We offer two options for Drobo data recovery due to their proprietary RAID configuration:

Option 1 (this is the cheaper option, but you may pay our “single-drive” recovery fee and not get back your data):

Assuming the problem with your Drobo is a bad drive (marked on Drobo with a “red” or “yellow” LED indicator), you can give us just the bad drive and we’ll clone it to a new SATA drive that you provide or buy from us.

• If we can successfully clone 99.9-100% of the sectors, then our fee is due ($300; +$100 if the individual drive is over 2TB). You will then take the clone, put it back in your Drobo, and hope the Drobo mounts (or it’s able to repair itself and then mount, or it’s a good enough clone that Drobo technical support can rebuild the RAID).
  
  
• If we recover less than 99.9% of the sectors, it’s your choice to pay for our partial clone or decline the recovery and pay a $100 labor fee.
  
  
• If we can’t recover any of the sectors (or less than 90%), there is no charge.

There are no refunds after you receive the cloned drive, even if the Drobo doesn’t mount, isn’t able to repair itself, or Drobo technical support cannot fix it.

Option 2 (this is the more expensive option, but less risky, and you’ll only pay our full rate if we get back data you want):

You give us the entire Drobo unit with all the hard drives. We will clone each drive before doing attempting any rebuild or manual repair, which is much safer than using rebuilding with the original hard drives, because Drobo’s automatic repair/rebuild could end up making things worse. 

• If we can get back data you want, the cost would be $300 x [the total number of drives in Drobo] (so if you have a 5 drive Drobo, the cost would be $1500; +$100 per drive if the hard drives are greater than 2TB).  
  
  
• If we get back data you do not want, we charge $100 labor, per drive.
  
  
• If we can’t recover any data, there is no charge for our attempt. 

Rules for providing your own Transfer Drive:

1) The drive must be EMPTY. Your Transfer Drive will be formatted (all your data will be permanently deleted) before we start moving the recovered data.

2) If your drive is too small or defective (i.e. contains bad sectors, un-mounts itself while moving data, etc), we will move your data to the smallest drive we have for sale.

3) The drive must be an external hard drive (with USB, Firewire, or Thunderbolt) or a bare SATA drive.

4) The drive cannot be a NAS drive (with an ethernet connection) or a USB flash drive (unless the bad device is also a USB flash drive).

5) Drive must arrive in the same box as the bad drive (you cannot send in a Transfer Drive after we receive your bad drive). If you fail to include a Transfer Drive with your bad device, we will move your data to the smallest drive we have for sale. For "Drop Off" customers, you must provide the Transfer Drive when dropping off the bad device.

6) Drive should be equal or greater in size than bad drive (you could provide a smaller drive, but if it's not big enough to store all your data, we will move your data to the smallest drive we have for sale).

7) If you fail to include a Transfer Drive with your bad drive, you must buy one from us.

We do not need any USB cables (not for the Transfer Drive, or the "bad" drive). But, if your Transfer Drive uses an AC adapter (that is: you don't have a "portable" drive, powered from the USB cable), you must include this AC adapter. We don't need the AC adapter for your "bad" drive (if it used one). 

Need your data back ASAP?

Paying the extra cost for Priority Service means your device moves straight to the front of our queue and we use our fastest tools. While it's impossible to guarantee time-frames for all data recoveries, start-to-finish turn-around for Priority Service is usually 1-3 days, but same-day is possible. This all depends on the exact problem with the hard drive and the amount of data needing to be recovered.

Priority Service cost $50 (up-front/non-refundable). If your recovery is successful, there is an additional $150 due (in addition to the normal data recovery fee).

Learn more about our Priority Service here.