Story Leading Up to the Problem
I encountered this very early on. It was during my setup of the device. I had connected the device via USB 2.0, and was inserting the new hard drives into the bays. Everything was going really well, the Drobo was acting as described. It detected that I inserted new drives, and it automatically formatted them.
I installed the Dashboard software as the quick start up guide instructed, and then updated the Firmware and Dashboard itself using the 'Check Updates' button. Everything was so easy at this point.
I decided to try setup iSCSI while I was connect via USB, since I read the manual, and it said I would have to setup a static IP for the Drobo on the network. I did that, it was pretty easy using Drobo Dashboard. I setup 'Drobo Discovery Settings' to disable the 'auto-discovery' feature, and to enter a direct 'Manual Device Discovery' IP address, thinking that this would be a lot faster, since the software wouldn't have to scan the IP Address to find Drobo, it can go directly to the IP Address I entered.
I shutdown Drobo, and changed the connection to iSCSI, and it detected Drobo.
Wonderful, I thought, but then, I decided I didn't like the IP address I assigned Drobo to, so I reconnected via USB, and change it. I ended up changing it another 3-4 times before settling on an IP address. At the same time, I had setup 'Manual Device Discovery' IP Addresses, and removed them for each of the 3-4 IP Addresses. (i.e. 192.168.10.48, 192.168.10.47, 192.168.10.2, 192.168.10.3, I settled on 192.168.10.48)
Something happened, because when I reconnected Drobo via iSCSI it wasn't detected by the Dashboard, and it didn't mount. Uh, oh, I thought. I broke my Drobo, what's wrong now? I tried a reboot of Drobo, and it still didn't connect. I connected it back on USB to make sure it wasn't broken, and it connected, and mounted the volumes. Oh good.
Debugging
1. Okay, now I decided to change the IP, maybe something is wrong with that one, so I tried that. Nope, it didn't work.
2. I remember there was a delay in Drobo being detected on iSCSI after it is turned on, so I rebooted it, and waited, and waited patiently for 5 minutes, and nothing.
* At this point, I thought I broke the iSCSI interface, but thought, it can't be that fragile.
3. Not knowing much about the iSCSI initiator, I decided to search my computer to see if I can locate it, or if it was built into the Dashboard. I searched the Dashboard, and wasn't able to do anything, I changed settings, and nothing helped. I then searched my control panel, but wasn't able to locate it. I then did a general search from the 'Start' button (Search Programs and Files box), and typed in 'iSCSI', and there it was in the search results. I pinned it to the task bar so I can more easily access it.
To Access iSCSI Initiator
Later on I did find it in the 'Control Panel' > Administrative Tools > iSCSI Initiator.
Debugging Cont'd
4. Okay, so now I browsed the iSCSI Initiator window, and tabs, and found something to be strange. Under the 'Discovery' tab, it had all 3 of the IPs I entered, maybe more (ones I forgot to mention), but I thought I had deleted all but one of them from the Drobo Dashboard. So, why are they still in the iSCSI initiator? hmmm...
5. I noticed the iSCSI initiator was running heavily, it was even causing my computer to slow down, which is weird, because my computer is so fast, and with so many cores. So, I read the text in the window and thought, if there are less addresses in there, my computer wouldn't have to initiate so many devices. So, I started selecting each one that I knew was not in use, and clicked the 'Remove' button. I removed all but 1 from the list box labeled "The system will look for Targets on following portals:". I left the IP 192.168.10.48, which was what I set my Drobo IP address to.
6. I then disconnected my Drobo, shutdown, and connected the iSCSI cable back on. When I turned my Drobo back on, Guess what?! That fixed the problem! My Drobo was discovered almost instantly. Okay, it wasn't instant, but it was discovered, and the drives mounted.
Conclusion
So, lesson here is to check the 'iSCSI Initiator' > Discovery Tab, and make sure that it only has the IP Address you set your Drobo to have for iSCSI operation. If you have more than one iSCSI device, that requires the iSCSI initiator, then you will see more addresses, but you should make sure that this tab contains only the addresses that are in use. You should remove addresses that are not in use. It would seem 'Drobo Dashboard' doesn't cleanup after itself! Drobo, Drobo, when will you learn?!
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