If I take all of the drives out of the unit and then put them back. Do I lose data?

Drobo - End of Sale Drobo 5N
1

Just had a moment of total horror. Having a bad problem with the Drobo5N which is bad enough that I think it needs an RMA.

Saw advice which said that if your drives are all showing as green/good and your Drobo wont mount them, it is likely to be an OS corruption error. The symptoms are the same. Thinking myself all safely backed up I went through the process suggested. Taking out all of the drives, manually updating the firmware. Then putting them all back in.

Again drives are in but the Drobo is now not responding at all to the dashboard or anything else.

Was just putting the data on another NAS device after which I realized that around 70% of 5 years of personal photos and videos of my children have not been backed up although everything else had.

So, as the drives dont seem to be damaged. When I get the RMA unit and plug them in will I be ok? Assuming the drives really are fine (and I really think they are) will they just slot in a new unit and allow me to recover all the data?

2

You can transplant the set of drives (Drobo calls it the Disk Pack) from one 5N to another provided you remove them all with the power off and re-insert them all with the power off. You don’t even need to remember which slot each one came from.

3

You have given me hope. Thank you very much indeed John.

4

If I take all of the drives out of the unit and then put them back. Do I lose data?

Proper shutdown procedures should be followed. Make sure the Drobo is powered OFF before reinserting the drives.

If Drobo is in a state where the data cannot be accessed we do not recommend migrating to another Drobo. The issue with this Drobo first needs to be resolved.