DroboS / eSATA / drobo-utils problem

[plaine]

I just got another Drobo S and am trying to get the eSATA port to work
with my Ubuntu setup, using drobo-utils.

I've had success with another Drobo S on another setup with Firewire
800, but this Drobo S, I'd like to use the eSATA port on. This is on
the most recent version of Ubuntu and a clean install of it as well. I
only have 1 other hard drive, in internal drive that's working fine.

I plugged in, inserted drives and everything according to
instructions. However, when I go to format the drives, here's what
happens:

sudo drobom status
No Drobo discovered, is one connected?

so then,

sudo drobom -v 16 status
examining: /dev/sda
rejected: not from DRI
examining: /dev/sdb
rejected: not from DRI
returning list: []
No Drobo discovered, is one connected?

So, I did a sudo lshw to see my connected hardware, and it does seem
to be seeing the Drobo there, here's that portion:

*-disk:1
description: ATA Disk
product: Drobo 3rd Gen
physical id: 0.1.0
bus info: scsi@3:0.1.0
logical name: /dev/sdb
version: v1.0
serial: TDB100350452_LUN00
size: 2047GiB (2199GB)
configuration: ansiversion=5

My next step would be to try it with Firewire 800, but I'd have to
purchase a card to do that and would rather not, because I don't want
to use Firewire with this Drobo S. Pretty committed to eSATA assuming
it will work.

I've asked Data Robotics about my motherboard chipset, which they've
confirmed should work. I'm connecting straight to the motherboard.
No eSATA cards in use.

Any ideas why I'm unable to connect with drobo-utils to re-format the
drives I have in there and start using it? Thank you.

[Peter Silva]

I had a chance to access a Drobo S a while ago.

You need to re-connect via USB or firewire to do the format, or access it at all using drobo-utils.  Once it is formatted,

it will work fine as a disk via eSATA, but drobo-utils will not work via that interface.

This is because the SATA interface does not have the same API as the rest of the drobo line.  This API is so far undocumented.,,

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[plaine]

Once again, Peter to the rescue. Thank you sir! I'll give it a shot
right now via USB.
...chris

On Feb 23, 10:53 pm, Peter Silva <informa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I had a chance to access a Drobo S a while ago.
>
> You need to re-connect via USB or firewire to do the format, or access it at
> all using drobo-utils.  Once it is formatted,
> it will work fine as a disk via eSATA, but drobo-utils will not work via
> that interface.
>
> This is because the SATA interface does not have the same API as the rest of
> the drobo line.  This API is so far undocumented.,,
>

> > drobo-talk+...@googlegroups.com<drobo-talk%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>

[plaine]

I spoke too soon, perhaps. USB didn't work either, so I'm going to
pull the Firewire card from another machine for now and try to format
using that.

On Feb 23, 10:53 pm, Peter Silva <informa...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I had a chance to access a Drobo S a while ago.
>
> You need to re-connect via USB or firewire to do the format, or access it at
> all using drobo-utils.  Once it is formatted,
> it will work fine as a disk via eSATA, but drobo-utils will not work via
> that interface.
>
> This is because the SATA interface does not have the same API as the rest of
> the drobo line.  This API is so far undocumented.,,
>

> > drobo-talk+...@googlegroups.com<drobo-talk%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>

[plaine]

Ok, tried both USB and Firewire and no luck with either. Same results
as posted above. Any other ideas?

On the Firewire, when I did a sudo lshw, it gave me this:
*-scsi
physical id: 2
bus info: firewire@001a620300350452
logical name: scsi8
*-disk
description: SCSI Disk
product: Drobo3
vendor: Drobo
physical id: 0.0.0
bus info: scsi@8:0.0.0
logical name: /dev/sdb
version: 3.00
serial: 0db100350452

size 2047GiB (2199GB)
configuration: ansiversion=5

No Drobo discovered, is one connected? When I try to execute the drobo-
util commands.

