Using rsync to copy data from one Drobo (NTFS) to another Drobo (Mac OS Extended (Journaled))
Check out the man page for rsync. In particular, the -a (archive) option you show will invoke the -rlptgoD options.


-r, --recursive (recurse into directories)
-l, --links (copy symlinks as symlinks)
-p, --perms (preserve permissions)
-t, --times (preserve times)
-g, --group (preserve group)
-o, --owner (preserve owner (super-user only))
-D (preserve device and special files)


Permissions can be preserved, but everything you copy will be owned by you unless you run under sudo so the -o option will take effect. Also note that without sudo, rsync gives you no special abilities to copy files that you do not have access to on the source drive.

You may also want to look at the -E option, but I don't know if it will work from an NTSF drive. Maybe it will preserve ACLs (if they exist on the source)?