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Drobo Storage system Manual
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Drobo Storage system Manual

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Introduction
Drobo, the world's first storage robot, is a fully automatic data storage system
that provides the only effortless, safe and expandable repository for all of your
digital assets. Drobo connects easily to your PC via USB 2.0, and appears like
one large external USB Drive to Windows, requiring no configuration to use.
Many of the key features delivered to enhance your user experience include:
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Summary of Contents for Drobo Storage system

  • Page 1 Introduction Drobo, the world's first storage robot, is a fully automatic data storage system that provides the only effortless, safe and expandable repository for all of your digital assets. Drobo connects easily to your PC via USB 2.0, and appears like one large external USB Drive to Windows, requiring no configuration to use.
  • Page 2 The Ins and Outs of Drobo While Drobo does much of the work for you, there are still a few items that you will need to understand to take full advantage of its rich feature set. Take some time to familiarize yourself with your Drobo.

  • Page 3: Getting Started

    Getting Started Add Hard Drives to Your Drobo Drobo has four data bays that can each hold a single 3.5" SATA hard drive. PATA hard drives are not compatible and should not be used. Before connecting Drobo to your PC, simply insert your hard drives into the empty data bays.
  • Page 4 Management Utility to format your hard drives. This manual formatting procedure must be done when you add hard drives to Drobo for the first time. In the future, when you add new hard drives, or replace drives with larger ones, Drobo will automatically format the new drives for you.
  • Page 5 Tip: Use the Drobo Dashboard Format button when you wish to erase all data on your Drobo. This should only be used when you are confident you want to erase all data on your Drobo. To format Drobo using Windows Disk Management Utility: 1.
  • Page 6 2. Click Disk Management. On the right-side of the console, the formatted and unformatted disks are displayed. Drobo should appear at the bottom of the console with the following characteristics: Unknown, 2048 GB, and Not Initialized.
  • Page 7 3. Right-click on the disk described in Step 2 and then select Initialize Disk.
  • Page 8 4. Windows automatically launches the Initialize and Convert Disk Wizard. Click OK. 5. Drobo is now initialized and appears in the Computer Management Console. The disk status has changed from Unknown to Basic and from Not Initialized to Online, but the disk space will still appear as...
  • Page 9 6. Identify the disk described as 2048 GB Unallocated. This is a critical step so you don't accidentally format the wrong disk! 7. Next, you'll format the disk. Right-click in the area where it says Unallocated to open a popup menu and select New Partition.
  • Page 10 8. The New Partition Wizard will launch. Click Next.
  • Page 11 Click Next to continue. 10. The Specify Partition Size Window is displayed. Select the size for the partition and click Next. If you decide to partition Drobo into multiple partitions, you'll need to repeat this process for each partition.
  • Page 12 11. The Assign Drive Letter or Path Window appears. Select the drive letter you want assigned to this partition in Drobo. Windows automatically displays the next available drive letter (in this example, with one partition, it is E). Click Next.
  • Page 13 Note: If you choose to format your drives as a FAT32 file system, then for optimal performance, Data Robotics recommends to use Dobro Dashboard to format your drives. For instructions, see "To format Drobo using the Drobo Dashboard," located earlier in this help topic. Extended partitions are not supported at this time.
  • Page 14 13. The final window of the wizard appears. Click Finish to start formatting the drive. 14. Windows automatically displays the Computer Management Console...
  • Page 15 while the formatting is in progress. 15. Disk formatting will vary depending on the speed of your system and if you had selected Perform a quick format in a previous step. When the formatting is complete, Windows displays the drive as Healthy in the Computer Management Console.
  • Page 16 16. Drobo is formatted and ready to use. Related Topics: Windows says Drobo has 2 Terabytes of Capacity Adding New Capacity to My Drobo Launching the Drobo Dashboard Basic Drobo Dashboard...
  • Page 17 "virtual" hard drive on your PC, where both virtual drives share the total capacity available on your Drobo. If you want to know the current used capacity on your Drobo, you can get a quick idea with a glance at the capacity meter on the front. Additionally, Drobo will always warn you if you are starting to run low on available space.
  • Page 18 Allow drives to cool for ten minutes before handling them. Tip: You do not need to format a hard drive you are adding to a Drobo that is already up and running. Drobo does all the work for you. Just add a hard drive and immediately take advantage of your new capacity.
  • Page 19 If the Drobo Dashboard appears with a message saying "No Drobo is detected. Please check my connections," check to be sure the USB cable is still connected to your PC and your Drobo, and be sure Drobo is still connected to its power source.
  • Page 20 Drobo utilizes status indicators found to the right of each Data Bay. These indicators will always let you know the status of your Drobo. When all lights are green "everything is okay." If there is a yellow light, you are running low on protected capacity and you should add or replace a hard drive with one of greater capacity at your convenience.
  • Page 21 Related Topics Adding New Capacity to My Drobo Launching the Drobo Dashboard Basic Drobo Dashboard Advanced Drobo Dashboard...
  • Page 22 When removing or replacing hard drives, make sure you remove or replace them one at a time. If you remove or replace too many hard drives at once, Drobo will light all 4 data bay indicators with red lights and request that you reinsert the last drive removed.
  • Page 23 Clear Hard Drives In the event you may want to completely reset your Drobo, clear all data from the hard drives and start anew, you may do so using the following procedure: Warning! This procedure will clear all existing data on the hard drives inside of your Drobo.
  • Page 24 To disconnect Drobo from your PC or disconnect the power from your Drobo, always put Drobo into Standby first. You can do this by either selecting Drobo from the Safely Remove Hardware menu or clicking on the Standby button on the Tools Tab of the Advanced Control Panel.
  • Page 25 Drobo uses any SATA hard drive, from any manufacturer, of any capacity, and of any spindle speed (5400 RPM, 7200 RPM, etc). You are able to mix and match hard drives in Drobo and it will take full advantage of the capacity on the hard drives you add to the system.
  • Page 26 The Drobo Dashboard provides an easy to read system tray icon that shows you the status of your Drobo. So if you keep your Drobo in a location where the data bay indicators are not visible to you, use the Dashboard to remotely monitor the status and capacity of the system.
  • Page 27 The Capacity Breakdown Bar Drobo divides your entire storage space into four types of storage areas. Use the Capacity Breakdown Bar to view information about how much space is allocated to those areas. To view the bar, click on How is my storage being used?
  • Page 28 Used for Protection The space used by Drobo for protecting your data. The area where Drobo backs-up your data. Overhead The space used by Drobo for managing all the hard drives and the storage they create. Related Topics Launching the Drobo Dashboard...

