Setting up my 2nd Drobo 5N

Note: Second Drobo 5N Device Configuration Story
* This is a continuation of my first posting.  This is an update on how my 2nd Drobo 5N setup went.

Story
Even though I knew that a 'Reset' of the Drobo settings would probably make this Drobo recognize the drives, I wanted to see if I could capture the error messages that I didn't capture in the first Drobo 5N setup.  Drobo behaved differently, possibly due to me already attempting to set it up previously but failing to do so.  Yes, so this is actually my 2nd attempt to setup this Drobo 5N.

Here's what happened with this unit.

1. I decided to follow the quick start guide this time.  I put the 2 hard drives (2 TB) into the top 2 slots as shown in the quick start guide.
2. Having already updated the Dashboard software on my computer, I connected the Network cable to the device and the other end was connected to the router.  I connected the power cable, and then turned the device on.
3. Strangely, it only detected the drive in the 2nd slot down , and then it entered data protection mode, and took 1 hour to run, even though there was no data in the drives
* it's like it detected the top most drive, but couldn't recognize it, and saw the 2nd drive, and was able to install it, so it might of thought that drive 1 just died or something along those lines

Below is a screen capture of what I saw in the Dashboard.  It says to add a drive to the top bay, but I had a good working drive already in that slot.

4. Next, I decided to do a full reboot of the Drobo 5N device to see if it picks up the top drive.  When it finished rebooting, the lights on the unit were solid red.  Here's the error messages I got next from the Dashboard:

Error Message - Drobo Dashboard
You may have removed or replaced too many hard drives from your Drobo at the same time. Re-insert the hard drives you removed. Important! When removing or replacing hard drives, make sure you remove or replace them one at a time. Never remove a drive when the drive bay indicators are blanking green and yellow.

Error Message - Error Popup Window (bottom corner)
Drobo doesn't recognize some of the drives you have installed in the data bays. They may have been previously formatted by Drobo or are from another Drobo. To troubleshoot, please consult the User's Guide or visit http://www.drobo.com/support.

 

5. Seeing how I could not get the exact same error messages from my first Drobo 5N setup, and seeing how Drobo 5N wasn't able to detect my hard drives even though they are good drives that should work in the device, I decided to apply my solution that I found from my first Drobo 5N configuration, i.e. Reset the device to factory defaults from the Drobo Dashboard

Solution

6.  Reset the device to factory defaults from the Drobo Dashboard

* Drobo Dashboard > Tools > Drobo Reset > 'Drobo Reset'

7. When the Reset of the Drobo 5N completed, the hard drive lights were all green, and the device was ready to go!!

Hope this helps those of you out there that have encountered this error, and like me spent hours trying to solve it!  

If you found this posting helpful, please leave me a comment!

Thank you for visiting!  Hope you have a good day!

Drobo 5N - Initial Setup Issues - It doesn't recognize my Computer Hard Drives!!

Story
I bought 2 brand new Drobo 5N's recently from TigerDirect.ca for Christmas presents for my sisters.  They were on sale at a good price, good for Drobos anyways. Still high, but it was within the range I was willing to pay for them. It took only 3 days to receive them, not counting the weekend.  I ordered them Friday, and they came Wednesday, today.

I was so excited to open them up, and setup them up with the 2 TB hard drives that I pulled out of my unit.  I had 4 of them ready to go.  I didn't think it would take so long to get the unit up and working, so I started working on it at 10pm. To my surprise, I had so much problems with it that I stayed up until 12:30am on a work night! Yikes! I'm the kind of person that has to solve problems with my computer once I've encounter it, so I got stuck working on it until I fixed it around 12:00am.

Anyways, I should continue with my story.  I opened up the first box, and it was nicely packaged.  I took the unit out. It was smaller than expected, which was nice, since my sister's don't like the big and bulky electronics.  Since having the DroboPro, I decided to not follow the instructions exactly, since it's a pretty smart unit, and it just auto-detects hard drives when they are inserted.  So, here's what I did.

