OH NO: Storage firm Drobo has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

First formed as Data Robotics in 2005, Drobo manufactured solutions for remote and network storage. Parent company StarCentric filed bankrupcy papers with the California Northern Bankruptcy Court (San Jose) on June 20, 2022.

According to official court documentation, the company is to hold its first creditors meeting on July 19. There is also a final deadline for filing claims against the company, which is October 17, 2022.

The company has no commented publicly on the decision. However, the company appears to have been badly affected by the coronavirus. In February 2020, the company tweeted about production delays, and in March 2020, its CEO Mihir Shah addressed concerns over how the coronavirus would affect the company.

“We are in close contact with all of our suppliers and we are trying to mitigate the impact of any delay in the supply chain,” he wrote in a blog post.

There have been no further blog posts since then. Drobo Support hasn’t tweeted for over a year, and Drobo’s main Twitter account has been silent since December 2021.

I love my Drobo — I’m on my second one after outgrowing the original — which is basically a complicated RAID array for people who don’t want to have to think about the complexities of RAID arrays.

I hope the company pulls through Chapter 11 and can maintain product support, but it doesn’t look good.