Drobo FS died, looking for another and drives

[Tom]

To me it seems Drobo doesn't want you to fix your device. I think I've heard of other people (even youtubers) that have had issues with drobo appliances having a dead power supply or other part and them being unable or unwilling to pay for the replacement parts.

People usually end up going Synology, or self built (or one of those funky hawt 45Drives machines: eg: Av15 or XL60)

[Thorin]

If I lived in the USA or the UK or Germany or Sweden, Id' have no problem getting the required parts.  They just don't provide good service here.  Drobo did respond within 24 hours to my email asking where to get a power supply, and they gave me a link to an Amazon.ca listing.  It's $160 after shipping, insane!  I found the exact same item on Amazon.com, it's $97USD after shipping and they gave me a $25 gift card at checkout time so it's only $72USD, which is about $100.  Still pretty expensive for a power brick, wish I could just go down to the local store and buy it.

My biggest hangup at this point is that if I have more problems in a few years, I can't just take the drives out and hook them up to a Linux box and read them.  Synology doesn't have this limitation, does it?  You can read drives that came out of a Synology by using Linux, right?

[Thorin]

Yeah, they even tell you how to do it using Ubuntu: https://www.synology.com/en-global/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/Storage/How_can_I_recover_data_from_my_DiskStation_using_a_PC

[Melbosa]

Yeah, they even tell you how to do it using Ubuntu: https://www.synology.com/en-global/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/Storage/How_can_I_recover_data_from_my_DiskStation_using_a_PC

Yeah cause Synology knows things break... lol

[Thorin]

Yeah.  I'd need at least a 5 or 6 bay, I'd prefer an 8 bay.  But that's $800-$1,500 for the empty device.  It's gonna be a while before I have enough cash to scrape together for that, like a long while.  So I guess I'm stuck in Drobo Prison for now.  Once one of the Drobos dies in a few years, I guess I'll deal with it then.

[Lazybones]

Synology has normal raid options and file system options it also has more advanced less compatible options.

For example the current file system is btrfs and the the dynamic Synology raid shr auto creates LVM raid sets.

Both can be recovered in Ubuntu but btrfs is very new and the shr can create some interesting LVM mess if you have a bunch of odd drive sizes over time. However you CAN recover it.

You can also use an open source fork of the Synology DSM os on your own hardware if you want https://xpenology.org/xpenology-explained/

[Thorin]

Everything's back to normal now.  I'm serving files from the new 5N2, I'm mirroring all of the 5N2's content to the old FS, and I'm backing up all of documents and pictures from the 5N2 to my main computer.  I've got scheduled tasks calling tiny powershell scripts that use robocopy to do the file copying with log files output to my main computer.  All that's left is to set up BackBlaze to delay-mirror the backup on my main computer into the cloud.

"mirror" here, I mean only keep files on the target if they exist on the source.
"backup" here, I mean copy all new and changed files from the source to the target, so if something gets deleted on the source it still exists on the target.
"delay-mirror" here, I mean mirror but with a time delay (BackBlaze is a 30 day delay).

I also had to figure out why my work computer could read from the old FS but not the new 5N2.  Turns out the old FS only supports SMBv1 but the new 5N2 supports SMBv1,2,3, so with the old one it uses v1 and that's fine but with the new one it uses v3 and our work laptops are set to not allow guest access to connected devices, but that group policy apparently only applies for SMBv2 and 3.  So I also set up a user with a password and then set up a net use script so I can get to music on my Drobo while I'm working during the day.

[Lazybones]

Sounds like they forgot the policy to fully disable insecure SMB 1

[Mr. Analog]

I'm glad you are all back up and running!

[Thorin]

Sounds like they forgot the policy to fully disable insecure SMB 1

Yeah, they were probably counting on Windows 10 to disable it and didn't think anyone would re-enable it...

[Thorin]

So I've had two drives fail in the last two weeks.  An old 5TB in the old Drobo, and a new 6TB in the new Drobo.  Tom, I'm using your 3TB drives a little longer while I wait for these drives to be RMAed.  On the plus side, both Drobos don't have any file loss, so my docs+pics are all still in three different places.  But man, I don't like when drives fail

[Tom]

So I've had two drives fail in the last two weeks.  An old 5TB in the old Drobo, and a new 6TB in the new Drobo.  Tom, I'm using your 3TB drives a little longer while I wait for these drives to be RMAed.  On the plus side, both Drobos don't have any file loss, so my docs+pics are all still in three different places.  But man, I don't like when drives fail

Yeah, I've gotten into the habit of stress testing new drives before putting them into service. Infant mortality is a real thing. esp for consumer drives.

[Thorin]

Well the 5TB is a WD Black that I bought Feb 2016, so it's three and a half years old.  The 6TB is a WD Red that I bought in June, but I think it just experienced unstable power.

Why unstable power?  Well, I had a 50' extension cord plugged into my outside plug, my trailer plugged into that, then a battery charger and an air compressor plugged into the trailer (to charge a battery and to inflate tires).  The air compressor worked good at first, then kinda sputtered and kinda shut down but kinda fluctuated, then shut down completely.  Turns out I tripped a breaker.  Flipped it back on, then found my main computer on a black warning screen saying it had detected power spikes so went into protection mode and wouldn't boot until I specifically told it to.  Thing is, the computer is not on the same circuit as the outside plug.  The Drobo is on the same circuit as the computer, though, so likely experienced the same power spike.

Oh yeah, the air compressor has a big label on it that says "DO NOT USE EXTENSION CORD, PLUG DIRECTLY INTO WALL OUTLET".  I should follow instructions better...

[Lazybones]

Devices with AC motors and microwaves can be very bad for electronic device stability if they are are not isolated from those loads.

This is why I have some form of even small UPS in front of all my devices, or if I had to pick one it would be my SERVER / NAS setup.. Most UPS units employ at least basic power filtering which helps keep things clean and will sent you warnings without the interruption when they are detected.

[Thorin]

Okay, I've got BackBlaze set up on my primary computer now.  All the important documents and pictures are stored on the new Drobo and daily mirrored to the old Drobo, and they're also hourly backed up to the primary computer, and now the primary computer is mirrored to the cloud (with a 30 day delay in deleting non-existent files).  Good god, I think that's good enough!

I also found got this interesting link sent to me from BackBlaze: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-stats-q2-2019/.  I didn't realize they were publishing hard drive stats, cool!