Drobo Robotics User manual

EN
Please check the following website for the most up to date
Drobo User Guide.
www.drobo.com/support
DE
Bitte sehen Sie auf der unten aufgeführte webseite nach für die
Drobo Gebrauchsanweisung in Ihrer Sprache.
www.drobo.com/support/intl
ES
Por favor consulte el siguiente sitio de web para localizar el
Drobo guia de usuario en su idioma.
www.drobo.com/support/intl
FR
Veuillez voir le site Web ci-dessous pour le manuel d’utilisateur
de Drobo dans votre langue.
www.drobo.com/support/intl
IT
Si prega di consultare il sito web sotto per la Drobo Guida utente
nella vostre lingua.
www.drobo.com/support/intl

I. Introduction........................................................................................1
II. Getting started ...................................................................................3
Three easy steps..............................................................................3
Selecting hard drives.......................................................................3
Keeping your product up-to-date ...................................................4
Best Practices ..................................................................................4
III. Drobo Dashboard Overview ...............................................................5
Drobo Dashboard basics .................................................................5
IV. Drobo (1st and 2nd Generation)...........................................................8
Inserting drives into Drobo .............................................................8
Connect Drobo to your computer...................................................8
Connect power................................................................................9
Connect your Drobo to a network using DroboShare...................10
Initialize your Drobo......................................................................10
Drobo Lights ..................................................................................14
Using Drobo Dashboard with your Drobo.....................................15
What to do when not using your Drobo .......................................17
V. DroboShare.......................................................................................18
Connect 1st and 2nd Generation Drobos to DroboShare................18
Formatting with DroboShare using Drobo Dashboard .................18
DroboShare Lights.........................................................................20
DroboShare settings......................................................................21
VI. DroboPro ..........................................................................................22
Inserting drives into DroboPro......................................................22
Connect DroboPro to your computer ...........................................22
Connect power..............................................................................24
Initialize your DroboPro ................................................................24
DroboPro Lights.............................................................................29
Using Drobo Dashboard with your DroboPro ...............................30

What to do when not using your DroboPro..................................33
VII. Sharing Drobo/DroboPro between computers................................34
VIII.Tips and Troubleshooting.................................................................35
IX. Safety and Warranty.........................................................................44
X. Index .................................................................................................49

1
Thank you for giving another Drobo® storage device a good home! We
at Data Robotics, Inc.™have been working since 2004 to make
protecting, storing and managing your digital content truly effortless.
The Drobo family of products (Drobo and DroboPro™) provides
effortless, safe and expandable storage. There are many different ways
to store and protect digital content, but Drobo is the only fully
automatic storage device that performs many data management tasks
without user effort. Here’s what you can expect:
Drobo automatically configures itself for data protection so you
don’t have to.
When a drive fails, your data is still safe (and all drives do
eventually fail).
Drobo senses any corrupted data and ensures that you only
access non-corrupt data.
No downtime to add capacity. Just add a drive to an empty Data
Bay, or replace a smaller drive with a larger one regardless of
capacity, speed, or manufacturer.
After a drive is installed into an empty bay, the new drive
capacity is immediately available and protected.
Drobo can act as one large drive, making it easier to find what
you’ve stored on it.
Drobo’s Data Bay indicator lights tell you everything you need to
know!
Upgrading capacity is as simple as adding ink to a printer.
Mix ’n match any 3.5” (SATA) hard drives; no worrying about
matching make, model or capacity of Drobo’s existing drives.
Upgrade forever—just replace Drobo’s smallest drive with a
larger capacity drive. No data migration or reconfiguration is
required.
What does it mean to go BeyondRAID? Going beyond traditional RAID
means leaving choices between striping and mirroring, limitations on

