Drobo Support
I’ve been using a Drobo and Drobo Share since July. For those that don’t know, Drobo is an enclosure that accepts up to four SATA drives, and uses a proprietary RAID-like technology to make the drives appear as one drive to the operating system. Unlike RAID you don’t have to use identical drives, and the Drobo indicates when it’s almost full. When that happens, the smallest capacity drive can be replaced with a larger one and overall capacity is increased. Drobo Share is a network attachment that turns the Drobo into a NAS device. It’s been working fine until this past weekend when I noticed I couldn’t connect from my Mac. The lights on the Drobo appeared normal, and I could ping the IP for the Drobo Share. I tried all the troubleshooting options on the Drobo support site, including restoring the Drobo Share to defaults using a paperclip, but nothing worked. The Drobo itself is fine and still works over USB, so it was a relief that no data was lost. The Drobo Share appears to be dead though.
Sunday night I contacted Drobo’s support. I feel that my request was clearly written and conveyed my problem as well as I could. Here was my request:
My Drobo Share stopped working. My drobo (1st gen) still works fine when connected through USB, but will not show up in the Dashboard when connected to the Drobo Share. My Droboshare is getting an IP address and is responding to pings, and the drobo is showing the lights it would normally show when connected and disconnected. This Drobo has data that multiple computers need to access, and being usb-only for very long isn’t an option.
I got a reply with some good questions to help them troubleshoot my problem:
To help us track down what is happening with your Drobo, we will need you to check a few things.
Did you use any special characters like spaces, backslashes, hyphens or underscores in the name of your DroboShare?
Did you format your Drobo for 1, 2, 4, 8, or 16TB virtual volumes?
What is the part number (P/N) of your Drobo power supply?
Have you tried resetting your DroboShare back to factory defaults?
Have you tried manually mapping to Drobo on DroboShare by using Go then
Connect to Server?Thank you,
Drobo Support – LG
So I replied:
Thank you for responding. Here are the answers to your questions:
My droboshare name is just drobo, no spaces or special characters
I have a 4TB HFS+ volume set up (and it is working properly via USB)
My power supply part number is GPD80-12-7A
I have tried resetting the droboshare to factory defaults with no success
I cannot connect to it manually via connect to server, as well as the
run command from Windows.Jeremy Dennis
At this point I was happy with their support. I probably should have mentioned what I had done to troubleshoot in my original request, but in my answers I assumed that they would have the information they needed. In particular, I was surprised they asked for the power supply model number. Was there a problem with power supplies causing this type of problem? I was optimistic that there might have been, and the problem would be a quick warranty replacement.
Boy, was I wrong.
Monday night I got a reply from Drobo Support:
Hello Jeremy Dennis,
Thanks for contacting Drobo tech support.
Put Drobo to standby
Wait 2 min the lights should go out (except the orange power LED)
Unplug the power from the Y-Cable (leave it plugged into the units)
Find and unroll a paperclip twice
Push in the rest button on the ethernet side of the DROBOSHARE.
While holding the reset button power the Y-Cable back up
Hold the reset until the Drive bays on the Drobo are solid green
Then let go and the share will be reset to default settings and should fix the issue.Please reply to this e-mail and let us know if the issue is resolved.
Thanks for your time,
Drobo Tech Support – JB
This set me off. Was I unclear in my previous e-mail? Did I not say that I had tried to reset the Drobo Share? I probably shouldn’t have replied right away, but I was so incensed that I couldn’t stop myself:
Drobo Support,
Is anyone even reading the past history on this ticket? I mentioned in
my last e-mail that I did already reset my drobo share. You asked me
specific questions to help troubleshoot the issue, and I answered
them. Now the reply is to do something that I already said that I did?
This is a very stressful and frustrating situation for me and to make
sure that everything is clear, I will repeat my problem, as well as
your questions and my answers from the previous e-mails so everything
will be easily understood to the next person to receive this support
ticket.My original support request:
My Drobo Share stopped working. My drobo (1st gen) still works fine
when connected through USB, but will not show up in the Dashboard when
connected to the Drobo Share. My Droboshare is getting an IP address
and is responding to pings, and the drobo is showing the lights it
would normally show when connected and disconnected. This Drobo has
data that multiple computers need to access, and being usb-only for
very long isn’t an option.My reply from “Drobo Support – LG” and my answers (prefixed by >):
To help us track down what is happening with your Drobo, we will need
you to check a few things.
