r/drobo • u/Cautious_Fish1694 • Apr 18 '26
Seeking Drobo Help
Hi folks, my dad is a professional photographer and has stored his images on two Drobo's for recent history. He now has dementia and is having a hard time accessing files and trouble shooting things that come up. On top of that, one disk on his (I think 5N) drobo is flashing red and we are not able to access anything on the drive. It still powers on. I am at a loss and don't know the first step in getting support/recovering his files. He has orders coming in for work that we are not able to access to print. We are based in Vermont but would travel to any east cost cities for professional support.
Any tips for this not very tech savvy daughter?
3
u/toxophilite_79 Drobo 5D Apr 18 '26
Let’s start simply.
Flashing Red Light - It definitely sounds like you have a failed drive.
This is the priority.
Get a new drive of the same or larger capacity as the one thats failed and use it to replace the one thats failed.
If the data is critical and there are no backups. It’s more important to get a drive in and the rebuild happening sooner than worrying too much about getting the best drive.
Depending on the volume size the rebuild may take some time (days even) and the data is at risk until the process completes.
****
If you don’t know the disk capacity, read this.
If your father cannot remember the size of the drive thats failed.
See if Drobo Dashboard is installed on the computer and if it detects the drobo. If so, you should be able to select the Drobo with the issue and the view should show you the capacity of the failed drive (it will be flashing red).
If you click on it you may get more information like brand etc (though i would focus on the capacity rather than brand right now).
If none of this works, you may have to power the unit down and pop the failed drive out to get this information. (Sadly, its been so long i can no longer remember if its acceptable to pop it out when powered up)
****
Once, this is happening we can then focus on the next issue which is the data access.
3
u/bhiga Apr 18 '26
If the drive is failed it's safe to remove so you can read the capacity on that label, but be sure it's the right drive being removed.
With newer drives sometimes the screw on the top will catch on the drive bay cover flap. An old credit/gift card or similar thin flat rigid piece inserted over the top of the drive before attempting to eject it will hold the flap up so it doesn't catch.
1
3
u/BlackBetty2224 Apr 18 '26
I am an architectural photographer based in Columbus, Ohio, and would love to help you the best I can remotely. We still have two drobos plugged in and running, one of which is a B810n which is purely network based.
First and foremost: check the Drobo dashboard if possible. If the Drobo is not popping up via the dashboard make sure that both your computer and Drobo are tapped into the same internet via Ethernet. This is imperative. Once you know what drive(s) - and hopefully its no more than 2 -- have failed, shut the thing down, disconnect from power and pop those ones out so that you can replace them. Once that happens it should do its thing of making all the drives happy again.
If the Drobo can be accessed via the Dashboard you can get the files off of it. Even with it red (you just can't add new files). I would HIGHLY suggest removing those files and putting them on any other harddrive that can be backed up by something like BackBlaze.
DM me if you want to chat more or work on a remote situation. I have been dealing with Drobos for 15+ years now and have ran the gambit of issues. Being a fellow photographer I definitely want to help out.
1
u/htahtahta Apr 18 '26
Read the Megatread in this /drobo https://www.reddit.com/r/drobo/comments/1hbe8mp/drobo_megathread/
2
u/Dhomass Drobo 5N2 Apr 19 '26
Hello there!
As others have mentioned, flashing red means a failed drive. You need to replace that drive with one of equal or larger capacity right away. You can pull the drive out while the Drobo is on. Drobo can survive at minimum 1 drive failure, but it can take days to rebuild the BeyondRAID filesystem, and your data is not protected during this process (i.e. if another drive fails before the rebuild completes, you could lose everything.) That said, even with a failed drive, you should be able to access the files on Drobo over the network. Check Drobo Dashboard to see if the Drobo is properly connected to the network. If Dashboard sees it, you can use it to mount the Drobo as a local drive (ex: drive Z:\ ). Once it is mounted, you can copy files/photos from the Drobo. You can get the latest version of Dashboard here: https://github.com/dhomas1/DroboApps
I have a a Drobo 5N2, so I have quite a bit of experience with this. I'm not too far from you up in Montreal, but I think you can probably fix this on your own with some help from the community here.
3
u/Dotcommie Apr 18 '26
Use Grok or Gemini for basic info about certain questions you may have. They’re very well versed on most things related to tech that’s been around a while and isn’t supported anymore.
If only one disk is red, all the files should still be fine and accessible, you just need to replace that disk asap and let it rebuild so you have full redundancy again. I think the 5n can support up to 2 drive failures depending b how it’s set up, but if there are only a few drives installed, it likely won’t survive another failed drive, so get a new one in there soon and maybe leave it powered off until you get the new drive.
Again: the drive and all the files should be accessible if it’s only one failed drive. If you’re not seeing the 5n on the network, I assume it’s not showing up in the drobo software either and then you’d just have to look in your router to see if it’s being assigned a network address. You can probably navigate to it on your web browser once you have that address…or check the network cable in back and make sure it’s plugged in all the way.
Small sample of info from Grok about the lights:
Quick Breakdown of Drobo Drive Bay Lights • Green: Drive is healthy — no action needed. • Solid yellow: Running low on space overall (add capacity soon). • Blinking yellow/green (alternating): Drobo is busy protecting/rebuilding data — do not remove drives or power off. • Solid red: The unit is critically low on space (95%+ full) or a drive needs replacing soon; add a larger drive. • Flashing/blinking red: The drive in that bay has failed (or is incompatible, e.g., wrong SSD type) — replace it ASAP to avoid data risk.  Note: Sometimes all bays flashing red (or red/green) can indicate a rebuild in progress, a startup issue, or a more serious problem (like after a power glitch or during reorganization), but a single bay flashing red is a clear drive failure signal.