I have a 2nd-gen Drobo connected over FW800 to a Mac running Lion. There’s 4 * 2TB drives in it and its been extremely reliable.
Yesterday afternoon I noticed that the green & amber lights were flashing and its in data protection mode. There had been no power blip or anything like that so it was strange to see.
Last night it estimated 82 hours to complete. This morning its now sitting at 124 hours.
The last time I replaced a drive in it I think it took 72 hours to sort itself out, so should I just leave it going or think about doing the procedure for an unresponsive one?
Also, is there any way to find out exactly why its in data protection mode?
Thanks,
Mike.
to find out what happened you need to send drobo support your logs, but do NOT pull the logs off while it is rebuilding, let it finish first
is the progress bar still moving?
try and avoid using your drobo while it rebuilds as this can dramatically increase rebuild time
The progress bar hasn’t moved one jot and its now up to 147 hours. Its been going for about 9 hours and during that time I had iTunes closed down which is the only program which would be using the drive.
I’d leave it overnight before attempting the solution for “stuck” rebuilds
Thanks for the advice, the progress bar has finally started moving and we’re down to only 100 hours left to go.
goodo 
check nothing is accessing drobo (i.e. windows search/osx finder)
it is perfectly safe to shutdown your computer… THEN disconnect your drobo’s usb cable… then power your computer back up (obviously you wont have access to drobo if its not connected)
drobo will not go into standby until it is finished rebuilding, and having it disconnected is the way to make it rebuild as fast as possible
In this morning to find that Drobo Dashboard had crashed so its back to square one in terms of progress. I’m wondering now if I’m better off trashing the set and starting from scratch as I have an up-to-date and working backup on a WD 4TB drive.
Any thoughts?
ooh no no no
dashboard only monitors drobo - it doenst actually affect the rebuild
sure the progress bar will be a bit screwed up and the time remaining wont calculate correectly, but the fact that dashboard crashed wont have affected drobo’s rebuild at all
if you start dashbaord again, the longer it runs the more accurate the progress bar will get.
i woudl say a rebuild SHOULD be done in less than 48 hours - but i wouldnt start trying to “fix” it until 72 hours.
And we’re back! Finished rebuilding and all green lights again.
Thanks for all your advice, much appreciated.
If I send the log file in, will Drobo support advise what happened?
yeah they should
and yes, it always pays to be patient - i know its tempting to “interfere” to try and get your data back, but patience is always best
Hi Docchris…
Thinking of getting Synology DS1511+ to replace the Drobo FS as my main server.
Is this one of the Units you have/had? Any major issue I should be aware of? Ever tried the LaCie 5big Storage Server? I will be at PhotoExpo+ in NYC to make a decision. My concern is retrieval of data loss. LaCie uses MS Server, and there are many 3rd party DIY tools. I photographer friend had a drive issue with his LaCie, and the 3rd party tools recovered everything easily, as it’s a standard platform.
As per your previous recommendation, I checked the Synology Forum, its open and the users seem very experienced (edit after post: found you there, and I think my question has actually been answered…)
Currently own: 2 Drobo v2’s, 1 Drobo FS (just gave me a scare, keeps dishing out drives as bad, but drives are good in WD Data Lifeguard & work fine in my Thermaltake MAX-2533 Backplane), and 1 Drobo S (has intermittent red/flash then on next boot OK)
I think there is a serious issue with the connectors and their alignment. The v2’s use to drop power due to the power plug not fitting in tightly in the back due to chassis mis alignment to the case, until I whittled the plug to fit within the opening’s diameter and added a strain relief. The v2’s do not appear to securely wrap the negative part of the plu, nor to they have a hook the keeps the plug in on the female connector. Yet the male connector appears to be designed for that hook.
Verdict is as follows, not worried at the moment about the space issue as its not going to fill any time fast, but I guess I should replace this drive even though its back up and “green” now?
Thank you for contacting Drobo support. The Reason for this should be your Disk Drive
Disk ErrorsDrive: WD-WMAZA3454867 WDCWD20EARS-00MVWB0 51.0AB51
Slot : 2
Block : 1
FULL timeout : 1
which is going bad. Also note your Drobo is getting full.
Sun Oct 02 09:54:10 2011: DUD: Array uptime is 4Days, Capacity: Free=838.45GiB(15.05%), Used=4.62TiB(84.95%)
Hi equifoto
i have had (in order)
DS1010+ & a DX510
DS1511+ & TWO DX510
RS2211+
DS2411+
they have all been capable of saturating my single GbE connection
they use perfectly ordinary linux file system and linux software based raid - you could remove the array from the unit and mount it in a pc if you wished / knew how
ANY knowledgable user can recover the array if there is a problem and professional data recover companies woudl definitely have no trouble recovering anything which is recoveryable.
the only time i have had any issues they were relatively minor (my array failed to expand while online) synolgoy support remotely accessed my unit , took the array offline, manually expanded it, and then just dropped me an e-mail saying to reboot the unit and it would auto-mount the new size, which it did
Thank you Docchris… I’ll get the DS1511+ and see how we manage. I like the idea that I could expand later with another auxiliary box. I’m techie/geek oriented, so it’s not an issue.
yeah, i had mine up to the full 15 2tb drives
im much happier with it just being a single unit in the DS2411+ with 12 x 3tb drives - less risk of failure[hr]
yeah, i had mine up to the full 15 2tb drives
im much happier with it just being a single unit in the DS2411+ with 12 x 3tb drives - less risk of failure