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Storage firm Drobo has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

32 points by mikequinlan 4y ago

bornfreddy 4y ago
Any idea what went wrong? Obviously supply chain issues (as with anyone who relies on China), but is that the only reason, or has the business landscape changed too?
- mikequinlan 4y ago
  The company has been blaming supply chain issues. They haven't had any product available for a couple of years now. At least one person is claiming that this is just a re-organization and that the company plans to continue operations after bankruptcy: https://www.reddit.com/r/drobo/comments/vp34dl/if_your_drobo_failed_as_a_result_of_the_last/ https://www.reddit.com/r/drobo/comments/vp34dl/if_your_drobo...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- hnaccount141 4y ago
  Seems like they fell out of favor years ago. Their DAS products were popular back in the day but as NAS became more popular in the SMB space they failed to compete with Synology/QNAP/etc on pricing or features. They also had a pretty bad reputation for poor reliability, which was especially problematic when combined with their proprietary RAID solution.
- megraf 4y ago
  I always thought the price was a little high, the technology was proprietary, and the support was iffy. I did like the design, but I've heard only horror stories of folks having drive failures and their support saying "oh well". Take it with a grain of salt
- torstenvl 4y ago
  Chapter 11 doesn't necessarily mean something went wrong, think of it as an old-style stop-the-world clean-and-sweep GC for debt restructuring. Sometimes that can mean a last-ditch effort to save a company because its financials are fucked, but sometimes it's to buy time to adjust to a changing debt market, or to clean house in advance of a major corporate restructuring or something. Aside from knowledge of the market fundamentals or deep research on the particular company, signs that a Chapter 11 means something is wrong include: heavy sale of core assets under 363; multiple bankruptcy plans not being approved; or transitioning to Chapter 7.

32 points by mikequinlan 4y ago

Any idea what went wrong? Obviously supply chain issues (as with anyone who relies on China), but is that the only reason, or has the business landscape changed too?

mikequinlan 4y ago
The company has been blaming supply chain issues. They haven't had any product available for a couple of years now. At least one person is claiming that this is just a re-organization and that the company plans to continue operations after bankruptcy: https://www.reddit.com/r/drobo/comments/vp34dl/if_your_drobo_failed_as_a_result_of_the_last/ https://www.reddit.com/r/drobo/comments/vp34dl/if_your_drobo...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hnaccount141 4y ago
Seems like they fell out of favor years ago. Their DAS products were popular back in the day but as NAS became more popular in the SMB space they failed to compete with Synology/QNAP/etc on pricing or features. They also had a pretty bad reputation for poor reliability, which was especially problematic when combined with their proprietary RAID solution.
megraf 4y ago
I always thought the price was a little high, the technology was proprietary, and the support was iffy. I did like the design, but I've heard only horror stories of folks having drive failures and their support saying "oh well". Take it with a grain of salt
torstenvl 4y ago
Chapter 11 doesn't necessarily mean something went wrong, think of it as an old-style stop-the-world clean-and-sweep GC for debt restructuring. Sometimes that can mean a last-ditch effort to save a company because its financials are fucked, but sometimes it's to buy time to adjust to a changing debt market, or to clean house in advance of a major corporate restructuring or something. Aside from knowledge of the market fundamentals or deep research on the particular company, signs that a Chapter 11 means something is wrong include: heavy sale of core assets under 363; multiple bankruptcy plans not being approved; or transitioning to Chapter 7.