Despite the fact that I have 8 drives with dual redundancy on (6+2), machine and drobo attached to an APC UPS, and haven’t turned off or on the machine or the Drobo.
I’m looking at the Drobo and the dashboard and don’t see any of the drives marked as bad.
56 hours to go and no idea what triggered this event. What kind of device designed to protect your data does this?
its most likely one of your drives may be starting to die.
if it took a long time to respond - it would look (to drobo) like the drive had been removed then re-inserted
take a diagnostic log and send it to support and they will will you which drive caused the rebuild
That would explain it if one drive had a problem, but I have dual redundancy enabled. So what’s the explanation for that? Two drives stalled simultaneously? And if they stalled, why aren’t they marked as bad?
its just the phrasing they use - they pick the the simplest explanation - really it should say “reduced to single disk redundancy”
if you have dual drive enabled - and remove ONE disk - it immediately changes to “at risk”. all it means is that you no longer have your desired level of protection - it does NOT mean that one more failure will be fatal.
i still sounds like you had one drive undergo a momentary hiccup - it would produce an at risk message and it would trigger a rebuild. you almost certainly still have another disks worth of redundancy left 
Sorry, bear with me here. I have messages from Drobo saying that “it cannot protect my data”. Does that mean one drive hiccuped or two drives? That message really made it sound like I had no redundancy left.
really it should read:
“i cannot protect your data to the required level of redundancy”
but that is too complicated - so it only gives the message you saw regardless of one or two disk failure.
basically you cannot tell if one or two drives hiccuped (if it was a total failure then it would be lit up red so you can tell).
but since it is a hiccup - its probably only one drive.
Wow, the UI for this is terrible.
So what you’re saying is that my data was never unprotected, just degraded to single disk redundancy. Even now while it’s flashing all these errors at me and telling me I’m “not protected against hard drive failures”?
What is it doing right now? Rebuilding to whatever drive hiccuped?
so let me just outline this for my own benefit. If under dual disk redundancy:
Sorry, it’s really confusing. I’m going to go out and buy a 3TB drive to replace the failed drive once support tells me what hiccuped (which btw I should be able to figure out on my own instead of sending logs somewhere!!!).
it makes no difference between 1 or 2 drive failures, so i can group your questions
1&2) “at risk” initially and then either:
rebuilding - if it has enough space to rebuild (along with yellow/green flashing lights)- then the failed one is red and the rest flash yellow/green while it rebuilds onto those.
if it cant rebuild then the failed drive stays red (or two will if it was a dual drive failure) and i think the rest stay green until it starts a rebuild. (and it gives you a message to replace the failed drive)
3&4) at risk then straight to a rebuild (since the disks are back and it has the space). all flashing green &yellow
Support tells me that one drive has a few bad sectors, and another has quite a few and should be replaced immediately.
Well, I’m glad they can get me this info on the one hand. On the other hand, I’m extremely annoyed that the software is putting me through a rebuild instead of warning about this stuff way ahead of time.
Drobo, please take data protection seriously. The dashboard is NOT telling me what I need to know in order to protect my data!!!
your main issues seems to be that you are concerned they would not decrypt the logs if you dont have drobocare
i have never heard of an instance where this is true, and everytime i have asked for them to look at my logs, they have happily done so - both american and european support - on my drobo and drobopro - each time when they were over a year old - without ever asking either how old the unit is - or whether i have drobocare
Chris,
You are saying that I should not worry about the issues I raise because you, living in Europe, are apparently getting lifetime free tech support. That is what you are claiming.
I have seen no clear indication whatsoever here that anyone else, especially anyone in the USA, has received any free tech support beyond the expiration of their warranty or Drobocare contract. If I am wrong about this, I will assume those that have received free tech support will chime in. I for one do not care to let my Drobocare contract expire to test this theory. It may be that no one here has asked, assuming they would not get it? I don’t know, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence so lets hear from those that have tried.
Edit: if you have seen any indication in this forum of free tech support offered then please provide links. Otherwise your “I have never heard of an instance where this is true” is pure conjecture. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
And even if 100 people chime in here saying that they did get free lifetime tech support, that is no guarantee of future results because that is an “unofficial” policy decision on the part of DRI that could be rescinded at any time without notice because they never gave any notice that it was provided. The October 2009 change in the general warranty terms suggests that, if anything, DRI is tightening up on what they provide “for free” or under the standard warranty. IOW, for any Drobo more expensive than a V2 I would not personally roll the dice on this. For that kind of money I want assurance, in writing, as to the longevity of my unit.
