Correct shutdown procedure?

Drobo - End of Sale Drobo S
1

I’ve followed the knowledgebase article that says the best way to shut down a Drobo connected to a Mac is to use the Shutdown command in Dashboard.

However, when I do this OS X always tells me the device was removed without being ejected. I’ve asked support about this before and was told it was a problem with OS X (!?).

I always feel very uncomfortable having OS X tell me a device was being removed without being ejected - surely there must be a risk of data corruption.

I’ve just gone against the recommendation, and done the following

  1. Ejected the Drobo volumes in OS X
  2. Then (with the drive still showing in Dashboard) chose the Shutdown command in Drobo Dashboard.

This worked perfectly - no complaints from OS X.

Can support really maintain that this is NOT how I should shutdown my Drobo S?

2

As I understand it, Eject on Mac OS is the equivalent of “Safely remove” on Windows, and both should be done prior to physically removing a removable media device like Drobo, to ensure the OS has flushed any pending writes to the device.

3

Precisely. This is what I would assuming is the right way of doing it - but this goes against the advice in the Knowledgebase article.

4

Hmm, yeah. Reading the article, it doesn’t mention “tell the OS that you want to disconnect the device.”

Definitely you do want to tell the OS you want to disconnect the device. I’ve seen too many USB devices get hosed by people recklessly yanking the data cable. I always Safely remove.

…and for Windows users, if you Single Left-Click on the Safely Remove icon, it’ll pop up a menu that lets you select the device with just another Single Left-Click - annoys me when people double-click the icon or right-click it and then get the full window then - it’s a few extra clicks that add up!

5

It’s really the combination of these 2 things that I find a problem

  1. The Shutdown command should cause the drive to unmount. Users shouldn’t expect to have to unmount it themselves if they’re telling the Dashboard to shutdown the Drobo - it’s assumed that the Shutdown command will unmount the drive as part of the shutdown procedure

  2. Given that the Drobo doesn’t unmount the drive as part of the Shutdown procedure, at very least the Knowledgebase article should specify that this needs to be done first.

Preferably Drobo Dashboard should be fixed to trigger unmounting as part of the shutdown process. Utterly ridiculous for this not to happen. Telling me this was a bug seems daft.

6

Bilbo, good spot. im sure the team will update the website with more info in due course.

thanks bhiga, i didnt know we could single click :slight_smile:
heres something back for you, which i often use when my icon (or explorer bars) play hide and seek:

create a new shorcut, running in %windir%
with target of this:
%windir%\system32\RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll

7

The forum needs a Like button. :slight_smile: