DROBO FAIL!
If you know me, you know that I make videos. I use a computer to edit these videos. And since video files on a computer are very large, this requires a lot of hard disk space to archive the videos I want to keep. And, if you are responsible with the data you want to keep, you will keep it on at least 2 hard drives, because hard drives fail. So storing these large files requires at least twice the space that they actually take up. As a consequence, over the time I have been doing serious video work, I have amassed an array of external hard drives on which to store my work. It’s quite a pain in the ass because each has its own power supply and connection cables and it doesn’t take too many of them to clutter my desk. At some point I began thinking about how nice it would be to have a single, multi-bay enclosure with a single connection cable and a single power supply that I could use for backup. RAIDs do this. But the problem with a RAID is that when it comes to expanding a RAID they aren’t very flexible–they have to have multiple matched drives to work. Well, last year I began to hear about a product that might be the answer to my dilemma–the DROBO.
DROBO is short for Data Robot. It’s a RAID-like piece of hardware in that it’s a multi-drive storage solution, but unlike a RAID you can put miss-matched drives in it–and the enclosure has handy-dandy slots that allow you to pop in and out drives when needed. So as bigger hard drives come along you can just keep swapping out smaller drives for bigger drives in the DROBO and all your data stays protected–and distributed among the multiple hard drives in a single enclosure. BRILLIANT! (or so I thought).
Well, I was fortunate enough to get a deal last year where I was making a little bit of extra money every month making videos for my video blog, LO-FI SAINT LOUIS. Because of that, I was able to purchase some things for this work that I normally wouldn’t be able to afford (I have a decent job, but I have a family and am not rich by any means). One of these things was a DROBO–because it seemed like a perfect solution to my data backup needs. So last fall I went ahead and ordered a DROBO and also ordered three identical 500 gb hard drives from Other World Computing. When everything arrived I started setting everything up. Right off the bat the DROBO indicated that one of the three hard drives was bad. So that was removed–it’s not unheard of to get a brand-new DOA drive, so no big deal–I can get a refund on that, right? So with the other two drives in place, I began backing up some data to the DROBO that needed to be backed up because all my external drives were full. I also needed space on the Firewire drive I was backing up so that I could continue to work. Once the backup was complete and all the data seemed to be in place, I made the mistake of deleting the data off the Firewire drive–yes a mistake I know, as I have very painfully learned, but hey, I had a Data Robot where the data was duplicated between two hard drives, right? What could go wrong?
Well the very next day or maybe later that afternoon (I can’t exactly recall but let’s just say that it was mere hours later) I was copying some other data to the DROBO and it suddenly stopped and rebooted itself. I thought it was a fluke but soon it was doing this every 5 minutes, which was a problem because it takes more than five minutes to copy even one of the very large video files to another drive. OK, time to call tech support. It took a couple of days to get a response from support. Once contact was made, the back and forth begins. Finally they send me a replacement DROBO. I load the drives into the replacement unit and the same thing starts happening again. They ask me to send them the DROBO with the hard drives and they will try to get my data back for me. So I (mistakenly–but they weren’t specific as to which one they wanted back, frankly) send back the replacement DROBO to the company and a couple of weeks later I get an email saying that they are able to recover MOST of my data but one of the drives is bad, and the other is on its last legs. They send me back the drives and tell me to put the one that still works in the DROBO along with a new drive so at least my stuff will be backed up. So I do–in the original DROBO that I started with. I bought another new 500 gb drive and let it run for a few hours backing up the data and BANG! It happens again–constant rebooting. Long story short, they send me yet ANOTHER replacement and as near as I can tell the drive with the data on it is hosed at this point and nothing can be done about it.
So the CSR emails me one more time and says:
Ok, here’s what Engineering says to do. Boot your Drobo with both drives in it and let it attempt to complete the re-layout even if it keeps rebooting. The reason it keep rebooting is because the Drobo needs the data that is on the bad disk (because it is the critical disk) to complete the re-layout. In an attempt to get around all the errors it keeps encountering on that disk, it power cycles the slot (and reboots the system) to try and clear the problem. The hope is that the Drobo is able to read more and more of the data between reboots and eventually complete the re-layout otherwise the data will be lost. If the re-layout does complete, then swap the bad drive with a new one.
