Support for B800fs

videocp · February 8, 2023, 2:29am

I’m having problems with the Drobo B800fs and need to get some support. I can’t seem to navigate the support ticket page which I assume is due to no plan that I purchased. But I don’t see how I can simply contact someone to see if my Drobo can be repaired. I know it’s older but was working fine until the cycling of rebott problem. I have a diagnostic file but not much help if I can get it to someone that can read it.

Will Drobo even diagnose this problem or repair the unit of this age?

Sure could use some help.
Thanks

dom1 · February 9, 2023, 6:48am

Hello there!

Drobo (and parent company Storcentric) is currently going out of business. They probably won’t answer many support tickets, especially for an older, out of support device like the B800fs.

The diagnostic files are unfortunately encrypted and only readable by Drobo staff.

Your best bet is to try to get help from these forums. What kind of trouble is your unit having?

Regards,

Dom

videocp · February 9, 2023, 3:29pm

Thanks for the update on Drobo’s future. Hate to hear that.

My unit is cycling reboot.

First, all of the bays will light up yellow.

Then they go off and the blue lights on the right sequence through until the top 4 are on and then it stops with the 3^rd from the bottom staying on.

A minute or so later it powers down and starts again.

I removed the drives, maintained their order, and started the unit. It appears to start normally with the bay0 red.

Any help or direction will be appreciated. All eight bays are used, 9Tb capacity, 2Tb available.

Thanks

David

dom1 · February 9, 2023, 6:24pm

First thing you should try is to replace the power supply with a known good one. Drobos are known to behave strangely when a power supply begins to fail.

I had a DroboFS, which was similar to your B800fs. Other things to try are to uninstall any DroboApps you may have installed (the DroboFS could install DroboApps, so I assume the B800fs could as well). And reapply the latest firmware (even if you’re already on the latest firmware). I had to do that once or twice on my DroboFS.

But really, the power supply is usually the most likely culprit.

Good luck!

Regards,

Dom

videocp · February 9, 2023, 6:38pm

Thanks for the info.

I’m not familiar with any DroboApps. I only use the Dashboard so I don’t know where to look for the apps if there are any.

I have not looked inside the Drobo, but I assume it is a custom power supply. I’m guessing Google or Ebay my only hope for getting a replacement power supply?

Thanks again for your help.

David

dom1 · February 9, 2023, 9:12pm

Oh, right! The B800fs had an internal Power Supply, not external like most other Drobos. That complicates things as you’ll need to take it apart.

It’s difficult to find schematics, but I found some information here:

github.com/droboports/droboports.github.io

Drobo B800FS Hardware update to Wiki

opened 03:33PM - 29 May 18 UTC

darencard

I see no way of submitting a pull request to contribute to the Wiki page, so I t…hought contributing some changes via an issue would be best. I recently had to directly connect to the Linux core serial port on my Drobo as it wasn't responding through the GUI Dashboard or SSH. A [Drobo forum thread](http://www.drobospace.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=142911) gave good general directions for doing this, but in terms of the motherboard currently highlighted on this Wiki. However, upon looking at the motherboard in my Drobo, I noticed that I have a different layout. It was straight-forward to diagnose the serial ports, so I did so, and I felt the overall info could be useful to others if included in this Wiki. Below, I provide some of the same specs/info that are already in your Wiki, but for my Drobo model instead. As you can see, there really aren't any big differences in specs and the board type is identical, but the overall layout is quite different. ## Drobo This is a Drobo Model B800fs purchased from Amazon in March 2015. The motherboard has `DroboPro MB V3.1` stamped on it. If there is other identifying information, I can try to provide it. ## Motherboard ```bash # cat /proc/board_type DB-MV78200-A-BP ``` ## CPU ```bash # cat /proc/cpuinfo Processor : ARM926EJ-S rev 0 (v5l) BogoMIPS : 1199.30 Features : swp half thumb fastmult vfp edsp CPU implementer : 0x41 CPU architecture: 5TE CPU variant : 0x1 CPU part : 0x926 CPU revision : 0 Cache type : write-back Cache clean : cp15 c7 ops Cache lockdown : format C Cache format : Harvard I size : 32768 I assoc : 4 I line length : 32 I sets : 256 D size : 32768 D assoc : 4 D line length : 32 D sets : 256 Hardware : Feroceon-MV78XX0 Revision : 0000 Serial : 0000000000000000 ``` ## Memory ```bash # cat /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 188968 kB MemFree: 2208 kB Buffers: 35044 kB Cached: 45220 kB SwapCached: 0 kB Active: 93656 kB Inactive: 62168 kB SwapTotal: 262136 kB SwapFree: 187388 kB Dirty: 8 kB Writeback: 0 kB AnonPages: 75588 kB Mapped: 8224 kB Slab: 27200 kB SReclaimable: 18864 kB SUnreclaim: 8336 kB PageTables: 676 kB NFS_Unstable: 0 kB Bounce: 0 kB CommitLimit: 356620 kB Committed_AS: 172856 kB VmallocTotal: 647168 kB VmallocUsed: 243228 kB VmallocChunk: 376828 kB # cat /proc/swaps Filename Type Size Used Priority /mnt/DroboFS/swapfile file 262136 74748 -1 ``` ## Serial consoles There are three pin sets that could be serial consoles, but two are located adjacent to one another as they are in the currently described motherboard, so they are likely the Linux core and vxWorks cores. ![drobob800fs_fullboard](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/8263623/40668955-68a97366-632b-11e8-817c-eff9eeb9e007.png) Both end up being TTL (i.e., 3.3V), and run at 115200 baud. The vxWorks console is labeled J2 on the motherboard. The Linux console is labeled J3. They are close to the lower right edge of the board when the Drobo is oriented with the front (drive bays) are oriented upwards and the back (power and ports) are oriented downwards. The pinout is [Vcc|Tx|Rx|Gnd], i.e., ground is the bottom-most pin, which differs slightly from board currently described (unless my USB to TTL cable has Tx and Rx swapped). ![drobob800fs_zoom_diagnose](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/8263623/40668965-70557a24-632b-11e8-87ff-7bdf9d83300b.png)

