I have the Drobo Dashboard setup to run at windows start up. I had not received any kind of warning or alert that my Drobo was having a problem. Just by chance, because I was taking inventory on the hardware in the same room, I noticed that the Drobo was flashing a single red light. Off to the computer store I went, bought a new 4TB red WD drive, and off to the races I went.
My problem is that the dashboard did NOT alert me that a problem exists. The dashboard is setup to log in and mount network shares, so I know something in the back end is working.
So why wouldn’t the Dashboard alert me to a problem? I thought that this was the exact purpose of this tool?
Make sure that Drobo Dashboard is running at the system tray. Bottom lower right corner.
If it is not running in the system tray, then it will not be able to comm with the Drobo unit and will not pop-up alert on the desktop.
If the Dashboard is running … open it… and check if the Dashboard is detecting the unit. There are cases (at times), Dashboard is not able to detect/discover the Drobo unit. This is also one of the cause of no alert pop-up.
3rd part anti-virus prog or security prog might have “blocked” Dashboard pop-up.
1> Win7x64, always running the dashboard.
2> It always detects. My DHCP server assigns the Drobo an IP address, and I have the dashboard set to specifically look at that one IP address. The only thing I’ve experienced with this is when I launch the dashboard, the dashboard goes and ‘looks’ for the drobos, even though I specifically set the IP address.
3> I don’t run any AV software inside my LAN.
Expectations:
If there is a problem with one of the drives, I’d expect red alerts, windows flashing, noise making notifications. I’d DOUBLY expect to be woken up if the Drobo is NOT in dual-disk redundancy.
I’ve complained about that exact dashboard behavior long ago with no satisfaction. My 5N is in my data closet, and the running dashboard doesn’t “see” the Drobo until you manually select it. I have my Drobo set to email me alerts when things go wrong.