Will Drobo 5D work within Windows Server 2012 R2?

Forum History Drobo 5D
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Hi guys,

Anyone know if Drobo 5D will operate within a Windows Server 2012 R2 environment?
I have installed Drobo Dashboard, but before I format the drive, I need to know if its compatible and will work when connected to our Fujitsu RX300 Server.

Thanks

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I don’t see it as a issue. As 5D is a direct attached storage with USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt.

If your server has USB 3.0 port, it should work and Windows Server will see it as a Volume. Just make sure your Windows Server has the latest USB 3.0 driver installed.

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Thanks very much for the reply mate!

Unfortunately the server does not have a USB 3.0 port (only 2.0). Would this still work?

My thoughts are it should?

The Drobo is currently used on a MAC and hasn’t been formatted yet (I want to make sure before formatting it). I assume because the 5D has been setup to be used on a MAC that is won’t be detected in Windows yet, is that correct?

Thank you so much for your help!!

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You can connect 5D to a USB 2.0 with no issue, just that you be running at much lower speed.

5D USB 2.0 - about max 30MB/s. But with USB 3.0 - you can hit 100MB/s +++ more!

To format the 5D Disk Pack, you have to use the Drobo Dashboard for that purpose. As Drobo Dashboard will format it to a Thin Provision volume. Do NOT use Windows or OSX to format the 5D as it is not supported.

When you use Drobo Dashboard on a MAC to format the Drobo 5D Disk Pack, it will format into HFS+ format for Mac OSX. And it will be Thin Provision to 16TB even though you may NOT have the physical disk space. You get a 16TB Volume on the Mac.

When you use Drobo Dashboard on a Windows to format the Drobo 5D Disk Pack, it will format into NTFS format for Windows. And it will be Thin Provision to 16TB even though you may NOT have the physical disk space. Meaning you get a 16TB volume on Windows.

By default Windows does NOT recognise HFS+ filesystem for Mac. So Windows will not see the volume that is formatted for Mac as HFS+.

To understand more about Drobo Thin Provisioning Volume, you can do a search on Drobo Support page for the KBs.

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hi, just to add that once you set it up on your windows system, keeping an eye on dashboard, as well as the main drobo unit blue leds, can help you keep track of your used and free space, so that you do not overfill your drobo (even if the windows volume appears larger than the actual usable space you may have).