If you can’t repair it and want to recover your data, you can try to locate a replacement B800fs (this model has no migration path: Migration - Drobo). Or, you can use UFS Explorer to mount your Drobo array outside of your Drobo.

Regards,

Dom

dom1 · February 14, 2023, 4:15pm

How are things going with your B800fs?

Since the power supply is internal and seems to be custom, let’s set this aside for a moment.

If you remove all your drives (making sure to label the order they were in), and insert a single spare drive, does it boot correctly? Can you see it in the Dashboard? Can you access the single disk?

If you can, then there might be a problem with a disk in your disk pack or the power supply is faulty and cannot provide sufficient power for all 8 drives.

If you cannot access the single drive, you might have a problem with the firmware (or the power supply is very bad). This has happened to me on my DroboFS (similar to your B800fs, but with only 5 drive bays). Try to reapply the latest firmware and try again.

I hope that helps!

Regards,

Dom

videocp · February 14, 2023, 4:40pm

Thanks for the follow up. I’m taking it slow as I don’t want to do something that will destroy the data.

I posted on Facebook form but not getting valid responses that lead me to action.

You have a good idea on the drive test.

I’m not certain of the idea that it is a custom power supply. I just thought it was a factory product and not custom. But I have not acted on the power issue yet either.

I’ll try the single drive test; I like that one.

Thanks again for the follow up. I’m not finding or getting much information on how to follow up on this problem. I did find several B800fs units on Ebay for about $300.00. So that may be an option in the future.

Thanks

David

videocp · February 15, 2023, 9:09pm

So I put a spare drive in Bay 0 and it works. I can access it and the dashboard works.

So, if I remove all my existing drives and keep them numbered. I could put spare drives ( I have three) in the Drobo and test it before trying anything with the original drives or the power supply.

So I can have different sets of drives that can be put into the drobo and their data will stay intact. Llike I can have my original 8 drives and another set of these 3 spare drives and switch them out with no problems.

dom1 · February 15, 2023, 10:02pm

Yes, these are called “Drive Packs” in Drobo parlance. You can have multiple sets and they can migrate from one device to another. So, if you find that your B800fs is faulty, your drive pack should work in another B800fs (provided the firmware version is equal or newer).

Sometimes, a Drobo’s power supply can supply power for one or a few drives, but cannot provide power for a full Drobo (or for more power hungry drives).

But if your drive pack is corrupt, even putting it into another B800fs will not fix your problem. If this is the case, you’ll need to either enlist the help of a data recovery specialist, or use a professional software called UFS Explorer that can mount a Drobo disk pack on different hardware and allows for some troubleshooting. For an 8 disk pack, you would need the “professional recovery” edition, which is a hefty USD630$.

More details can be found here:

Good luck!

Regards,

Dom

videocp · February 15, 2023, 10:22pm

Excellent. Thanks, I had not found this service/software.

Someone suggested that since my B800fs with the 8 drives will pause during the boot process with the top 4 blue lights on and stops at the 3 from the bottom blue light that I may try removing the 3^rd drive from the bottom. Is that the 3^rd from left or 3^rd from right? I assume the unit will during with one drive missing. I believe I have it configured where two drives can be missing.

Thanks again for all of you help.

dom1 · February 15, 2023, 11:15pm

Dual Disk Redundancy (where you can have 2 drives fail) is generally optional, but you may have previously enabled it.

If you’re sure of the drive that has failed, you can try removing it. HOWEVER, once you remove a drive, your Drobo’s disk pack will be in “data protection mode”. Basically, it will be rebuilding its array. If you remove the wrong drive and it doesn’t fix your problem, you could be in worse shape than you are right now. If you can get someone from Drobo to read your diagnostic file, they might be able to tell which drive (if any) is failing. They have been able to do this for me in the past on my 5N2 (Drobo Dashboard did not detect a failure in the drive, but the diagnostic file did).

Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to find anyone in support at Drobo right now. I wish they would just make their diagnostic file reader public, if they are not going to be providing support anymore. Anywho…

Someone else in these forums might be able to tell you if performing diagnostics on individual drives (ex: SMART tests) would change the structure of the disk and make it unusable in your disk pack. I personally have no experience with this myself.

Regards,

Dom