Did you use any special characters like spaces, backslashes, hyphens
or underscores in the name of your DroboShare?> My droboshare name is just drobo, no spaces or special characters
Did you format your Drobo for 1, 2, 4, 8, or 16TB virtual volumes?
> I have a 4TB HFS+ volume set up (and it is working properly via USB)
What is the part number (P/N) of your Drobo power supply?
> My power supply part number is GPD80-12-7A
Have you tried resetting your DroboShare back to factory defaults?
> I have tried resetting the droboshare to factory defaults with no success
Have you tried manually mapping to Drobo on DroboShare by using Go
then Connect to Server?> I cannot connect to it manually via connect to server, as well as the run command from Windows.
As I mentioned before, I really need to access my Drobo over the
network for access from multiple computers and right now I’m unable
to. This is very stressful for me. Please help me resolve this
problem.Thank you,
Jeremy Dennis
I know that was a little over the top, but I wanted to make sure that there was no way that anyone could misunderstand my problem and what I had done so far to troubleshoot it. I’ve worked in tech support for almost 10 years. I know what help desk systems are like. They all have a history of correspondence between the user and the technician, and these e-mails all have text in the subject line with the ticket number and codes for the help desk system to pick up and import into the ticket. I knew all this information was already in their system, but what harm could come from having it in there twice?
Apparently twice wasn’t enough:
Hello Jeremy Dennis,
Thanks for contacting Drobo tech support.
Apologies we sent the reset instructions because if not done to how it was typed it will not reset the Droboshare. Assuming the Droboshare is reset you should be able to access the Droboshare via
go~connect to server~ type SMB://Droboshare/Drobo (replace Drobo with the volume name. Leave Droboshare the same as the name will be reset)
Also please check your computers Firewall(s) (OS and 3rd party) have exceptions for the Drobodashboard.exe
Thanks for your time,
Drobo Tech Support – JB
Ignoring the fact that he’s mixing up OSX and Windows terminology (“connect to server” line and “drobodashboard.exe”), was this also not covered in the previous e-mails? Let’s look up a bit and see.
Have you tried manually mapping to Drobo on DroboShare by using Go then Connect to Server?
> I cannot connect to it manually via connect to server, as well as the run command from Windows.
It appears that I had covered that bit. My thinking now is that “JB” from Drobo support isn’t very good with reading the whole e-mail. That is only way I can see this happening without really getting mean about it. Once again I replied without giving myself time to relax and sent this off:
Drobo Support,
Once again, this is something I have already covered in my previous
answers. You asked: “Have you tried manually mapping to Drobo on
DroboShare by using Go
then Connect to Server?” I replied: “I cannot connect to it manually
via connect to server, as well as the run command from Windows.” As I
said in my previous e-mail, resetting my Drobo Share did not allow me
to connect to the Drobo. There have been no changes to the computer’s
firewall settings since the problems started, and the firewall was
already off.This is absurd. Every e-mail is asking things that have already been
asked by someone else and answered by me. This is extremely
frustrating, especially for a product as expensive as the Drobo and
Drobo Share.Jeremy Dennis
We’ll see what happens. I am close to calling, but Drobo provides a support request form. It “should” work through this method. I really like my Drobo, and for a product that costs as much as it does, I would have expected better support. I’m hoping I don’t have a $199 doorstop. I will update this as this saga continues to unfold.
Hi, I saw you had an interesting experience with the Drobo Support theme. I`ve also been in contact with them both by e-mail and telephone. First I must say that they have been great getting back to me phone and e-mail, but I some times also get the impression that they are not reading some of my e-mails good enough. Have you come anny further with your problem?
I had someone call back, but after they determined that my droboshare was bricked, they “Escalated” it and I haven’t heard anything back. It’s frustrating to no end.
I’m on my 3rd replacement. It’s very flaky and considering I purchased this box for an incremental backup strategy – it’s completely untrustworthy..
I’ve had to open a case with them about my Drobo — it occasionally spontaneously reboots while connected. I was surprised that although I started the support ticket on-line, their first attempt to contact me was via telephone… but with the time difference between their support office and where I live, that was a non-starter for me, so I requested we do the support by email. I think that may have been a mistake. Their first “form letter” response was identical to the one you got — good questions, but generic, and much of the information was already contained in my original trouble ticket!
After I answered that, the next response was, like yours, “escalated” to “the engineers” who “are working cases in case number order” — that doesn’t instill confidence. It’s a bit too much like “your call is important to us. Please stay on the line”.
We’ll see what happens. So far, the support has been responsive, but not necessarily helpful.