  • Page 29: Advanced Drobo Dashboard

    The status window provides an at-a-glance view of your Drobo. Each drive bay provides detailed information about status and capacity for each drive in your Drobo. If there is no drive in a bay, it will remain dark in the status window.

  • Page 30: Tools Tab

    "Drobo Suggests" area. Tools Tab You can open the Tools tab from the Advanced Controls window. You can also reach the Tools tab by right-clicking on the Drobo Dashboard icon in the Windows System Tray.
  • Page 31 Standby Click Standby so you can safely disconnect Drobo from your PC or power. Note: Wait until all lights on Drobo go dark, except for the power light which will turn orange, before removing drives or power from Drobo. Format Erases all data and reformats the hard drives in your Drobo.
  • Page 32 This is the default setting. Check for Updates Click to see if newer versions of Drobo Dashboard and/or Drobo OS are available on the Internet. The version numbers of the currently installed Drobo Dashboard and Drobo OS are shown.

  • Page 33: Troubleshooting

    Is it plugged into your PC's USB 2.0 port? Is it plugged into a power outlet? Are all of the hard drives inserted properly into Drobo? Try pulling out a drive and then putting it back in. Does Windows see Drobo? Click on My Computer to see if Drobo's drive letter appears.
  • Page 34 Visit the Drobo™ website, at www.drobo.com Or contact Customer Support at support@drobo.com...