Heres to hoping a Drobo engineer is reading this. I have a Drobo S connected to my Mac via eSATA and I love it. The speed to super fast much better than USB or Firewire. The only downside to this is I loose the Drobo Dashboard functionality when using eSATA. Is there a way to enable the USB port for Dashboard functionality only when connected via eSATA? The dashboard provides valuable information especially during rebuilds. Also firmware updates cannot be performed over eSATA. Heres to hoping this feature can be added to future firmware updates.
Hi, that is weird.
My DROBO S is connected to my Mac via ESATA and Dashboard and firmware updates work just fine.
As eSATA is not a native connection on the Mac, this all depends extremely heavily on how the drivers for your product implement eSATA. If they encapsulate it in another device “under the covers”, the Dashboard likely won’t be able to see it under any circumstances.
Interesting does the Dashboard support communications over eSATA or not. Now i am confused. Is there a specific controller card I should be using? I am using the NewerTech MAXPower eSATA 6G PCIe 2.0 Controller Card. Everything comes up fine from a data access perspective but the Dashboard does not detect the Drobo.
Known good cards http://support.drobo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/545/kw/mac%20esata/session/L3RpbWUvMTMzNDI5NDU3My9zaWQvSFdvY1Z2Vms%3D
The MaxPower is listed as having known incompatibilities. I use the Sonnet e2p and it works great with the drobo s and dashboard.
Ok I bought a Sonnet e2p and my Mac Pro 1,1 would not detect it no matter which PCIe slot I connected it to. Returning it to the vendor. The MAXpower still works great just not Dashboard. Anyone else have trouble getting the e2p recognized in the system?