And to be clear, I don’t have a “main issue” here. IF Drobos provided clear user-readable logging and diagnostics I would not be so concerned about the longevity of Drobocare. In fact, if I could choose one, I would prefer better diagnostics because then I would not feel compelled to keep buying rather expensive Drobocare. It is the two issues- considered together - that are the “main issue” because they work against the user and that was the point of my post.
Let me put it another way- I doubt you would personally indemnify me against the event that I let it lapse (or cannot renew) and cannot get tech support
my claim is that maybe you should simply give them a call or e-mail them directly and ask them if they will continue to decipher your logs after your drobocare expires/what their policy is on this - rather than clogging up the forums with pointless speculation.
i did also point out i have used american tech support (almost exclusively in fact)
and according to their written conditions you only get “technical support” for 90 days after purchase and the majority of people on here have gotten technical support after 90 days without drobocare (in fact i would guess almost everyone whose drives are beginning to die are past their 90 days)
Chris, we could argue who is speculating here- interpreting published warranties is not speculating, by my definition. Attempting to divine what a company does unofficially and more importantly what they will do in the future is speculating. That’s my definition.
You may have used American tech support but you live in Europe and Europe has very different and much stronger consumer protection laws. There is a reason you get two years warranty while we get only one, and my understanding is that it is not due to the generosity of DRI, Europe. For that reason alone, your personal anecdotal exeriences is not applicable to me or anyone in the USA or anywhere outside the EU for that matter.
And once again, I have seen no clear evidence here that people (other than you) are getting tech support out of warranty. Maybe I missed it. But if you keep insisting it is so you need to provide links to substantiate your claim. And the links need to indicate clearly and unambiguously that the user was out of his support contract and/or warranty. You are the only member here claiming such that I am aware of. You and I have gone round and round on this before- please put up some evidence.[hr]
In regard to “my claim is that maybe you should simply give them a call or e-mail them directly and ask them” I would suggest that whatever I was told would be anecdotal and not official policy and therefore not something I could rely on in the future. There are many, many cases reported here where someone did something similar and was told something that was determined to be incorrect (keep reading). If I got a positive answer from something like that it would provide some very small comfort level but no assurances and would not be a decision making point for a future purchase. I’m sorry, but I’m from Missouri (in principle) if you understand that expression.
IOW, if I do that, and I am given assurances that my logs wil be decrypted (AND INTERPRETED) and at some point in the future I am denied that service I don’t think any email, and certainly not a phone call, will give me a leg to stand on.
I was told just recently, after a phone call to DRI, that a new version of Dashboard would provide the additional logging detail we are looking for and that version would be released in conjunction with the new 12 bay Drobos. We all know now that I was told a fairy tale to get me off the subject and off the phone. Now, what recourse do I have on that? None. What recourse would I have if someone told me “yes, we will decrypt and interpret your logs forever” but that serivce was refused? Similarly, none. Obviously I have some personal experience to suggest I should not rely on unofficial promises from DRI.
Put me down for the same experience in the states. I just sent them a log from my drobo v2 (over 2.5 years old with no DC) and they provided top notch support including several calls. I have absolutely nothing bad at all to say about DR support and you won’t believe a post I’ll soon be making about DR support.
Now to be perfectly honest, there is no guarantee that DR will continue to look at logs from their customers without drobocare. But I doubt they will just stop.
Support has been great so far, but the software itself is a failure. By misreporting or obscuring crucial information, the Drobo is putting my data at risk. I wouldn’t even need to call tech support if the software would just follow a logical workflow.
Well, now we’re in the middle of the 4th rebuild, because I’m not able to wake up and watch the DroboPro for hours on end to spot when it finishes a rebuild and jump in. It doesn’t help that the dashboard misestimates the time remaining so that I’ve missed the last two windows of opportunity because of it.
Interesting thing is the Drobo apparently e-mailed me about a drive failure before it started its latest rebuild. So it’s detecting a drive failed, and then initiating an hours long process of rebuilding with the failed drive so that I can’t replace it.
Does anyone here think that the DroboPro is doing what it should be doing to protect my data? I don’t.
well one of your drive just keeps on stopping responding - so drobo thinks its been removed and then reinsterted - have DRI told you which one it is?
if they have just pull it out
if they havent send them a log and ask them
I think you’re missing his point, Chris.
I bought 4 3TB drives to offload all the data. Sigh.
im not sure what his point is???
he says “jump in”
i have no idea what he would propose to do during this “jump in” period - if he doenst know which disk is failing - then what would he do???