1. I plugged in the network cable
2. I plugged in the power (with no hard drives installed yet)
3. I started my dashboard, but it didn't see my Drobo
* forgot that I had turned off 'auto-discovery', so I turned it back on
* you can access the 'Drobo Discovery Settings' from the 'All Drobos' tab
4. After I turned it on, it found the Drobo 5N which was connected to my router
* though, it showed the Drobo 5N as a 4 Drive Bay Drobo 
4. So, with the Drobo still connected, I visited their website,
    http://www.drobo.com/start/drobo-5n-start.php
and downloaded the latest software version 2.5.2 for windows.
5. After it finished downloading, I ran the install without uninstalling the previous version
* it did ask me if it could have permission to shutdown, and restart the Drobo Windows Service, and Dashboard when it finishes the install.  I clicked OK
6. It completed the installation successfully without issues

Next Issue: Drobo Requires Initialization
1. It reported that 'Drobo requires Initialization'
2. I didn't know what that meant, so I searched google, and found nothing... that wasn't helpful
3. Running on a hunch, I took the drives out, and put them into my StarTech.com Hard Drive dock, and found that 2 of the drives had not been initialized, and the others needed to be formatted
* I stuck one drive into the drive dock at a time, and had the 'Computer Disk Manager' open
** in windows 7, you can get to it if you click on the Windows Button > Right Click 'Computer', and Select 'Manage', then from the list on the left, under 'Storage', select 'Disk Management'
4. With this window open, when I put in the drives that required initialization, it immediately popped up a window asking if I wanted to initialize the drive
* for the first one, I didn't know if it was the correct drive, so I clicked 'no'
* I scrolled down to the drive, and where it lists the title 'Disk #', if you right click there, you can choose to initialize the drive, and then I chose MBR (i.e. Master Boot Record)
* After I initialized it, I did a quick format
* I repeated for all drives

5. I turned Drobo 5N off, then I put the drives back into the Drobo 5N unit, then after I put the drives in, I turned it back on
* I had found an article on the internet that said Barracuda drives can take up to 20 minutes to initialize (Drobo Forum), so I was patient and I waited, and waited.  When it was done, all lights were solid red, and it said it didn't recognize the drives I had installed.  It said I should get the latest firmware updates.
* I followed the instructions, and found out that I had the latest firmware already, so I didn't need the update, but what that appeared to mean was that my hard drives won't work in this unit, that I would have to go out to buy brand new ones - I definitely could not afford to spend anymore money on these Christmas Presents... so... as a last resort, I tried the following.  See 'My Solution' below.

My Solution
I was so fed up at this point that I was willing to try anything.  I was looking through the 'Tools' menu, and thought that maybe a 'Reset' of the 'Drobo' back to factory default setting might do the trick.  And low and behold, it worked!!!
* I reset my unit with the hard drives installed, with the Drobo dashboard reporting that it can't recognize the drives installed
* After the reset, all lights turned green, and the unit was ready to go!!
** I was sooo happy at this point, that I had to write about it!! :0)

Man! The unit had me worried for a very long time. I thought I would have to return it. Instead of an easy 10 minute setup, I spent 2-2.5 hours debugging, trying different things with my hard drives.  I even pull another one out of my DroboPro to see if it would work in the 5N before the reset, and it didn't.  Now I've got to wait for my DroboPro to rebuild itself... uurrrgghhh!!  It estimates 14 hours!  Darn it!

Here's how the dashboard looked after the Reset completed:

Well, I guess the best thing is that I now know what to do to setup the other Drobo 5N.  Start with the 'Tools' > Reset > Erase'.  Hopefully that setup will go a lot more smoothly.

Drobo's Solution
I later found this on Google, but it was after I had already found the solution myself.  I reviewed it, and I think it says to perform more steps than needed, probably to be safe.  My solution worked with just the Reset.  I didn't even have to reboot my computer.  See link below:
1. http://support.drobo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/683/kw/drive


Hope this article helps you out!  If it does, let me know.  It helps motivate me to write about more issues I've encountered, and solutions I've come up with. :0)