I have an older Drobo, and one of the drives is making whirring/rattling noises (it has been for weeks) that make me think it might fail at some point, so I want to replace it (in addition, the noise is annoying). Problem is, I’m not sure which drive is the problem.
How should I troubleshoot? Should I remove one at a time to see when the noise stops? How long should I wait before moving to the next one – do I have to wait for all the data to be redistributed before putting the drive back in (assuming it’s not the faulty one)?
I have one open bay, and a replacement drive. Should I install that first and let the data redistribute before trouble-shooting?
This is going to be real tricky if you do not know which drive is making the noise.
I think you can, shut down Drobo, eject drives, change order of drives, firmly reinsert, power on and see what happens.
If you do take out one drive, the unit will rebuild (and that takes time). After all green, then proceed to eject next drive (and rebuild), so on and so forth.
If you have a USB to SATA bridge (or know someone who has) or have an access to a desktop PC, you could shut the Drobo down and try the drives one by one. Just be sure NOT to initialize/format the drive or alter it in any other way, no matter what the operating system prompts you to. Then, only power the Drobo back on once all of the drives except for the faulty one are back in place.
hi, depending on how bad the rattling is, you (might) be able to tell by touch…
eg,
discharge any static your hand might have on it,
and take off the front drobo cover while in use
and make a fist with a thumbs-up in front of the drobo (no joke)
then close the thumb and stretch out and point your index finger (to the left or right depending on which hand you used)
and use the whole length of the back of index to feel each drive in turn.