll probably just be for storage as I’ll stick to SSD for my main boot drive but I’m using a Mac Pro so as far as I can tell it should be supported as it uses EFI Firmware and OS X supports larger boot volumes.
From what I’ve read so far, the Mac’s hybrid EFI confuses Windows’s EFI detection, so stick with SSD boot drive. 
It looks like the Seagate Freeagent GoFlex USB external drive contains a single 7200rpm 3TB SATA drive. It’s getting tempting to buy one of those to strip for the drive as they are cheaper than the WD Green 3TB on pre-order and I really want a faster drive in the computer and the Greens/lower rpm for Drobo.
Data Robotics is in the process of updating our products via a firmware release to support greater than 2 TB drives.
http://support.datarobotics.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/506
Please do not add 3TB drives to your drobo before the release of the firmware.
Any ETA on a firmware release for any/all of the Drobos? “In the process of” is a little open ended 
im guessing if an estimate were available then jennifer would have given it yesterday when she made that post.
Yes exactly. We are working it. Unfortunately I do not have the exact time and date it will be released.
Also if you click on the link for the KB article I have posted, but here it is again: http://support.datarobotics.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/506
You will see the following information:
If you would like to be notified when the firmware update has been released, subscribe to this KB entry by clicking the “Notify” icon at the bottom of the page.
We will also post the release on the “Software Updates” page of our website.
@Jennifer - I wasn’t looking for an exact date and time. I was after an estimate i.e. ‘before Xmas’ or ‘1st quarter next year’ or ‘when the Mayan calendar ends’ or something to that effect. I have done the notify option.
No worries, just thought I’d ask the question as nobody had asked before.
an ideas on a time frame for this, my drobo is wanting more space, poor little guy looks rather full
Yeah if there’s any kind of broad estimate on a timeline for a firmware update for 3TB drive support, it’d be real helpful. 1Q 2011? 2Q 2011 maybe?
DRI is still in process.
I’m not an engineer, so I’m not going to presume that I have any clue what you guys are doing, or why this is apparently such a lengthy process, so I guess my question is simply what do you really have to do to get 3TB drives to “work?” Isn’t the whole idea of Drobo simply that you pop drives in, of any size or brand and they just work? Why would a 3TB drive be different than a 2TB drive? Shouldn’t the Drobo just see the new drive, see that it’s 3TB and add it to the storage pool?
Let’s be optimistic.
3TB disks support is such a lengthy process because :
[list=1]
[]DRI has greatly enhanced its internal software test process, so that nobody gets a bad surprise when he upgrades
[]The 3TB, 4K sectors, disks offer new opportunities for performance improvement, and DRI wants to make sure they realize 99% of that potential
[]Considering the increased migration time for a single 3 TB disk (4-5 days), they finally decided to do something to decrease drastically that time
[]In addition to 3TB disks support, they want to bundle with the new firmware a much better defragmentation utility, so that the performance of our Drobos does not dramatically decrease when the Drobo fills up[/list]
Of course, all that may be silly wishful thinking and may be it takes such a long time just because their best software engineer is on vacations in the Bahamas…
But is not Christmas the right time for such wishes ?
Unfortunately thats essentially imposssible. the time taken is primarily limited by the speed of the processor in drobo, unless the new firmware overclocks it - then there isnt really anything they can do to improve the time. the kind of algorithms it uses have been very very well established for many many years, there arent really any improvements left to be made
I find it odd that Tom Buiochhi mentions using 3TB in an interview and we still can’t get an update to use them.
Source
http://www.wegotserved.com/2010/12/13/drobo-journey-deliver-storage-experience-part-2/
well in theory it will work, and it “probably” would work. but since people buy drobo to protect their data - its probably illogical to take the risk by using them when they are not yet officially supported