So I do. I let it run for a week. Still rebooting over and over and over again. Finally I pulled the plug on it. I took the bad drive out. Let the thing cool down a bit and then restarted the Drobo with just the one drive in it. Nothing happens. NOTHING. My system doesn’t detect the drive, all the lights turn red on the DROBO and it goes to sleep. I don’t even hear the drive spin up. I realized then that the drive was probably cooked in that week of “trying to relay out the data.” So that’s it. No more Drobo for me.
Here’s what I figured happened. The first DROBO I got was defective. It was a drive killer. Because, while there is a chance that I could have gotten ONE bad brand-new hard drive form a reputable dealer, the chances of getting THREE are nearly impossible. So the first DROBO must have damaged the drives. When I got the recovered drive back I must have put the drive back in the original faulty DROBO and killed it again for good. Their advice to put the drives in a third DROBO and let it run for a long time to re-layout the data cooked the 4th good drive and killed that one.
So at this point I figure it’s time to give up. I want a refund. I email my CSR contact and tell them as much.
A few days pass.
Finally tonight I get this email:
Hello Bill,
You actually needed to boot up the Drobo with both of your drives and
let it go through the repeated boot cycles until it finishes the
re-layout it is trying do. With any luck it will eventually finish the
re-layout and you will have access to your data.Unfortunately there will not be any type of refund available because of
the time that has elapsed since you first purchased your Drobo.I’m sorry that I do not have any better news regarding your situation.
Best regards,
Carl
Drobo Support Center
I reply:
I did that for a week. I told you that. As for the refund, that’s
complete bullshit. I was never able to use the thing for more than a
day before it malfunctioned.
I get this back:
Hello Bill,
Unfortunately the problem(s) you encountered were with your drives and
not the Drobo. The two replacement Drobos we sent you were thoroughly
tested to ensure there were not any problems and when we checked your
original Drobo it was also found to be good working order too.Best regards,
Carl
Drobo Support Center
Which is bullshit–I still have the original DROBO sitting on my desk. I never sent that one back–which they KNEW because I told them this in an exchange in December.
So I emailed them back:
Bullshit.
That’s where I’m at with this. So far I am out $500 for the DROBO, plus about $500 for the four hard drives I purchased for it, and all the data I lost, not to mention all the time and headaches dealing with this.
So… um yeah. Fuck DROBO.
Photo By: HumanBehaviour via Flickr
Are you going to be taking any legal action against Drobo? Something needs to be done with this shit.
I had seen the drobo awhile ago when looking at possibilities for backup… when I seen the price, I lapsed a bit. When I read more about how it does what it does.. I was very skeptical that it would actually work.
Glad I went with my instink honaye. I do, however, love ur email blaque to them. “bullshit”. ha.
Hope you pursue it and get a refunds.
Wow. That’s amazingly sucky. Thanks for the warning.
@Nick
No. The fact is that in the great scheme of things $1000 isn’t a whole lot of dough–it is to me, but when it comes to legal action it’s nothing really. It’s small claims court money. It would cost me more than that to pursue it. The action I’ve taken is this blog post and making sure everyone I know knows how this company does business.
I’m not sure how valuable that data was to you (how much you would spend to recover it), but we use a few companies I can recommend. Let me know.
Fuck Drobo.
First of all… does this thing come with any sort of warranty? All I could find on their website was information about a 30-day money-back guarantee! That’s IT? That right there should be enough to warn anyone off from buying something like this. It’s a big investment and it NEEDS to come with some sort of warranty, not this 30-day money-back guarantee bullshit. And obviously you started having issues with it and weren’t “entirely thrilled with your Drobo” within that first month, so they should honor their guarantee, not to mention actually add a warranty. What a crock of shit.
You can bet if they’re treating you like this that they’re treating other customers the same way. Those responses from them sound pretty kneejerk, as if they’re used to giving them all the time. Maybe a class-action lawsuit could come about over it. I would keep on them if I were you. Don’t let them off so easily. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease” is something I heard umpteen times when I worked in customer service at CompUSA. That, and “the customer is always right.” Makes you wonder if these nutjobs ever worked a day in retail…
ouch. Sorry to hear about that.
I’ve been on a “man I have to finally figure out storage” mission myself lately … I’ll definitely avoid Drobo.
“To trouble shoot, please allow the device to run while rebooting every 4 minutes until such time passes that you can no longer get your money back. Thank you.”
Damn.
You lost data. You lost money. You lost time.
All they have to give you in return is horrible customer service.
Pathetic.
I feel for you that you had to go through all this however I’m glad that you wrote this Bill. I’ll make sure to never make a purchase from their company and will ensure that I tell anyone that is looking for a backup system to stay far away from Drobo.
