Wondering if anyone else has had issues with their Drobo FS and various incarnations of Mac OS X.
Drobo FS is running the most recent firmware. So far I have observed the following issues on both Snow Leopard and Lion:
Initially, it will take a long time to connect via AFP (sometimes as long as 2 minutes before you finally get a list of shares), but once it connects, it is reasonably fast.
The second issue is that it occasionally seems to just completely disappear from Finder entirely. It it still on the network - it can be ping'd and the Drobo Dashboard software can (sometimes) see it. It just doesn't show up in the list of available shares and you can't directly AFP to is as well. However, occasionally, firing up the Drobo Dashboard will cause it to reappear in Finder.
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Drobo FS + Mac OS X = Slow Access Times and Occasionally Disappears?
I just received my FS yesterday installed on first generation MacBook running Snow Leopard 10.6.8. It was working fine till I followed Dashboard's reccommendation to update the firmware. After that it was basically unusable. Taking over an hour to transfer 1GB. Tried connecting directly but it took 15 minutes for finder to find the drobo. Then disconnecting in the middle of file transfers after only a couple minutes.
Long story short I ended up manually 'upgrading' to the previous firmware 1.1.2 then rebooting and then, just to be sure, doing a reset- which clears everything and reformats the drives. Now it's working again on my MacBook, though it still seems to drop it's connection when hardwired after an hour or so. You can get the earlier firmware here. ftp://ftp.drobo.com/drobofs/firmware/ . You won't be able to use it under Lion. There's an excellent article on the drobo debacle here. halmueller.wordpress.com/2011/07/28/drobo-fs-probl...
Long story short I ended up manually 'upgrading' to the previous firmware 1.1.2 then rebooting and then, just to be sure, doing a reset- which clears everything and reformats the drives. Now it's working again on my MacBook, though it still seems to drop it's connection when hardwired after an hour or so. You can get the earlier firmware here. ftp://ftp.drobo.com/drobofs/firmware/ . You won't be able to use it under Lion. There's an excellent article on the drobo debacle here. halmueller.wordpress.com/2011/07/28/drobo-fs-probl...
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I got one of these for my wife's photography business and migrated all our data catalogues and libraries to the FS so that she could update her computer or use her laptop to edit and finish on the desktop etc. It does allow you to do this and expand capacity with ease, and it regularly checks your data to keep it safe and healthy.
That all being said, it is the weakest link in our IT chain. Our computer, router, laptop, and internet are all faster than the FS, and all the drives run at 7200rpms with a read speed over 300Mbps, and files are transferring at 2-4Mbps.
Before we had the FS we were just running an external drive and data transfer was noticeably faster. So with the FS we unknowingly traded speed for expandability, security and ease of use. As of today we find ourselves wishing for a high speed storage solution, even if we have to manage expansion and redundancy on our own, cause when you have 800 images that are 5-7Mb a piece to edit, waiting 2-3sec for each to just load, really adds up.
That all being said, it is the weakest link in our IT chain. Our computer, router, laptop, and internet are all faster than the FS, and all the drives run at 7200rpms with a read speed over 300Mbps, and files are transferring at 2-4Mbps.
Before we had the FS we were just running an external drive and data transfer was noticeably faster. So with the FS we unknowingly traded speed for expandability, security and ease of use. As of today we find ourselves wishing for a high speed storage solution, even if we have to manage expansion and redundancy on our own, cause when you have 800 images that are 5-7Mb a piece to edit, waiting 2-3sec for each to just load, really adds up.
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Haven't chimed in on this thread for awhile, but there's been a lot of improvement, so let me catch everyone up.
The Drobo originally had 3 Seagate 2tb drives in it. Within a month of each other, two of the drives failed and I ended up replacing them with Western Digital 2tb drives - meaning now I have 2 WD 2tb drives and 1 Seagate 2tb drive. Performance since then has dramatically improved. It no longer randomly vanishes at all. Access time is still a little slow, but I'm betting that will improve when I replace that last Seagate drive.
So either I had crappy drives (even though I bought them new at the same time I bought the Drobo) or Drobos don't get along with Seagate drives. Not sure which it is, but I'm planning to replace that last drive when prices come back down out of the stratosphere.
The Drobo originally had 3 Seagate 2tb drives in it. Within a month of each other, two of the drives failed and I ended up replacing them with Western Digital 2tb drives - meaning now I have 2 WD 2tb drives and 1 Seagate 2tb drive. Performance since then has dramatically improved. It no longer randomly vanishes at all. Access time is still a little slow, but I'm betting that will improve when I replace that last Seagate drive.
So either I had crappy drives (even though I bought them new at the same time I bought the Drobo) or Drobos don't get along with Seagate drives. Not sure which it is, but I'm planning to replace that last drive when prices come back down out of the stratosphere.
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I find my Drobo to be horribly slow from my Mac too. I knew it wasn't the speediest thing out there when I bought it, but this is way worse than I ever could have imagined.
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I have this exact problem. I'm using OSX Lion 10.7.3 on a MacBook Air with a DroboFS running firmware 1.2.1, and your description is spot-on. I can't find anything anywhere about how to fix this.
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I've been going back and forth with Drobo's tech for weeks now. They made me do several tests on the drives, and although read speeds were "within normal limits" write speeds were horrible. I am currently in the process of RMA'ing mine for another unit, but the 3rd level tech with whom I have been working doesn't think that is the problem. He thinks it is a "laggard" drive.
I have done a lot of poking around trying to fix this myself. I found out that browsing the Drobo in a Windows VM on my Mac was flawless--speedy and worked like I would like it to. So, I don't think it is a "laggard" drive, and I don't think Drobo techs know what is going on. From what I've been able to determine there seems to be a problem with SMB and AFP mounting in OS X.
Who knows, maybe the replacement unit will work, but I'm not holding out hope. My next step will be to install the Drobo App Unfsd and mount the drives via NFS protocol.
I have done a lot of poking around trying to fix this myself. I found out that browsing the Drobo in a Windows VM on my Mac was flawless--speedy and worked like I would like it to. So, I don't think it is a "laggard" drive, and I don't think Drobo techs know what is going on. From what I've been able to determine there seems to be a problem with SMB and AFP mounting in OS X.
Who knows, maybe the replacement unit will work, but I'm not holding out hope. My next step will be to install the Drobo App Unfsd and mount the drives via NFS protocol.
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