My first Drobo out of the box had to be sent back and the share had to be reconfigured as it apparently came from the factory with the wrong settings in place….The replacement they sent would reboot on its own, and I could not access the dashboard.
Called tech support they wanted me to run tests etc. I kept telling them I did not have access to the dashboard and could not do what they wanted.
I told them over and over that once booted the drobo lights went out and a single red light at the bottom was all that was on.
I pulled the Drobo out of the closet and booted it up to take a photo of the single red light, in hopes they could see why I could not run the requested test.
When I plugged the unit in it started smoking and making some strange sounds.
I contacted support again and told them the unit caught on fire and that is when they told me the little single red light was a warning of overheating.
Good think I did not have the unit plugged in over night.
They finally sent a replacement and it seems to work fine.
I was surfing to try and find similar issues to mine, and it appears that I’ve found a couple
My Drobo has been spontaneously rebooting. As it turns out I have two drobos, one for my own use and one with a client.
They both do the same thing.
I received the same requests as you.
It would seem the marketing for Drobo is good since it would seem there have been quit a few of them sold, too bad their support/R&D can’t keep up with what they have sold.
I sit and wait and hope I don’t have to rip out $2000.00 worth of hardware.
I’ve been having issues with the drobo spontaneously rebooting(I haven’t used it directly plugged into a computer which I’ll be doing next) when doing large copy operations.
I too had a horrid experience with Drobo support. Being a support engineer at a storage vendor I expected better support for the premium paid. The .NET interface to a Linux SAMBA engine has a lot to be desired as admitted by one of their own engineers. Support is “spotty” they first asked me to redo my entire DNS because I had a “_” in a domain name. I was “???” but I went along with the game because I really wanted to believe this device can consistently perform; it didn’t They then said I could not use UNC and had to statically map each drive on each machine. I went along for the ride again and.. yep, no bueno… None of these solutions work! I repeatedly send them dumps showing I could consistently reproduce the Droboshare going off line and I was ignored.
You can install SSH from Drobo Apps on your already under powered Droboshare login and run your favorite Linux performance utility and see “Yes I bought a $200 door stop”. I personally can’t rely on the Droboshare to accept connectivity for any amount of time over 48 hours if there is a load. In my frustration from having to always get on my hands and knees to pull the power supply because they were too cheep to supply a button I name my Droboshare “Slider” I even put Teflon feet on the device so I could slide it out from under my desk to “HARD” reboot the device. So if you have your Droboshare under the desk and have to repeatedly reboot it get some tefon “booties” for it and the next time your down there say “Hello Slider!”
I am just about at my wits end with my DroboShare. I have connected to my office LAN, and it seems to work fine there. The Drobo Dashboard will not, however, find the Drobo for network users connecting via VPN. Apparently, the DroboShare will only work for devices on the same Subnet.
I am about to disconnect the “$200 door stop” and just connect the Drobo via USB or Firewire to another workstation, and share out the resource that way.
I have the exact same problem. Did you ever get your issue resolved? I am running out of ideas on how to restore the drobo share… No support contract either (too expensive).
…Jesper
I did get it resolved. I had to get escalated to the next level of support, and then they replaced the droboshare for me.
Noting but problems with my Mac Pro. I use Drobo with four 1-TB SATA drives. I work mainly with images using Photoshop CS4 and do not use Drobo Share. This second generation Drobo will shut down by itself and freezes my Mac Pro, at anytime it desires. What a disapointment, close to $1000.00 door stop..
My new DroboShare kept giving me errors when I tried to mount it form a MacBook over SMB. It kept asking me for a a login and p/w, even though I had it set up for guest access. My first call to tech support said it was an issue with my MacBooks (whatever.) Just as I was about to throw it through a window, I got on the line with a second tier tech support person (lucky me, as the tier one person I was dealing with had to leave and the second tier guy was the only one still there that late.) The second tier support staff guy (who stayed 30 minutes after his shift to help me) had the unit up and running in about 45 minutes. It took a few “pin” resets. The only issue I have now is the DroboApps don’t work at all, and the transfer rate is a bit pokey compared to my SBS2k3 server. Aside from that I’m pleased with the unit. I’ve copied 75 gigs of information to it over the weekend, and now I’m mirroring it to offsite backups. I’ve been pounding the thing nonstop, and it’s doing fine.
Can’t see drobo drive connected to Netgear Prosafe VPN firewall FVS318v3. When I connect the NAS drive to wireless router we can see the drive, but we would prefer to see it connect to the firewall please help