Wow… I was going to pick one up with tax return. Think I’ll stick with my space sucking external army.
Nasty story Bill. Thanks for sharing and helping others avoid bad products like Drobo. I know I won’t buy one now. Wait a while and watch this blog post attract comments from other dissatisfied owners and eventually earn a google ranking that matches Drobo’s. Then we’ll see how they like “customer testimonials” like yours. Ha!
I have a USB2 Drobo and have had no issues with it in a year. The only issue I see is while replacing or upgrading a drive, the entire system is in a fragile state for DAYS… if another drive fails during the “re-layout” process, you may be SOL.
I mitigate this by trying to stick to new-ish drives. And by buying a second Firewire2 Drobo, which I’m about to do… With another expensive set of hard drives :/
I thought that I’d chime in here with my story which is, sadly, similar.
I’m on my second Drobo and I’m waiting on a replacement power supply.
I’ve never actually spoken or had correspondence from a technician yet since I’ve been self-diagnosing this thing for going on two weeks.
To Drobo’s credit, they were very fast in getting a replacement to me but it didn’t work. If I could actually speak with a technician then I’m sure we could figure out what the real problem is.
I’m about to pull each HDD and take them to my lab to run SpinRite on each one!
The Drobo will mount and then stick around (whether I’m reading/writing or not) for about 10 minutes before it will just KATHUNK and reboot. It will then reboot about 10 times and show up again. Ad nauseam.
Drobo’s suck. Overpriced junk.
I just saw your blog nearly eight months after your problem.
I’m sorry that you lost your data but the fact that you put all your eggs (precious data) in one basket was foolish especially with what was new technology for you.
You’re not out anything, really. If the drives are defective, send them to the original manufacturers. I’ve never had an issue with Seagate, Hitachi or Western Digital with defective drives and we’ve replaced many for our clients and they WEREN’T in Drobos.
If you don’t want to go this far, just sell it on eBay or Craigslist. I’m sure that you’ll get a good percentage of its value.
Once you get your replacement drives, put them in one of the Drobos (if you still have them) and upgrade the firmware. With recent firmware versions, the drives are now recognized by most repair software and they are also recoverable at the major data recovery companies such as DriveSavers or Seagate Recovery Systems.
And, no I don’t work for Drobo nor do I have any affiliation with them other than the fact that I have a new Drobo.
To those who asked about warranties: Data Robotics has a 30-day return policy. If an incident is opened within that period and isn’t resolved until after the expiration and it can be documented, they should still issue a refund.
Also, I never buy raw drives from OWC. As a matter of fact, I seldom buy anything from them. They used to have terrible customer support and, while some have said that they’ve changed how they deal with customers, I’m not willing to give them any business unless I can’t find an alternative source. If they weren’t sealed retail kits, I wouldn’t buy them from OWC.
Bruce
I started to make a point about Data Robotics’ warranty: It’s one year parts and labor and you can buy additional years (up to 3 years from original date of purchase) for about $49 if it’s still under warranty.
Bruce
MY DROBO unit has been replaced 3 times from tech support. This box was supposed to be a reliable incremental backup for my business. (video/animation)
I don’t (and can’t) trust it to work when I need it to.
F’n useless piece of plastic.
BTW I have Seagate barracudas in it and trust all four simultaneously malfunctioning of these were not the cause of my issue.
I’m ready to head to small claims court to file a grievance against DROBO.
OR if enough people want to rally together with a greedy lawyer, we can pursue a class action lawsuit. Either way. I want my money back, plus the damages and risk my business assumed during the time DROBO was in responsible for my back up system. (giantcod@mac.com)
–
Damn, hope I don’t have the same problem. I picked up a v2 Drobo a few weeks ago – what ever happened with this case? Did Drobo ever respond again?
There have not been any posts here since March. But that doesn’t mean Drobo is now working fine.
I have had my Drobo for just over a year now with four 500GB drives. I bought two 1TB drives to expand the space and while Drobo was doing its re-layout after I replaced the first drive I ended up reading this page. I started to panic as it was the first time I was actually using Drobo to expand space on demand, the way it is supposed to be used.
After 14 hours, what I feared happened. When I woke up this morning lights on all the bays were solid red. Drobo was not responding and I thought I had lost 1.2TB of documents, family photos and videos. I have since tried the re-layout process two more times and no luck. Thankfully the three original drives have all the data I need, or so it appears. Right now I’m transferring all my data to other external drives, which is an extremely time consuming process.
