Greetings all and thank you for taking the time to read this.
I started noticing issues with my Drobo 5D a short time after upgrading to macOS 11 Big Sur. Updating the dashboard and firmware resolved some of the issues with initial detection but what seemed to start happening was that eventually, about once a day in testing, I’d access the Drobo via the Finder and I’d get the spinning beach ball infinitely. When I disconnected the Drobo, macOS was able to resume fine as if nothing was wrong. It also seems when this happens I have to hard power down the Drobo and power it back on.
Eventually I decided to wipe the system completely and downgrade to macOS Catalina. The same issue continued.
I factory reset the Drobo.The same issue continued.
At this point I think I’ve narrowed down it being something wrong with the Drobo but I’m not sure what. I uninstalled the Dashboard and reinstalled, as to reinstate the kernel extension, and that seemed to work for a couple days but ultimately I’m having the same issue again.
I’m having the same issue. I’m on Catalina, and it started around end of Feb/Early March 2021. I don’t remember an update to Drobo, dashboard, or my Mac in that time period to trigger it. I’ve tried USB vs TB with no difference. I runs longer now that I’ve removed the mSATA from the bottom, but still freezes every few days. When I push and hold the power on the Drobo, it will eventually go thru the cycle of powering down and the LEDs on front go out, but the fan never stops. If I reboot it and then use the dashboard to shut it down, it then shuts down correctly. If I don’t do that extra step, it will freeze up again in a few hours.
I too am having a similar issue however mine is with two older, FireWire, direct connect DROBOs. I have a 5c which is working perfectly but within an hour of either or both of my original DROBO 4s being mounted every mounted HDD becomes inaccessible. It appears to be a latency problem. I have to power off both older units to restore functionality to everything else.