What happens after Drobo rebuilds with new drive?

Forum History Drobo
1

One of my Drobos had 4x1.5tb drives and to expand space, I am replacing two of them with 2tb drives. I pulled the top drive out and replaced it with one of the 2tb drives. Drobo took 72hrs to complete the rebuild (the “data protection”).

When it completed, it appeared to reboot itself. When it appeared on the Dashboard again, the “Data Protection” progress bar was just a full spinning barber-poll, all the drives in the “Drobo Status” box were flashing yellow, and it says “Data At Risk”.

It has been almost three hours, now. None of this has changed. What exactly is it doing, since it already said the 72hr rebuild was done and it had restarted? How long is this next phase likely to last? It still gives no indication of time and the progress bar is just full and spinning.

Is this even expected behavior or has something gone horribly wrong?

Update: Also, while I’m able to access the file structure, I’m not able to actually access the contents. For example, I can’t play a video that is on the device. Nor can I copy a file from it. The drive has also disappeared from the Dashboard for the second time since the whole “restart” after the completion of the rebuild. Also, it has rebooted itself two more times. Each time, going back into the same mode as described above. All blinking lights while dashboard says “in progress” with no actual ETA.

Update: No longer appears as a mounted drive (not that it matters, since it wouldn’t let me access data on it, anyway).

Update: I have also followed the steps discussed in this thread about completely resetting it: http://www.drobospace.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=1782&page=1

Now, it is back to blinking orange and green with the spinning progress bar that just says “in progress”. It does not indicate any ETA and while it claims “you may continue accessing your data”, the drive doesn’t even appear as mounted and it no longer has the volume name (instead, it just shows as "Drobo in the dashboard).

Update: Now the drobo has vanished from the dashboard, which says no drobo is detected. Meanwhile, the drobo continues to flash green and red/orange. I presume I shouldn’t screw with it at this point, so even though it isn’t detected by Dashboard, I’m going to leave it running with the blinking lights and assume something is getting down.

Regards.

2

This is not normal behaviour. I have a Drobo v2. Upon completion of the 72 hour rebuild, everything should be green and happy.

3

That’s what I expected, too. There was no indication that it would have to reboot when it finished and now that it doesn’t show up as mounted or appear in the Dashboard (though it did for the first ten minutes after completely resetting the device), I have no idea what’s going on. I’m guessing support won’t be available until Tuesday (holiday weekend and all), so even if they get to me right away, we’re talking another three or four days of the device just sitting there churning (on top of the 72hrs for the first process). Whether it’s actually doing anything useful or its just wearing the drives down to failure, I have no idea.

At this point, I just want to be able to recover my terabytes worth of data from it and throw both of the six month old Drobos away. I would feel dishonest if I tried to sell them used to someone and even if the drives could be restored, I wouldn’t feel that the data was safe in the future (or if it was, I certainly wouldn’t feel the amount of work to recover it justified the use of the product).

By the way, does anyone know of another way to get my serial numbers for support? I know that it’s on the product box (which I don’t have, because I bought these six months ago). I know it appears in the Dashboard (useless, because the dashboard doesn’t see the Drobo). I know that it’s inside the drobo, but I have to shut it down and remove the drives to get to it. But the device can’t be properly shut down right now and I’m certainly not about to shut everything down just to get the numbers off it.

Since I registered my drobos when I bought them, support should already have my information and be fine with it, I presume?

4

Unless I’m mistaken, it’s on the sticker on the underside of the Drobo chassis, - doesn’t require removing drives, though I would be wary of turning the entire thing upside-down, especially while running. Carefully lift it up and get a mirror or friend to read the sticker.

5

Thanks. I had misunderstood the tech note on it when I read it, because of the concern it placed on removing the hard drives. I assumed that it meant it was on the bottom inside the chassis. I should have read that a second time, more carefully!

6

I’m currently going through the exact same process and swapped my first 1.5 & 2TB drive out last night. For some reason the Drobo shut itself down a couple of times, orange power LED, before finally powering up properly and starting the rebuild which has been going for about 17 hours so far. I’ve disconnected it from the computer and will just wait to see what happens.

7

How warm is the Drobo? Overheating can cause reboots, though it’s not the only cause.

8

when a drive is removed, (lets say a smaller drive of 1TB), so that a larger drive (say 1.5TB) can be put in its place…

do we need to wait for the drobo to stop doing relayouts etc before putting in the new blank drive?
(ive heard some people talk about waiting, or others that you can put it in)

but is there a recommebded best practice? (assuming the drobo and drives etc all have the necessary proper compatible firmewares etc etc)

9

You can always add a drive.

It’s the removal that requires the Drobo to be in a “good” state.

Personally I like to wait, as there’s the slightest chance that you might knock one of the new drives loose while it’s rebuilding, or worse yet, the new drive will go screwy on you.

10

ok thanks bhiga, good patient advice :slight_smile:
(and to think someone on the forums here called me a Brave Drobo Warrior) :smiley:

11

So, I did hear back from Drobo support and they told me to completely reset the Drobo, but not to reseat drive #3 and then see how long it says it will take to rebuild when I start it back up.

I’m a bit confused. I replaced Drive #1 (1.5tb) with a 2tb drive. I don’t see what drive #3 has to do with it. In fact, since Drobo can only handle one drive failure, how is it going to rebuild/relayout if I yank that drive?

I’ve asked them to confirm that they’re absolutely certain that I should do this, but it has been a couple days and I haven’t heard back. Think I should go through with this?

I mean, if I have four drives and I yank drive #1 and replace it with a larger drive, then I yank drive #3. . . that means that all it has left to rebuild from is drive #2 and #4 . . . it seems like this is potentially going to completely permanently damage all of the data.

12

Nevermind. I finally caved in and did as they had requested. The result was solid red lights, OSX not seeing/mounting the drive, and Dashboard saying that I have removed too many drives, as I figured it would.

13

Umm… Is your data still there? I have a bad feeling about this…

Oh wait… drive #3 is not present. Okay… all it should take is putting drive #3 back in, relayout should resume, and you should see your data again.

I think it would be best to phone support or have support phone you - real-time support would be far better.