Adding and removing volumes $D (Gen2)

[dereksmall]

We have a 4D Drobo for storage on our primary server, running Windows 2011-SBS. We started off with 2 1TB drives in our Drobo. I wanted to a backup drive to our Drobo, so I installed new 2TB drive. The Drobo automatically created a new volume, and I cannot figure out how to remove it. I removed the drive, but the volume still exists, and the Drobo keeps asking me to format it everytime I open the mgmt. utility. The server is showing a new, unmounted 2TB drive with no partitions/volumes. How do I get rid of this drive/volume?

[MPanzof]

Hi,
seems like you initialized the Drobo with a 2TB volume during the first use.
There is no way to “remove/delete” the volume witht he current setup.

If you want to use the Drobo as one large volume you need to copy off, reset it and copy back in order to initialize it with a different volume size (8 or 16TB for example).

There’re some articles in the knowledgbase on drobo.com describing the necessary steps.

[dereksmall]

Hi,
seems like you initialized the Drobo with a 2TB volume during the first use.
There is no way to “remove/delete” the volume witht he current setup.

If you want to use the Drobo as one large volume you need to copy off, reset it and copy back in order to initialize it with a different volume size (8 or 16TB for example).

There’re some articles in the knowledgbase on drobo.com describing the necessary steps.

But this second Volume didn’t show up until I installed a new 2TB drive into the array. Someone had already created the volume that we are running on, which includes our 2 1TB drives. The Drobo just created a volume called Drobo when I inserted the drive. I thought the whole point of a Drobo was that you could add/upgrade drives on the fly, without having to manually go through these types of data migrations.

[ConnectedDataMod]

Hi,
seems like you initialized the Drobo with a 2TB volume during the first use.
There is no way to “remove/delete” the volume witht he current setup.

If you want to use the Drobo as one large volume you need to copy off, reset it and copy back in order to initialize it with a different volume size (8 or 16TB for example).

There’re some articles in the knowledgbase on drobo.com describing the necessary steps.

But this second Volume didn’t show up until I installed a new 2TB drive into the array. Someone had already created the volume that we are running on, which includes our 2 1TB drives. The Drobo just created a volume called Drobo when I inserted the drive. I thought the whole point of a Drobo was that you could add/upgrade drives on the fly, without having to manually go through these types of data migrations.

Can you advise if you did any partitioning with disk management? Can you advise what version of dashboard you are running? Did you create the volume originally using dashboard? If you partitioned it with a 3rd party utility, it may be best to copy off all the data, and reset the unit to start fresh with one volume. The Drobo volume will show up at a 16 TB volume, but will be automatically adjusted in size by the Drobo based on the hard drives you have installed and the protection you have set (single disk or dual disk). That will affect how the Drobo creates the volume, and lays out the data across all drives inserted into the unit.

Have you filed a case with support yet to have some diagnostics reviewed?