Had my Drobo connected via USB to a Windows 7 laptop. Every time I shut down the laptop, the Drobo would go into standby mode (all lights would go off). When I turned the laptop on, the Drobo would wake up.
I now have it hooked up to a Mac (10.5 - PPC) via FireWire 800. When I shut down the Mac, the Drobo stays on. Is this normal? Does it not shut down when attached via FW800? Or is this a Mac thing?
Please advise.
This doesn’t sound normal to me. I have a Drobo connected to a Mac Mini running 10.6.4 when I sleep or shutdown the Mac the drobo goes into standby mode (all lights off except for the small orange light which you have to remove the front cover to see.)
Try shutting down the Mac and then disconnecting the data cable for the drobo wait a few min and see if the drobo goes into standby. If it still does not, as long as the computer is off you should be safe to unplug the drobo’s power wait about 30sec and then plug the power back in. Reconnect the data cable, Sart the computer back up and see if the drobo will now sleep and wake along with the Mac.
On a side note while the drobo does sleep and wake with my Mac it rarely will appear back in the dashboard after waking the Mac from sleep. A restart will generally cause it to appear correctly again. This is just a minor annoyance however since the dashboard software is not necessary to use the drobo.
Some older macs, especially Power PC macs leave the FW port active. So when you shut down the computer the FW port is still active to allow for accessories to charge. Which in this case with the drobo, the drobo does not go into standby mode because there is still an active FW connection to it.
If you want to put your drobo into standby, you will need to use the standby command in dashboard which does include unplugging the FW cable to complete the standby process.
Thanks for the reply. That’s unfortunate. Is there any harm leaving it on?
None at all. Unless you experience power outages in your part of the world. If you will be leaving your computer off for an extended time because you will not be home or at your office (where ever your drobo lives) I would recommend putting into standby from Drobo Dashboard then unplugging the FW cable and power.