sharing the drobo pro

Drobo - End of Sale DroboPro
1

ok so I am still having a few issues sharing the drobo pro between two MacPros.

What I want to do is connect the droboPro so that two macs can see it and be able to read and write files to it.

The way I have it is:I have two MacPro connected to a network. The drobo Pro is connected to one of the Mac pro via iSCSI, then I shared the droboPro and it was all fine. BUT I was not able to read and write to the drobo from the mac that’s across the network.

I’m I doing something wrong?

As I understood it, the DroboPro HAS to have a host computer and I CANNOT connected directly to an ethernet switch. But yesterday I was told otherwise by support. (as I understood it) I SHOULD connect the drobo to an switch and connect the two macs to that switch and everything will be fine…I’m a bit confused.

I would like to know what is the absolute BEST way to connect two MacPros to a DroboPro so that they are both able to read and write. I would like it to have fast transfer speeds since I am editing video

Please check out the configuration on the image, can this be done? http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/6980/droboconfic1.jpg

thank you so much for you help.

2

Here are the set-ups you can use with the Pro.

http://support.datarobotics.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/240

You honestly only want to only use a switch if you have multiple Pros in your network. And the switch has to be isolated from your network.
Even if you put your Pro on a switch, only one host computer can connect to the Pro at a time.

3

I have a Drobo pro connected via iSCSI to my laptop over my local network (which also supplies internet via a router.)
I know I can only connect one computer at a time to access my Drobo pro but how do I select which one on my network talks to the pro?
I want to connect my imac which is on the same network to the pro instead of the laptop occasionally.

Steve

4

Similarly to a physical connection, you’d have to dismount/disconnect the iSCSI connection from your laptop, then establish/connect/mount the iSCSI connection from your iMac.

It’s the virtual equivalent of unplug/re-plug.

5

The DroboPro will connect to the computer it was last connected via USB or Firewire. The DroboPro is designed for direct connection. It is recommend that you do not connect the Pro to a switch on your network.

6

Wouldn’t it be easiest to just:

Pick one mac to connect to the DroboPro (all the time) and then just use that Mac and File Sharing to share the DroboPro with any number of other Macs?

I use a regular Drobo this way and it works great. My Mac Mini/Drobo combo works as a NAS (amongst other things) and there’s nothing to figure out. I just connect straight to my mini and get to my Drobo.

7

@Brad Bishop, now that I’m using LaCie 4Big Quadra units on my main machine, I’m thinking of “sharing” my two DroboPro through a Mac mini too.

8

Hi,

Let say I am connecting this Drobo Pro directly to a secondary NIC port on my server 2008 R2. Then I share this drive out via AD. Is this going to work?

Can all my clients in the network which connected to the switch accessing the data from Drobo Pro? I got 10 users.

Thanks

9

Yes, that’s gonna work but that’s not iSCSI anymore. Once you enabled Windows file & print sharing role, you are using SMB (Server Message Block) instead of iSCSI protocol and SMB is slooooow.
If you are thinking let the 10 users having their iSCSI initiator enabled to access that DroboPro, then pls don’t even try that becos not only will they corrupt the volume(s) unless they are accessing different smart volumes, but also kill the LAN.
Btw, I highly recommend using a decent Cat6 crossover cable instead of using ur LAN switch becos a single user can saturate ur LAN segment of that, hopefully 1 Gigabit switch.

10

Since all Drobo do not support Active Directory, I am thinking a way to work around. I lost a lot deals just because of it doesn’t work with AD.

11

Hummme, that hasn’t occured to us mainly becos we are bundling the DroboS, DroboPro/Elite as a DAS for backup/archive & VMware 2nd datastore. Of couse, bundling w/ the other block-level, disk-based backup/DR solution. So, w/ or w/o AD makes no difference to us and our customers. Btw, I exchanged a few emails w/ Nancee and I think I broke her heart. ;-(

I’ll send you a private email.