Today, after backing up my Drobo v2 I took the plunge and removed one of the 3 x 1Tb drives and added a 2Tb in the bottom (previously unused slot). So I went from 3 x 1Tb in the top 3 to 2 x 1Tb in the Top and 1 x 2Tb in the bottom since the Backup is on the 2nd Tb that I will add once it has completed what I consider the most risky operation (removal and rebuild on another drive). The reason I did it this way was to a) Prove the previously never used slot and b) Prove that the drive contact wasn’t hindered by any possible dust build up
Anyway, running Lion and 2.0.3 Dashboard, latest FW rev on the Drobo and the lights are nicely flashing Amber at the moment showing it’s rebuilding on the new configuration, however, if I open the Dashboard it just sits there with ‘Looking for connected devices’. It didn’t pop up with any warnings or anything when I popped the drive.
Prior to the drive being pulled it was giving the correct inventory of drives. I’m guessing this is yet another problem with Lion.
I plan to let it complete, if it doesn’t show the status then I’ll suspend it, power cycle, rinse and repeat as necessary until I can see the status again then I’ll see what happens when I add the drive - this time with the Dashboard open maybe
In my experience with Drobo v2, ALL communications to/from Drobo become extremely slow when a rebuild is in progress. This include data transfer as well as dashboard information. It took almost a half hour before I got an update in Drobo Dashboard.
Cheers, I’ll leave the Dashboard open all night then and see if it gives some status by morning. I had about 1.05Tb split over the 3 x 1Tb drives when I popped 1 and added 1 x 2Tb. I don’t know how long it takes to redistribute that amount of data but we’ll see.
(btw: the main reason for getting the changes in was that the 3 x 1Tb drivers were approaching what I deem to be maximum duty life - 3 years)
Mmm, well it took a reboot of the Mac once it had finished redistributing the data to get the Dashboard back up.
Just slotted in the 2nd 2Tb drive and it all seems a bit quiet. It seems to rattle away for a few seconds if I don’t do anything with it… I presume relayout/optimisation happens only if you aren’t accessing it? And I presume that all the lights stay on green because the data is well distributed? I had thought it was going to turn flashing amber again when it spotted the new drive.
Flashing amber indicates the array is in a degraded state (lacks redundancy). What you describe is normal. As you surmise, the Drobo will redistribute data to include the new disk at its leisure.
