There are plenty of things that scare a photographer: missing an important shot, forgetting about a session, a camera breaking, or so many others. I think one of the scariest things is the thought of a hard drive failure and losing all of your photos. Most photographers store all of their photos on a hard drive, so if that broke, it would be bad news. Well, that definitely scares me, and that is why I initially bought my Drobo device probably 10 years ago or more. Drobo is a multi hard drive system that allows you to set up a RAID configuration. Basically what that means is that the software on the system will spread out your data across the different drives to protect it. If one drive fails, the data is still safe on the other drives. There’s even a way to set it up where you are safe against multi drive failures.
This system has worked great for me for years. I have had a drive fail and I was able to swap it out with no problem. It always made me feel super safe and I had no concerns putting the majority of my photos on the Drobo.
Everything was fine until a few weeks ago when suddenly I couldn’t access any of the files on the Drobo. When I tried to open it in finder, I would get a never ending spinning circle. If you are in this same situation or having some other Drobo issue, hopefully the rest of this post will help you out.
Outdated Drobo Software after a Operating System Update
Luckily for me, I was able to figure out what the problem was pretty quickly. After a quick search, I learned that Drobo had gone out of business (booo!). This meant they were no longer supporting their products or making updates. I had just recently updated my operating system on my Mac, and apparently that’s what screwed things up. The new OS didn’t know how to work with the old software of the Drobo.
The solution is relatively easy at first glance. You need to push your operating system back to an older version or find a computer that still has the older OS on it. Unfortunately for me, both of my computers had updated at the same time, so I needed to push it back.
Now, this is not a perfect fix. This will only allow you to use and access the Drobo while you don’t update the OS. Once you update it, you’re back to being screwed. For most of us, that won’t work, so the best option is to fix it temporarily and get all the data off of the drive and then buy a new system.
Installing an Older Operating System
While this sounds like a simple task, it actually was a huge pain and took several tries. First, let me say that I did this on a Mac. I have no idea how it would be on a Windows device.
My first concern was that changing the operating system might make me format my whole computer. I really didn’t want to do that. I did happen to have a super old Macbook Pro sitting around, so I figured I could use that since I didn’t care about having to format it.
Finding the Right Operating System
One issue I ran into was finding which operating system to put on it. Since my Mac was older, not all OS would work on it anymore. Yes, you can do a Google search to see which work for it, but that wasn’t really my problem. The weird problem was that I was having to download the OS on a new computer and Apple wouldn’t let me download an old OS on the new computer because it wasn’t compatible. I ended up finding a version I could download and that still worked for the old computer. If you are using a new computer and the newest OS, simply go back one version.
Creating a Bootable Drive and Installing
The rest of the process is pretty simple. You can find and download the old OS here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102662. Then, you can use a USB drive to create a bootable drive. It’s not super complex, but I did have to use terminal and some code to make it happen. This page explains how to do that and gives the code that you can paste into Terminal to make it work: https://support.apple.com/en-us/101578
How to use UFS Explorer to recover data from Drobo
This is the process I used to fix my Drobo and regain access to it. I think this will work for most people that just recently started having issues. There was another option that you can try. I believe this would have worked for my situation as well and possibly other situations, but it looked more involved so I didn’t want to try it.
The big problem that occurs when a Drobo gets messed up is that the Raid setup makes it hard to get all of your data off of it. There has to be special software to read and interact with the drives to get things back.
UFS explorer is software that can be used for all types of data recovery from accidental deletion, viruses, and in our case Raid systems. Now, the software isn’t free, but you can do a trial first to see if it will even work for your situation.
The setup seems to be the hardest part for this fix. Basically, you pull all the hard drives from the Drobo and keep track of which slot each was in. Then you have to connect them to a computer. I’m not positive on how this would work except with some kind of similar multi drive port. Then, you run the software and it should be able to fix things.
Other Drobo Issues
Hopefully, you are just having to deal with the same issues that I had, the new operating system, but here are a few other things that could possibly be going wrong.
Power Supply
One issue I’ve had with all types of electronics in the past is the power supply. If the power supply isn’t working, then of course, the device won’t work. The Drobo I have uses a simple cord that plugs from the wall into the device. Other devices might have a power block in the middle.
The first step is to check the cord. Is it plugged all the way in? Does there appear to be any damage? The next step would be to try a different outlet. I know that sounds simple but sometimes that’s all it is.
After that, it would seem you have some kind of real problem. Replace the cord and hopefully that fixes it. If not, there is probably something wrong with the actual device. That would require some kind of maintenance, which might not be an option now.
Drobo does not appear on Drobo Dashboard software
While I was having my issue, the Drobo wasn’t showing up on the Drobo Software. When I tried using it, the software would tell me that there was an issue. That’s basically how I figured out it was the operating system giving me problems.
Now, if you are having this happen and it’s a different issue, the first question is can you still see the Drobo on the computer and access the files. If so, you might just continue as is. The software does give you info about the drive and let’s you make some changes, but it’s not the biggest thing in the world.
If it isn’t showing up and you can’t access the drive, that’s a problem. Try restarting everything and checking the cords. After that, you might try what I did and pushing back the OS.
Hard Drives Fails
Over the 10 plus years I had my Drobo, I think I’ve had two drives fail. When this happens, there will be a red light on the Drobo next to the drive and you should get a warning through the software. Usually you’ll need to fix this issue before you’re able to use the system again.
Fixing this issue isn’t that hard. You pull the bad drive and put in a new one. The downside is that you have to spend money on a new drive.
One time, I did have an issue with this. Somehow the drive got stuck. There was a piece of metal or a screw that was getting caught when I tried to pull it out. I ended up having to take the Drobo partially apart so I could see inside and get things free. I’m still not sure why it happened, but it was a pain.
The Future After Fixing My Drobo
I am so thrilled that I was able to gain access to my Drobo again and didn’t lose all of my photos and videos on there. I’m still in the process of moving everything off of it and onto a new drive, but it looks like I shouldn’t have any issues.
So where do I go from here? I will be getting a new Raid device and using my old drives in it. Raid is the way to go if you want to feel safe and still easily access them. I did some research and I’m backing one that’s currently on Kickstarter. The thing that made it really stick out is that it automatically takes the files and backs them up online and there isn’t a storage fee.
Losing all of your photos is a really big deal if you’re a photographer, so a few take aways from this whole situation. Backup, backup, backup. Spread your data out to as many places as possible. The Raid system is there to protect your files, but it’s still smart to go another step. Save them to Dropbox, iCloud, or Google Drive as well, so you are even more protected. Also, pay attention to things. If I had known Drobo went under, I could have dealt with this before it became an issue.
That’s it for me. It’s been a stressful few days but the problem is solved and back at it. Hopefully this helped you solve your Drobo issues as well.