...chris

On Feb 23, 10:53 pm, Peter Silva <informa...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I had a chance to access a Drobo S a while ago.
>
> You need to re-connect via USB or firewire to do the format, or access it at
> all using drobo-utils.  Once it is formatted,
> it will work fine as a disk via eSATA, but drobo-utils will not work via
> that interface.
>
> This is because the SATA interface does not have the same API as the rest of
> the drobo line.  This API is so far undocumented.,,
>

> > drobo-talk+...@googlegroups.com<drobo-talk%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>

[Peter Silva]

 connect via USB, and try:

http://drobo-utils.sourceforge.net/#no-drobos-discovered

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to drobo-talk+...@googlegroups.com.

[plaine]

I'm sorry, I should have been more clear in my prior post. I did try
that and the results were the same as what I had posted in my original
post (both USB and Firewire give the same results):

sudo drobom -v 16 status
examining: /dev/sda
rejected: not from DRI
examining: /dev/sdb
rejected: not from DRI
returning list: []
No Drobo discovered, is one connected?

On Feb 24, 5:49 pm, Peter Silva <informa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>  connect via USB, and try:
>
> http://drobo-utils.sourceforge.net/#no-drobos-discovered
>

> > <drobo-talk%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com<drobo-talk%252Buns...@googlegroups.com>

[plaine]

One additional note, when I run a sudo drobom view, the connection
status light on my Drobo blinks when I hit <Enter>, despite it saying
"No Drobo discovered". This is with a USB connection. So by all
accounts, it seems to be communicating with the Drobo, just not
executing the commands. Not sure that that helps at all, but
something I just noticed.

[plaine]

I tried this on another Ubuntu machine that I have a 2nd gen Drobo
working on, and it yielded the same results as above in it as well.

[plaine]

Another bit of info, I just decided to put another drive into Drobo to
see what would happen, while connected. It is still undiscoverable,
but now the output of sudo drobom -v 16 status shows an additional
device. Not sure if this offers up any clues or not, but posting it
anyway.

BEFORE (with 3 drives in Drobo S):

sudo drobom -v 16 status
examining: /dev/sda
rejected: not from DRI
examining: /dev/sdb
rejected: not from DRI
returning list: []
No Drobo discovered, is one connected?

AFTER ADDING 1 ADDITIONAL DRIVE (to bring the total to 4 drives):

sudo drobom -v 16 status
examining: /dev/sda
rejected: not from DRI
examining: /dev/sdb
rejected: not from DRI

examining: /dev/sdc

rejected: not from DRI
returning list: []
No Drobo discovered, is one connected?

[Peter Silva]

just covering bases:

drobom -V

you should have  0.6.2 or better for S

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to drobo-talk+...@googlegroups.com.

[plaine]

Ah, hmm. It says r0_5_0. I did a sudo apt-get install drobo-utils to
get it, should I not have? Thanks.
...chris

On Feb 26, 5:04 pm, Peter Silva <informa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> just covering bases:
>
> drobom -V
>
> you should have  0.6.2 or better for S
>

> > > > > > > <drobo-talk%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com<drobo-talk%252Buns...@googlegroups.com>
> > <drobo-talk%252Buns...@googlegroups.com<drobo-talk%25252Bun...@googlegroups.com>

[Peter Silva]

ah... apt-get would have worked fine for a gen 1 or a gen 2, but the S and the Pro support came later.

I suggest a download from sf.net... the dpkg should work fine.

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to drobo-talk+...@googlegroups.com.

[plaine]

Ah, now I'm making progress via USB and this later version, thanks
Peter. I'm doing a format (sudo drobom view) and have chosen ext3. I
have 4 (1TB) drives, which it is seeing. However, when I click
format, with the 2TB max LUN size, it says "hoho! multiple partition
types! Brave are we not?".... but I haven't actually asked it to do
multiple partition types. When it finishes (after giving me that
message numerous times), I end up with:
sda1 (which is my internal boot drive)
sdb1 (labeled Drobo01)
sdc1 (labeled Drobo01)
Is it ok to just changed the label of sdc1 to Drobo02 or something
else? Normal behavior for it to give the same label to both? Another
concern is that neither shows up when I FTP in as it does with my
other server with the 2nd Gen Drobo, so I lean toward something may be
wrong.

