So it’s not happened to me yet, however a friends regular hard-drive failure has focussed my mind on backup strategies and data recovery tools!
I’ve used NTFS disk recovery packages in the past, but have no knowledge of anything similar for Drobo… Google searches throw up quite a few data recovery outfits you can send your unit to, but recovery apps seem to be as rare as hens teeth!
Are there any recovery tools you guys would recommend?
In the meantime, I really must sort out my backup strategy… (its “only” my media library, but ripping it all again would take weeks!)
i think one of the main selling points for drobo is that you’re protected against 1 drive failure
(for the 4-slot drobo v1/v2 models at least)
(but theres other bad stuff that can happen to data, eg viruses, corruption etc than just physical drive error)
i’ve got my v1 drobo (backed up semi-automatically) onto a v2 drobo, (+ some folders off site) but depending on how mush stuff youve got and how valuable you deem it, depends on what you’ll do etc. (i like the idea of the 5-slot drobo but thats on my to do list when the price comes down)
are you on windows, and which version do you have and how many drives are in it (what ones)?
The best recovery app is a backup that runs on a schedule
The problem with recovery apps is that they may work for certain failures but will not work well for others and not all for another set of failures. That isn’t a solution you should build into your plan; that’s a Hail Mary pass.
