Has anyone "de-RAID'ed" a Drobo?

[David A. Desrosiers]

I spoke to a data-recovery company who claims to fully support the
Drobo, for people who (like myself) were in the unfortunate position
of upgrading the firmware to a version which bricks the Drobo2.

Unfortunately, they want $2k to recover the data, and they clearly
state that they DO look at the data, and will report anything
"questionable" to the authorities. Since my Drobo contains backups of
documents which include company proprietary data, that's a no-go in my
case, so I'm off trying to do it on my own.

Has anyone pulled the drives out of their Drobo, plugged them into a
4-port SATA card and attempted to de-RAID the array, to recover data
from the platters? The filesystem and the data on the platters should
be completely unaffected, the firmware bricks the physical chassis of
the Drobo, but does not (afaict) mangle the data spread across the
drives.

I'm wondering if something like 'testdisk'[1] might be able to recover
or rebuild the array in a way that could allow data to be read and
copied from it.

Anyone every do this before?

[1] http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

[Parfumeur Privé (NYC)]

That is MOST interesting.  We'll have to try that.

 

Here I sit with 4x 1tb drives that are not recoverable due to Drobo's implied 'safety'.  Personally, I think more data has been lost with Drobo drives, than any other system.  Personally.... I recommend Drobo to all my competitors....  <vbg>.

 

The issue here, is that most other systems have recovery software and 3rd party support, but not Drobo.  The only recourse is to make sure you have another back up on an industry standard box.  MS server comes to mind.  Even LaCie saw the light and offers that in their better NAS.

 

Maybe it's a foreign plot to destroy American stored knowledge/information?... <g>.

 

Good luck.

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[Peter Silva]

In the wiki page, there is a look to a patent document, which is incomplete (lacking the figures.)  It is in principle possible for a third party to have either read the patent and understood how data is laid out, and/or licensed the tech, or reverse engineered it.  this would be very expensive to do, and so I imagine data recovery fees would reflect that.  I hope someone has done such as thing, but am quite skeptical.   money-back guarantee recommended.

[Parfumeur Privé (NYC)]

Part of the business plan should have had a recovery plan in case of mis-manipulation (by user, or firmware upgrade) or total hardware failure.  This was not done.  Hence all the drives are suceptible to what they conveniently call data 'corruption' and trying to lay the blame on the end user.  The bottom line is that the Drobo gives you a virtual sense of security & hope, when in fact other 'standard' following systems are more secure.

 

Hiding behind a proprietary format allows you to sell a concept that cannot be easily analysed for safety of the data.  When it works it works, but when it fails, you get total failure, with no repair (complete data loss).

 

Maybe the newer Drobos are better, and only the start up systems have issues.  BTW, I wonder how many users use the older boxes  w/o the front cover on, so they may see the activity lights.  To me, this should have been a warning that the whole philosophy was to hide behind a screen in order to place the blame on the end user.  The fact that the forum got taken off line when things got too hot and became a registered user only forum, was also a warning sign.

 

Maybe a LaCie NAS box is in my future ??  Albeit, I will confirm that so far the FS 'test' unit has been working flawlessly for the last 4+ months ( I did have a couple of scares, but the unit miraculously recovered). BUT, I do back up to an ordinary LaCie Quadra.  The point is that my FS is fully populated, has all the same size & brand drives, so that negates some of the unique features of the Drobo.

 

Looks like they are finally making a correct effort.  What is needed is a data recovery module that will run on the drives AFTER a failure - be it hardware or accidentaly making the drives 'raw'.  Some recovery FAT needs to be hidden on the drive(s) so as to be able to recover 90+% of the data when the drives are placed in a new box with re-write/mapping turned off (aka read only).  Then they will have the market to themselves.

 

 

On Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 9:39 AM, Peter Silva <Peter....@gmail.com> wrote:

In the wiki page, there is a look to a patent document, which is incomplete (lacking the figures.)  It is in principle possible for a third party to have either read the patent and understood how data is laid out, and/or licensed the tech, or reverse engineered it.  this would be very expensive to do, and so I imagine data recovery fees would reflect that.  I hope someone has done such as thing, but am quite skeptical.   money-back guarantee recommended.

[David A. Desrosiers]

.2011/2/5 Parfumeur Privé (NYC) <parfu...@gmail.com>:

> Looks like they are finally making a correct effort.  What is needed is a
> data recovery module that will run on the drives AFTER a failure - be it
> hardware or accidentaly making the drives 'raw'.  Some recovery FAT needs to
> be hidden on the drive(s) so as to be able to recover 90+% of the data when
> the drives are placed in a new box with re-write/mapping turned off (aka
> read only).  Then they will have the market to themselves.

DRI has a "last-ditch-effort" firmware version, but they refused to
give it to me. Others have obtained this from DRI in order to just
mount the array read-only, regardless of any errors. It's meant to be
used when the drives are corrupted or the array is bricked in some
other way. See my previous posts on this forum for the ugly details.

In short I avoid DRI's products, and only recommend them for a
"caching" style device, but NEVER for the primary data access point.
It's just too dangerous to put data on if you want to rely on it.

[Parfumeur Privé (NYC)]

The firmware mentioned is hearsay from about 2 years ago in the old forums.  There is an undocumneted keystroke that should place the unit in read only.

