Drobo + UPS = data corruption?
Drobo Fails
I've got an APC XS 1300 uninterruptible power supply unit which I keep my desktop plugged into to prevent data loss in case of power failure. I recently replaced my RAID5 with the 'Data Robot' (Drobo) v2 and naturally, I plugged that in to my UPS as well. This worked out fine for a couple weeks, and then all of the sudden my Drobo disappeared from my desktop. Basically this Drobo webpage explains what happened to me: my drive showed up as Unlabled and refused to mount. Disk checks and repairs failed. Pretty bad news.
;)
Now, I've had my desktop plugged in to the UPS and running pretty much constantly for a couple months with zero problems. I just converted from RAID5 in a linux file-server to Drobo.
Why did I get a Drobo?
- I didn't want to worry about messing around with mdadm and the other Linux tools for building and maintaining RAID arrays any more. What if I messed up a command and killed my array?
- I figured that using a Drobo instead of a computer would save me on my power bill.
- I just wanted something easy and reliable. I have done some consulting in the last two years, and recently started a small business so I wanted something better than my hacked together setup.
Why do I regret getting a Drobo?
Well, oops. I have had a lower power bill, and Drobo is low maintenance. It turns out that doesn't mean much to you when your data disappears. Fortunately, I was able to use fdisk -r to repair the volume. That sentence doesn't do justice to the amount of work it was to fix the problem though. The journal was still corrupted, and there was no easy way to disable journaling while the drive was unmounted. I ended up compiling and running a small C program that changed some flags on the volume so it would mount without the journal. Then I could use Disk Utility to do a repair, re-enable journaling, and do another repair. Still that doesn't sound so bad, but it took hours of research and running the C program hacked together by someone with a similar problem was nerve racking.
Now What?
This all happened about a month ago. Since then my Drobo volume hasn't gone missing, but I have started getting errors (semi-weekly) about the Drobo being disconnected / powered-off while in use. I should remind you that the desktop, and the Drobo are plugged into a UPS and the Drobo is never turned off. The desktop is on almost 24/7 because I run various servers on it, and has never turned off on me.
Who knows, maybe it's my UPS? As a test, a few days ago, I unplugged my Drobo (after putting it in Standby of course), and plugged it into a normal power strip. After a month or so if I don't have any more problems I guess I can conclude the Drobo doesn't play nice with my UPS. What then? Leaving the Drobo not plugged in to a UPS is just asking for trouble. I have had zero other problems with my APC, but should I try another brand? If the outlet test passes I do have an old UPS that should be sufficient protection for just a Drobo. How can I trust it though at this point? It's not like it failed right away; it was fine for weeks and then BAM: failure in a big way.
Argh. So I don't know what the problem is here, but my Drobo experience is not going well, and judging by the reviews over at Amazon many other customers are unsatisfied. I'm just putting this out without knowing whether my Drobo is defective or just doesn't deal with the APC XS 1300 very well. If anyone reading this knows of similar stories or solutions (?!) please leave a link.
Chris H.
More problems with Drobo
My experiment of plugging Drobo into a normal surge protected power-strip rather than my uninterruptible power supply has ended prematurely in failure. I'm not sure what happened exactly, but the first night I was woken up by what sounded like a smoke detector alarm going off in my room. I thought initially that it was my UPS (seemed the only device in my room that might have some kind of alarm), but I was mistaken. Now my Drobo does this at least once a day, so I've had a chance over the past few days to to lean over Drobo and confirm it's the source of the noise. The frequency of the alarm going off doesn't seem to depend on whether it's plugged into the UPS or not anymore.
I've contacted Drobo Support again, so I guess all that's left with this unit is to see what they do to fix the situation. I'm not entirely opposed to trying another unit. After all it's gotten endorsements from a number of podcasts that I listen to regularly, so it can't be that widespread of a problem, right? At the same time though, I wouldn't mind getting a refund to buy a RAID enclosure just to have something that has stood up better over time.
Chris H.
It's now been 4 weeks since my original post, and something like 10 weeks since I first began having problems with my Drobo. I've been in contact with support, but they haven't responded during the last two weeks (there generally seems to be about a week lag). At this point I don't see how I could recommend this product to anybody else. Drobo sounds great in theory, but I'm finding the reality to be a huge disappointment. Next time I'll stick with the solution that's stood the test of time: RAID. It's certainly not as user friendly, but at least it's mature.
Chris H.
Resolution!
About a month ago, one of the Drobo support people finally decided something was wrong and sent me a new Drobo power supply. I've now gone a month with no problems, so it appears my problem was a faulty power supply. I'm glad that my Drobo seems to be functioning properly now, but I'm not too impressed that it took two months for the Drobo team to address my problem.
Chris H.
I had my first hard disk fail a few days ago, or at least Drobo reported it failed. It was a bit weird, because I rebooted my Drobo for the first time in months and all the sudden the Firewire connection stopped working. I went through all the steps they have on their site to follow if Drobo doesn't show up. At one point, Drobo appeared to enter into an infinite reboot loop, so after a 5 reboots or so I just powered it down for a few minutes. Finally I just tried using USB, and all the sudden it pops up fine. Fine that is, except that one of my drives is now reported failed. I tried shutting down and swapping the position with another drive in Drobo and again it's the same drive being reported failed.
So then I try moving my stuff via Target Disk Mode, and can't get it working (just nothing shows up over Firewire). So either the cord somehow went bad (I did move my Drobo when it was off) or the Firewire port on my desktop is dead at the same time I had a drive failure. I don't have any other Firewire stuff, or a second Firewire cord to test.