I’ve contacted the Drobo support team but based on your experience I don’t expect much from them. I wish I had never wasted so much money on a device that doesn’t do what it is designed to do and purchased a proper RAID system.
[...] I’ve mentioned before that I’ve had problems with my 2nd generation Drobo. I’m not the only one. [...]
Wow, this sounds like an exact copy of my story, but mine ends with the darn thing catching on fire, and then and only then do they agree to send me a replacement.
They then keep emailing me wantint me to return the old uints, which they have accroding to FedEx.
DO NOT BUY THIS CRAP!
After 6 months my Drobo Failed and I lost 1.2TB of data.
30 days later and another $108.00 spent on Disk Warrior (Tech Support said I need it to recover my data) still no data!
This week they stopped responding to my emails.
A law suit is in order and if they do not refund my money, I will file one.
contact me at drobo.sucks@gmail.com if you have already started one.
To everyone complaining that they lost data, stop it. You should have a backup. If using Drobo as a primary drive, you should be backing up the data to somewhere else. Or use Drobo to backup primary drives. This is common practice with any RAID array. Once I moved my data to my Drobo from all my various USB drives, I built a JBOD array with them. Once a week I backup Drobo to JBOD. This functionality is built into Windows and OS X. You all really have no one to blame but your selves.
I’m glad I read this. I was contemplating this to backup all my important stuff. I’ll just go ahead with a 3ware card and build another little tower.
Thanks. At least your issues have cost DataRobotics a potential customer.
Also, I noticed today that Drobe isn’t available on Tiger, Newegg, Compusa, and a couple other sites.
Anyone interested in starting a lawsuit against these folks I’m interested. I have two of these things and they have never worked reliably. Tech support is no help. I want my money back so that I can purchase another device.
I had been using a first generation Drobo for the last year, but decided to migrate to a storage server running OpenSolaris. Nothing has gone wrong with my Drobo, I just finally realized that it’s too risky to trust it with my data. Besides, it’s really slow. The reason I went with OpenSolaris is that it has native ZFS support. ZFS is very reliable and has possibly the best RAID-like solution on the planet (disclosure, I work for Sun, but not on opensol or zfs). As for a proper RAID solution, I used to have one with a 3Ware card. The problem with those is the infamous RAID 5 “write hole” and the fact that they are just as proprietary as a Drobo. If the hardware controller fails, you will have a more difficult time getting your data back. With ZFS, if the box fails in some way, replace the bad part and you’re good to go. Or, pull the drives and put them in another system that supports ZFS (Mac OS X, BSD, OpenSolaris). I’ll be blogging with more details on this later, but I think that covers the gist of it. ZFS ROX!
[...] If the box fails for any reason, you have exactly one place to turn to for help (if you’re Bill Streeter, you’ll know exactly how true that is). You better hope your support contract is still good [...]
Hey,
my name is Harvey and i read your story just before I was getting ready to order a drobo unit with x4 1.6T drives. I must admit that I’m a bit disappointed because this unit seems to be the answer that I’ve been looking for. Any suggestion on a reliable high capacity storage unit out there. Let me know!
Thanks
[...] DO NOT BUY A DROBO!!: Including this great quote from the comments: “Wow, this sounds like an exact copy of my story, but mine ends with the darn thing catching on fire, and then and only then do they agree to send me a replacement.” http://billstreeter.net/2008/03/18/do-not-buy-a-drobo/ [...]
Hi, and first let me say that of all these stories the one where the drobo actually catches fire is fucking hilarious. poor bastard. one thing i though i should relate about purchasing new hard drives. I always use newegg b/c they have good customer service (had to return an lcd once that was defective) and their prices are very competitive. That said i always have them ship fedex air because UPS is not gentle with boxes. My first thought reading this was that if 3 bad drives out of three happen to someone they got banged up in shipping. Who knows, maybe the drobo actually did “break” the drives, but i doubt it. Either way, their customer service alone would make me hesitate. I mean it seems that you can’t actually get anyone on the phone and have to wait (days!!!) for an email response. that’s unacceptable to a company that is selling data storage devices. I mean come on, it sounds like you have to have a backup for your drobo which of course was the whole point of a drobo to begin with right? Thanks to all who related their nightmare and while i’m sorry for your loss, i’m very appreciative of the review as it helps protect future potential victims.
Sorry for your data loss, sounds horrible.
