Although my Drobo V2 is used only for backups these days, and those backups occur between 23:00 and 04:00, it seems to be continually busy during the day.
Part of this will be Windows indexing the drives, and that’s handy when I’m searching for stuff that’s backed up, but I no longer remember where it came from (so where it is in the backups).
If I were to put the Drobo into standby when I first get to the PC in the morning, then how do I get it out of standby in the evening, ready for the next backup cycle?
I prefer mechanisms that don’t involve unplugging anything, as none of the cables are particularly easy to reach.
hi swifty, good to see you hear again
here’s some thoughts for you…
try disabling windows indexing on drobo
try the tiny but very cool tool called “cathy” by r vasichek (if you search for cathy on these forums you’ll find it)
use cathy to create a one-time index of your drobo volume (it’s pretty quick, and is a great seaerch tool which is very quick with extra features too if needed)
ive done exactly that and my windows/experience has been improved in terms of performance etc and have never gone back since
(what do you use for your backups? - they sound like they are automated)
if you keep your drobo v2 plugged in say via usb, then as far as i’ve seen, it will power down most of the drives when not being used, and then when a program or something needs to access it again, it will simply spend a few seconds to spin-up each drive and be ready again for use.
let us know if you need a hand to use cathy and not sure what do do… the only thing i havent looked into yet, is auto updating the cathy catalogue, but its very easy to select it manually and say “refresh catalogue”, and there might even be a way to automate it.[hr]
(also, by disabling windows indexing on it, it will be less likely to remain in use ad hc throughout the day)
If it’s in standby as in the host computer is no longer connected, I don’t think there’s a way to bring it out without either restarting the host computer or unplugging/replugging the interface.
On the Windows side a “virtual” disconnect/reconnect might wake it up, but it might not.
Realistically, there is very little difference between On but Idle with drives Spun down and In Standby.
I would just leave it be. If you want to control when the indexing happens, you could set the Indexing Service to Manual startup and set up a scheduled task to start and stop it so it only runs during a certain part of the day.
Thanks, I’ll tinker around with these ideas. I have a feeling that there’s more to the continual activity than indexing, because I stopped indexing the Drobo drives, but the disks still never powered down. I recall this vividly, because when I re-indexed the Drobo drives, it took over a week to complete!
Any access will keep it alive, whether it’s indexing, antivirus scan, malware scan, Windows Update (because Windows Update likes to use the drive with the greatest amount of free space for its install files), etc…
I have three external USB drives, and the Drobo V2. Even with the Drobo in Standby, there was still plenty of “something rotating” noise. When I unplugged the Drobo, in order to re-activate it, I accidentally pulled the power rather than the USB, and the noise reduced - Drobo’s fan had been spinning. It didn’t make a huge difference though.
I’ll get my stethoscope out and deduce where the majority of the noise is coming from. I may end up relegating all my external drives to a reasonably sound-proof box.
I’m not sure whether the v2 fan ever turns completely off (my v2s are on my server, so they see constant access).
It’s definitely influenced by temperature though.
If you get a chance, pull the drives out, clean them, and blow out the dust from the Drobo chassis. It’s incredible how quickly those dust bunnies grow.
on a Windows 7 Toshiba laptop, a Gen 2 Drobo will go into standby when the laptop is put to sleep,
remove USB cable, go about day with laptop, return and plug in USB to drobo Gen 2
the Drobo never comes out of standby after being reconnected. It doesn’t matter which order, whether USB cable is plugged in before bringing laptop out of Standby. Or whether the Drobo dashboard is started after connecting external Drobo.
the only way to bring Drobo out of standby is to unplug and reconnect power
Questions:
¿ Is it safe for data to do this reconnect of power in order to bring this drobo out of sleep mode?
? Is there another tool or command to run and get the Drobo out of sleep mode ?
PS - I also have a gen 1 drobo, and it exhibits the same response to this Windows 7 laptop.