I do not doubt that at one time they may have refused to give it to you, but if it was a recent request, that is not correct.

 

Contact support for more information, as this has been implemented in th enew firmware, and I do not know which versions carry that capability.

 

[David A. Desrosiers]

2011/2/5 Parfumeur Privé (NYC) <parfu...@gmail.com>:

> There is an undocumneted keystroke that should place the unit in read only.
> I do not doubt that at one time they may have refused to give it to you, but
> if it was a recent request, that is not correct.

Unless they fixed it in the last few months, I don't think that's
true. See my previous post:

http://groups.google.com/group/drobo-talk/browse_thread/thread/dfd93ecbf674c54a/24ab213e54a250c1?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=Desrosiers#24ab213e54a250c1

My upgrade from 1.31 which worked solidly for hundreds of reboots, to
the DRI-recommended 1.35 (at the time), bricked the unit. The very
next reboot after the "successful" upgrade never completed, and it's
been that way since last year.

DRI claims that between 1.31 and 1.35, my disk pack became corrupt (in
a matter of about 30 seconds, from clean shutdown to clean bootup),
and disclaim any responsibility, except there are dozens of reports of
the same, identical symptoms using the same exact firmware revision.

I'm not sure about this "magic keystroke" you're referring to, but
it's definitely not in 1.31 or 1.35.

[Parfumeur Privé (NYC)]

From Drobspace: back in May 2010

http://www.drobospace.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=1276&highlight=read+only

05-27-2010, 11:33 AM (This post was last modified: 05-27-2010 11:34 AM by trirnoth05-27-2010, 11:33 AM (This post was last modified: 05-27-2010 11:34 AM by trirnoth

trirnoth Junior Member Posts: 7 Joined: May 2010

RE: Not the smartest thing I've ever done. I haven't had time to try this yet, but thought I would post information regarding the read-only firmware. No actual firmware install is needed to do this. This info may already be in other posts, but I hadn't thought to search for this thinking it was an actual software install: 1) Please standby your Drobo and disconnect the data then power cable 2) Please eject all 4 drives out of the Drobo at least 2" 3) Connect the data then power back to the Drobo 4) Once the Drobo is seen by the Drobo Dashboard 5) CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-R toggles between set/unset of read-only mode. 6) Once the settings are changed, Dashboard will prompt for reboot of the unit, please do so 7) Once the unit is back up from the reboot please standby your Drobo and disconnect the data then power cable 8) Please firmly insert all 4 drives 9) Connect the data then power back to the Drobo 10) If the Drobo mounts please copy any and all data you can recover off the Drobo I hope this isn't something I'm supposed to keep secret. It seems like something that would be good to know in the event of a failure.

trirnoth Junior Member Posts: 7 Joined: May 2010

RE: Not the smartest thing I've ever done. I haven't had time to try this yet, but thought I would post information regarding the read-only firmware. No actual firmware install is needed to do this. This info may already be in other posts, but I hadn't thought to search for this thinking it was an actual software install: 1) Please standby your Drobo and disconnect the data then power cable 2) Please eject all 4 drives out of the Drobo at least 2" 3) Connect the data then power back to the Drobo 4) Once the Drobo is seen by the Drobo Dashboard 5) CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-R toggles between set/unset of read-only mode. 6) Once the settings are changed, Dashboard will prompt for reboot of the unit, please do so 7) Once the unit is back up from the reboot please standby your Drobo and disconnect the data then power cable 8) Please firmly insert all 4 drives 9) Connect the data then power back to the Drobo 10) If the Drobo mounts please copy any and all data you can recover off the Drobo I hope this isn't something I'm supposed to keep secret. It seems like something that would be good to know in the event of a failure.

I haven't had time to try this yet, but thought I would post information regarding the read-only firmware. No actual firmware install is needed to do this.
This info may already be in other posts, but I hadn't thought to search for this thinking it was an actual software install:

1) Please standby your Drobo and disconnect the data then power cable
2) Please eject all 4 drives out of the Drobo at least 2"
3) Connect the data then power back to the Drobo
4) Once the Drobo is seen by the Drobo Dashboard
5) CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-R toggles between set/unset of read-only mode.
6) Once the settings are changed, Dashboard will prompt for reboot of the unit, please do so
7) Once the unit is back up from the reboot please standby your Drobo and disconnect the data then power cable
8) Please firmly insert all 4 drives
9) Connect the data then power back to the Drobo
10) If the Drobo mounts please copy any and all data you can recover off the Drobo

I hope this isn't something I'm supposed to keep secret. It seems like something that would be good to know in the event of a failure.

 

Do check with Drobo.... 

[Parfumeur Privé (NYC)]

Ummm sorry about the double post, One did not appear in my origianal reply box.

 

From Jennifer:

 

I would like to add a few comments in regards to this. The Read Only mode is used in specific situations such as improper shutdowns, frequent power outages, or multiple drive failure which can cause Drobo to become unstable and enter a reboot loop. The Read Only command attempts to stabilize Drobo long enough to allow you to get your data off of Drobo if you don’t have a recent backup of your data. We strongly recommend you contact tech support to see if your scenario applies as there are some prerequisites in order for you to use this feature. If you have any questions or concerns please contact support.

 

So DO call Drobo, as their's is still a work in progress.