I’ve had good luck with my Drobo so far, bought it in January 08, and I’m currently upgrading two of the four drives in it to bigger ones. No problems so far, although the fan is really loud when it gets going. I haven’t had to deal with the company “support” yet, I hope that day never comes.
Data is not backed up unless it’s backed up twice, I’ll be looking for another storage solution to keep a second copy of all my data. Drobo protects against a single drive failure, but not if your whole volume gets corrupt, or two drives fail, or god knows what else could go wrong. But other than that, I’ve been very happy with it.
Just remember guys that the thousands of very happy people using drobo’s are much less likely to come and blog about it in this manner.
Also remember drobo is not backup solution by its self, its a RAID. you should never trust your data solely in one location be it a single hard disk or a raid array. Things still can and will go wrong. Always have your data on at least two separate physical volumes, preferably in two different locations.
For the people that lost data permanently, that really sucks and i feel bad for you. I have personally lost almost a 1TB of un recoverable work data and my policy now is if it is not on two seperate disks and on a spindle of dvd’s then its not yet backed-up and i should not be surprised if one day its all irretrievably gone. If that happens it will be my fault and not the drive or enclosure manufacturers as people are blaming here.
Data Robotics can and should be held accountable for peoples loss of time, money and earnings, but not the direct loss of anybody’s data. They obviously need to improve thier tech support if they want to be taken seriously outside the consumer market, but as a new small company im sure they will get better. So far i have never had to call them.
Ollie
Just remember guys that the thousands of very happy people using drobo’s are much less likely to come and blog about it in this manner.
Also remember drobo is not backup solution by its self, its a RAID. you should never trust your data solely in one location be it a single hard disk or a raid array. Things still can and will go wrong. Always have your data on at least two separate physical volumes, preferably in two different locations.
For the people that lost data permanently, that really sucks and i feel bad for you. I have personally lost almost a 1TB of un recoverable work data and my policy now is if it is not on two seperate disks and on a spindle of dvd’s then its not yet backed-up and i should not be surprised if one day its all irretrievably gone. If that happens it will be my fault and not the drive or enclosure manufacturers as people are blaming here.
Data Robotics can and should be held accountable for peoples loss of time, money and earnings, but not the direct loss of anybody’s data. They obviously need to improve thier tech support if they want to be taken seriously outside the consumer market, but as a new small company im sure they will get better. So far i have never had to call them.
Hello,
Sorry to hear about your problems.. I was wondering if any of you who don’t want their DROBO anymore, I would like to buy the enclosure off of you.. I just want the case.. The insides don’t matter to me because I would like to use the case for a project. Please contact me if you would liek to get rid of your bad drobo. Thank you.
Sorry, that email to contact me for the unwanted Drobo enclosure is poohspam~remove_this~@yahoo.com
I was really impressed with the Drobo website and promotional Video and was going to buy one of these for my business. Thankfully I read this blog first. I guess anything that involves constantly swapping the same data across many drives is prone to problems over time if errors creep in ?
A power outage at a key moment during the year or something like that could cause a corrupted disk and I’m guessing any corruption would then be backed up across all the drives and the problem magnifies over time. Jim Haney, who’s unit caught fire in the post above, finished it for me.
It’s a real shame because the product does sound too good to be true. Unfortunately I guess it is.
Update:
Despite the high average review score, a significant number of these Amazon Reviews seem to show a trend of problems with larger files.
I think someone summed it up quite well…
“BEWARE – It works great until it doesn’t!”
Whilst this post has certainly made me think long and hard about buying a Drobo (unRAID is looking like an option for me personally) I just had to comment on all those taking for gospel that someone’s Drobo caught fire because of a comment on a blog post.
Sorry but a comment on a blog saying the thing caught fire is about as reliable as me saying mine levitated.
Maybe it did but it’s not verifiable.
Just found this site. I agree with the ponit that there are probably a lot of customers that have had good experiences, but I can also say that if I am spending this kind of money, I want to be assured the customer service is helpful and doesn’t fight you along the way.
DROBO has lost a customer today. thanks to Bill for posting this information.
I was considering a Drobo these or setting an overly complex ZFS data server (raiz2, or raidz3, with hotspares). You have helped to stear me, and anyone else who asks me, well away Drobo. Thank you very much.
Blast:( I was thinking seriously about grabbing a drobo (They seem to be $300 at this point)
It looks like I’ll steal a thought from one of the comments and just build a little data host PC for backup instead.
