How to switch drive packs between two Drobo units

A hands-on demonstration of how to switch drive packs safely between two Drobo storage devices, one being a 2nd Generation FW800 Drobo, and the other being a 1st Generation USB 2.0 Drobo. Instructions from Data Robotics, detailed in tech notes on their website, were followed to the letter, and drive packs were switched safely between the two Drobos, without any data loss. The advantage to switching data packs instead of doing data transfers (copies, moves) is a time savings of days when one has terabytes of data.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• drobo
• data robotics
• switch drive packs
• storage
• how to
• hard drives
• technology

[bobbyp28]

but i thought the whole idea was to be able to swap them while it was running...like they say in the ad.

[raoulpop]

@bobbyp28 Sure, you can change single drives while the Drobo is running. But this is a completely different thing. It's about switching whole drive packs (ALL 4 DRIVES) from one Drobo unit to a different Drobo unit.

[chikotube]

@raoulpop wow nice. thanks for sharing that. One question. Have you ever had a drobo successfully "repair" a drive with bad sectors? This would be similar to a system repairing a RAID-1 volume.  I only see reviews and documentation of drobos just retrying and kicking out "bad drives" and nothing about repairing or omitting bad sectors or blocks.

[raoulpop]

@chikotube Never ran into that scenario, but if I do, I'll likely write about it on my site and/or make a video and post it here.

[bobbyp28]

wow...fast reply...thanks...now I see what you mean...many thanks...

rp

[janX9]

Felix the cat, Jezuz LOL

[mortimerdude08]

Love to here the actual worry in your voice about the data. Sounds like how I am every time I back up and move data around. Worries me every time.