I replaced the failed disk and 40 hours later my data is safe again. At some point I'll get get another Firewire cable and try to figure out what happened there.
apc, corruption, data loss, drobo, hard drives, raid5, ups
Reader Comments (6)
Since it has been a while since your last update...have you had any issues since?
I have not had any more issues with data loss, no. I have mixed feelings about going with Drobo vs. a RAID solution though primarily because of the performance of Drobo. It's great having this giant disk where I can very easily swap out one disk for another as I fill it up. That expandability has allowed me to keep Time Machine backups for far longer than I otherwise would have. I'd have filled up my RAID and possibly deleted old backups or other data that I occasionally access, but don't necessarily need.
On the other hand, when restoring from backups I can't help but notice my Drobo read speeds are 8 MB / s or so on average. This means it takes a really, really long-time. It'd still take awhile with a RAID setup, but could probably be 5x faster.
So the Drobo has turned out to be very convenient, but the tradeoff is you don't get the performance of RAID.
Hi Chris! I'm havig the same problem than you. I'm sad and don't know what to do. I have three partitions on Drobo and only one won't mount anymore. On Disk Utility I try to repair the partition and it fails. Could you please help me? Thank you very much.
Chris! Disk Warrior 4 has just remounted and recovered all the data!! Thanks.
I have had problems with my Drobo 2 (firewire) ever since I bought it. I have taken it in to technicians who can seem to find the problem. To make sure that there is nothing wrong with my machine (Mac Pro) I have taken it in to technicians who tested it and said it was fine. I then bought a new hard drive onto which I installed a new, fresh OS (snow leopard). I then downloaded and installed all the new updates and drivers. I re-cabled all the wires, taking extra care that the Drobo cables were secure and properly plugged in.
I then booted up and started working from it. Unfortunately, the problem persists! It crashed / went to sleep all the time! Even while I was opening a Photoshop document, it crashed, leaving my machine hanging. All this and the Drobo icon remained on my desktop.
I ran a Drobo Diagnostic and sent support the file. This was their reply;
"Diagnostics log contains records of quite a few Drobo's OS crashes. We should exchange your unit.
There are also quite a lot of power-losses noted in diags. Do you use an uninterruptible power supply?"
Anyway, after many more crashes and emails to support it was eventually replaced for another. After cabling it up, I switched it on and within the first hour it had crashed 3 times. I ran another diagnostics test and sent it to support. This was their reply;
"diagnostics file shows that reason for those reboots you noticed are power-losses. There could be something
wrong with the power supply unit. We can send you another one if you provide us wit a shipping address.
Some UPS cause problems for Drobo as well. Is Drobo connected directly to wall socket?"
I replied saying that the Drobo is connected to the wall socket, that I live in a new building and that the building manager has assured me that the power throughout the building is managed. I have bought new plugs and checked all connections. My Mac and a G Drive run off the same outlet and there have never been any problems with them. They replied;
"Do you have the 80W PSU or the 90W PSU?
The power supply part number (P/N) – not the model number – should contain the following characters:
“GPD80-12-7” (Global Power Corporation, 6.6A to 6.7A of current, for a total output of 80W DC);
OR
"EA11003A" (Edac Power, 7.5A, for a total output of 90W DC)."
I told them I have EA11003A version. They replied;
"we should send you an exchange power supply you can test with.
Please provide your shipping address."
I am still waiting.....
My opinion? The Drobo has a lot of issues that are shipped with each product. Issues that are well known and unresolved. (particularly power issues) I recommend you DO NOT waste your time and money with this product. Go for something that has been tried and tested (Mercury Elite-AL Pro QX2 ) so that you can focus on your work instead of tedious emails to support.
(Sorry my english is not perfect)
Hi, I have my Drobo 1st generation since late 2008 or early 2009. I really like the concept and my drobo was able to grow with my needs. Pretty cool. I had problem 1 or 2 times but I successfully put the Drobo back on with almost or no data lost. I experiment the lost of a HDD 2 or 3 times an I was really prode to have my Drobo at this time. BUT...
I recently had really strange problem with my Drobo. First It start to unmount for no reason. Sometimes unplug the USB cable and put it back was enough to get the Drobo mount again, but sometime I had to unplug the Drobo and plug it back for a reboot and get my Drobo back.
After a couple of days, it start to do this strange behavior more often. Suddenly the Drobo start to relayout it's self with the message that my data was on risk. (Orange and green light blinking). The fisrt thing I notice was that I didn't have to replace any drive!!?! It took 2 or 3 days to finnish the process. And everything was back to normal.
Again, a couple days after, The same thing happen. But this time I had a really bad feeling and start to be scare to lost data. I use to have an another backup but the Drobo was now much bigger then my other backup solution so I was unable to backup everything. I was searching for a solution and my first thought was to buy I another Drobo, but for different reason I was not sure. So... Because I was still able to read the data on my Drobo I start to copy has much as I could (The data that was most important - Family photo) But after 1- to 30 minute the Drobo volume was unmounting it self. Not good...
I could not copy all my photos and now, Only one volume is mounting (the one that have less data and less important data :-( ) I try disk repair (I'm on Mac) Didn't work. The relayout is still in progress for now (34 hour left) But I don't know if my first and bigger volume will be back. If I don't try to copy data from my Drobo, the Drobo don't unmount.
I was searching on the net for solution. I found your web page and I found out that I just bought a APC XS 1300 and I my Drobo is plug in!!! I suddenly realize that my problem start around the same time!!!
Last thing. I notice that when Drobo was booting. (in the last 24h) One of my 4 HDD was blinking red for maybe 5 to 10 seconds and than nothing. Everything was blinking orange and green no HDD to change???