Thanks for the warning. Maybe future versions will improve… but the poor customer service is just about unforgivable from what I’m reading.
I just literally woke up and had the same thing happen. Freaking out, because I *bought* the Drobo in order to have that “peace of mind” that my family pics etc are safe!!!
Anyway, literally (and non-stop) it would:
Power up
Blink all lights (like it usually does)
Think for a few seconds
Turn all drive bays SOLID RED
Wait 10-ish seconds
Power-cycle and do it again
MY SOLUTION: Before I freaked out (OK, well I freaked out, but before I freaked out too much), I wanted to try USB and see what happened (I had it connected to FW800).
TADA – worked, I now am backing up my data off the Drobo (slowly…) via USB and to a safe non-Drobo space, then I’m planning on figuring out what the hell went wrong with FW800 and either returning it for service or trying a different FW port on the Mac. No good on USB, super slow and I bought it for FW800 connectivity.
So, my suggestion, before returning or reformatting try the other port… You may still have access to your data, Drobo’s port or board or cable or … may just be funked.
I am having the same problem with the DROBO. It renames my shares automatically, rreboots, looses the drive, doesn’t start up…all in less than a 3 month period.
This thing is a piece of shit!
Windows Home Server kicks its ass!
Actually, it is very possible to purchase a group of defective drives.
Usually, if you get a bad drive, there is a high probability that the others from the same batch will be defective as well … I have heard of video production studios ordering different brand drive to ensure that the drives all come from different batches!
I swear by Data Rescue software. http://www.prosofteng.com
As far as I know, TechTool, Disk Warrior, and Nortorn need the drive to be mounted!!
Data Rescue doesn’t care if the drive is not mountable. Just connect the drive, power it up and Data Rescue copies the info to your drive of choice. Sure I had some corrupted files due to the drive failure, but what ever was rescued, PRICELESS!
Good Luck!
I feel your pain and seems odd that they weren’t more responsive. I have both a drobo and drobo pro…i am knocking on wood right now…i did have that dreaded 4 red light dead drobo situation, but it was resolved without mailing the unit in. i have had it running for a couple years now without incident.
the original drobo though, usb only is slow as a dog…with the gig ethernet it is tolerable (piss slow compared to a terastation though)
the drobo pro is pretty awesome although you need a second gig ethernet to take care of the iscsi interface
sorry you had such troubles…
there are others that have had generally good experiences with the drobo and the concept is revolutionary at least with the mix and match HD
bottomline with any data storage? have at least 2 separate copies (if not more) of mission critical data
of course raid 10 rules also
I hate Data Robotics. Drobo’s are horrific and do not even protect your data. I found out that drives can go bad with the unit not even telling you! Actually had multiple disks go bad a the same time. Very poor company and they milk you with warranty payments! Trashing this drobo and building a server.
Count me in as another user who got eaten by drobo.
Bought the gen2 unit, firewire.
we had a power failure in the middle of the night (fuse tripped) and when I powered everything up the volume is corrupt beyond hope. It may have been growing corrupt over time. Not sure. Still all green, the drobo is as happy as larry saying my “data is protected” oh yeah? well _yesterday_ its little pie chart showed 30% green (my data) but today the same pie chart shows the entire unit is empty. And all it took was an unexpected power failure to do this.
The drobo support site is now full of warnings and caveats and what-not that basically inform you that your data is not protected. I suspect perhaps in the case of one type of issue (drive goes bad in a “normal” way) it can tell you and you have time to take care of it. But for other problems: driver or firmware issues, power outages, problems with the hardware of the unit, your dog knocking out the cable in the wrong way, the power cord getting pulled. Whatever. Your data is potentially toast. At least for me, it became toast instantly. And once the volume is unusable it is an inscrutable little black box that keeps its secrets. Where is the data? how is it spread through the drives? all, a mystery.
sounds like drobo are supported by apple support people
hehe
ohh and I only found this place cos my droboS is in an infinate reboot loop, it landed here 32 mins ago . . . . .
get this! My Drobo didn’t have any drives go bad, no updates applied (as many people have lost data after installing updates), no power failures, and i still lost everything after years of it working well- it decided to delete every file, EXCEPT for a few folder trees with no data in them! I HATE this thing- $50/year at Carbonite and this wouldn’t have happened… I trusted their ’self-healing’ system
corporate files, CAD docs, and all my photos are among the lost… I loath Drobo! thanks for letting me share…