I originally had 2 6Tb harddrives in my Drobo 5D. I had about 1TB left so I added 2 more additional 6TB drives. Drobo asked me did I want to format volume. When I do does this create a new volume that shows up as a new drive letter on my PC or will it still show up as one single drive when I look on My Computer under windows? I would like to have all my drives as a single drive letter is that possible?? Or do I have just format the new volume and have an additional drive letter show up? I would like the keep as much of the storage as a single volume as possible.
The maximum possible allocated space for each volume is 16 TB. When the threshold is met, another 16 TB volume would be created, but it needs to be formatted before it could be used.
“Or do I have just format the new volume and have an additional drive letter show up?”
Yes.
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If Disk Space Exceeds Volume Size If the amount of available protected storage*** in your Drobo storage device ever exceeds the size of the volume that you picked originally during installation (when you add one or more additional disk drives), then the Drobo device will automatically create a new volume of the same size as the original volume on 1st and 2nd generation Drobos. Your Drobo handles this situation automatically. When the total storage offered by the inserted drives exceeds your volume size, Drobo Dashboard will automatically create a second volume (of the same size) which appears as another volume icon on the Mac’s Desktop or as a new drive letter or partition on the PC. You will be asked to format and name the new volume. Formatting the second volume/partition will not affect the first. - See more at: http://support.drobo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/23/kw/volume/session/L3RpbWUvMTQxNzU3MzA0My9zaWQvVC1TSlBXOG0%3D#sthash.pNY29m75.dpuf
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You could read up this article for more details.
http://support.drobo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/23/
KelvinY – thank you this is GREAT find, did not know this. Explains the ability to go to 32TB when I can only pick 16TB partition size…