2
expandability, drive sizing, and drive ordering behind. BeyondRAID™
technology is the next generation of storage that brings together safety,
reliability, expandability, efficiency and of course ease-of-use.
BeyondRAID can be adopted without any change in infrastructure,
allowing you to maintain your current file system and operating system–
eliminating the friction costs typically associated with moving to a new
technology platform.
Standard RAID levels are full of compromises. Do you want striping or
mirroring? A two-disk or four-disk RAID set? BeyondRAID is able to solve
these issues because it is built on an advanced virtualization platform. If
you already understand how RAID 0, 1, 5 or 6 operate(s), you
understand the fundamentals of BeyondRAID since BeyondRAID relies
on the same underlying algorithms.
Welcome to the world’s best storage experience.
Data Robotics, Inc. was formed in 2004 in California’s Silicon Valley with
a vision to take the pain out of storage management. Data Robotics, Inc.
developed the technology inside Drobo for people who “have to”
protect their valuable digital assets, but “hate to” – because it’s
complex and time consuming. For those people, we created Drobo, the
world’s first storage robot. It is a fully automated data storage system
that provides the only truly effortless, safe and expandable storage
solution. Unlike outdated technologies that emerged twenty plus years
ago and the frustrating products on the market today, Drobo is an
industry-changing product line that combines the advanced concepts of
storage virtualization and cybernetics, to take the pain out of storage
management.

3
Before you set up your Drobo, you should determine if you will need to
share your Drobo with additional computers. If so, see “Sharing Drobo
between computers” on page 34 for further information.
To set your Drobo up, you will need to do the following:
1. Insert drives –Use any 3.5” SATA drives. Start with at least two
drives to protect your valuable data. (All data on the drives will
be erased.)
2. Connect cables –Connect the Drobo to your computer or
DroboShare (1st/2nd Generation Drobo only) and connect power.
3. Initialize Drobo –Install Drobo Dashboard and follow
Dashboard’s instructions for setting up your Drobo.
For more details on any of these steps, please continue to read through
this section of the User Guide and then refer to the appropriate section
for your specific product.
Drobo is unlike typical storage devices. Drobo makes it extremely easy
to increase storage capacity in the future just by inserting additional
drives or replacing existing drives with larger ones. This means you can
buy the storage you need today and then easily expand later. You can
save hundreds of dollars over time.
Drobo doesn’t care what manufacturer, capacity or speed of hard drive
you install. It accepts standard 3.5 inch internal SATA1 or SATA2 (also
referred to as SATA/150 or SATA/300) hard drives. Older IDE or ATA-
type drives will not work.
Warning! Please note that when adding hard drives to Drobo, any pre-existing
data on those drives will be erased.
The number and capacity of drives determine how much usable
protected storage Drobo provides. Take the guesswork out by using
Drobolator (www.drobo.com/drobolator), a web-based tool which
determines the usable protected capacity, based on any combination of

4
drives. To calculate the approximate capacity yourself, omit the largest
drive and then add-up the capacity of the remaining drives.
For example (largest drives are crossed out):
# of Drives
Drive Capacities
Usable Protected Capacity
3
250GB + 250BG + 250GB
=
500GB
4
250GB + 250BG + 250GB + 500GB
=
750GB
4
750GB + 250BG + 250GB + 500GB
=
1000GB
Some years ago, computer manufacturers and hard drive manufacturers
started using different systems for measuring capacity. The net result is
that not all of a drive’s rated capacity is available to your computer. For
example, a 750GB drive will have approximately 700GB worth of
capacity. This discrepancy has nothing to do with Drobo.
During your initial setup, Drobo Dashboard asks you if you want to
check for updates automatically. We highly recommend you select the
“Yes” option to assure optimal performance of your Drobo. This feature
enables you to keep both Drobo Dashboard and your product’s
firmware current. Subsequently, you will receive a notice when a newer
version is available. You can check for the most current versions at
http://www.drobo.com/support/.
There are a number of things you can do to protect your valuable data.
Using a Drobo storage product is obviously a major step. However,
there are additional actions you can take to provide even greater safety
for your data. To learn more about this important topic, please visit our
Best Practices site at http://www.drobo.com/support/.

5
Drobo Dashboard is used to set up, configure, and interact with your
Drobo, DroboShare or DroboPro. You will find further detail on each one
in the section specific to that product.
Drobo Dashboard is the recommended companion application that
keeps you informed of Drobo’s status and allows you to customize
Drobo to best fit your storage needs.
Note: To install Drobo Dashboard, you will need to have administrative rights
on your computer.
Open Drobo Dashboard and you will see the main page. This page gives
you a quick overview of your Drobo’s status and storage usage. If you
have more than one Drobo, you can switch between Drobos by clicking
on the appropriate tab at the top of the window.
The pie chart shows you how much storage space is being used and how
much free space remains. By placing your mouse over the pie chart, you
will see a summary of the health of your Drobo.
Are you curious about how your disks are being used? Click the triangle
next to “How is my storage being used?” The capacity breakdown bar
will appear showing you how Drobo is using storage.