...chris

On Feb 27, 3:58 pm, Peter Silva <informa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ah... apt-get would have worked fine for a gen 1 or a gen 2, but the S and
> the Pro support came later.
>
> I suggest a download from sf.net... the dpkg should work fine.
>

> > > > > > > > > <drobo-talk%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com<drobo-talk%252Buns...@googlegroups.com>
> > <drobo-talk%252Buns...@googlegroups.com<drobo-talk%25252Bun...@googlegroups.com>
>
> > > > <drobo-talk%252Buns...@googlegroups.com<drobo-talk%25252Bun...@googlegroups.com>
> > <drobo-talk%25252Bun...@googlegroups.com<drobo-talk%2525252Bu...@googlegroups.com>

>
> > > > > > > > > > > .
> > > > > > > > > > > For more options, visit this group at
> > > > > > > > > > >http://groups.google.com/group/drobo-talk?hl=en.
>
> > > > > > > > > --
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> > > > .
> > > > > > > > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
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> > <drobo-talk%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com<drobo-talk%252Buns...@googlegroups.com>
>
> > > > <drobo-talk%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com<drobo-talk%252Buns...@googlegroups.com>
> > <drobo-talk%252Buns...@googlegroups.com<drobo-talk%25252Bun...@googlegroups.com>
>
> > > > > > > > > .
> > > > > > > > > For more options, visit this group at
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>
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> > > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
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> ...
>
> read more »

[Peter Silva]

the multiple LUNS having the same label is a bug, though a harmless one.
the "hoho! multiple..." should show up when a single LUN has > 1 partition, and
they are not all the same type... It's a bug for it to show up when there are no partitions,
but again, afaik, totally harmless.  Drobo-utils does not care what the label is it just supplies a fixed default value.  to fix/change the label:

tune2fs -L  <LUNLABEL>  /dev/sdc1

would be great if you could file a bug on each of those.  They're harmless but they should get fixed.

I don't understand the mention of FTP...   
shot in the dark:
drobom never mounts the partition, it just formats it.  Mounting is left to normal OS utilities
(HAL/DBUS, or fstab) 

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to drobo-talk+...@googlegroups.com.

[plaine]

This is all while connected via eSATA

A sudo drobom -v 16 status yielded:
examining: /dev/sda
id: (2, 0, 0, 0, 'ATA ')
found a Drobo
appending new lundevs to devices: []
examining: /dev/sdb
id: (2, 1, 0, 0, 'ATA ')
found a Drobo
appending new lundevs to devices: [['/dev/sda']]
returning list: [['/dev/sda'], ['/dev/sdb']]
trying: ['/dev/sda']
trying: ['/dev/sdb']
No Drobos discovered

When I formatted via USB per above, I had 2 LUNs for the 4 drives
(each 1TB drives) in my Drobo S. I renamed one of them Drobo01 and
the other Drobo02. I shut down, plugged in my eSATA, restarted then
it didn't discover them. So I did the above. Then, it found Drobo01
and I was able to mount it. But Drobo02 seems to be missing.

Also:
sudo drobom status = "No Drobos Discovered"
sudo drobom view = "No Drobos Discovered"

On Mar 1, 11:48 am, plaine <plaine.ch...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I spoke too soon again. Doesn't actually work with eSATA.  Tried
> shutting down and restarting with things plugged in, but it won't find
> the Drobo that is now formatted properly.  This, despite Data Robotics
> saying that Drobo S will work with the chipset on my motherboard.  Any
> ideas?  I'm back to "No Drobos discovered".
>
> On Mar 1, 11:40 am, plaine <plaine.ch...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Great, thanks again Peter.  I'm fully operational now using eSATa.

>
> > On Feb 28, 10:01 pm, Peter Silva <informa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > the multiple LUNS having the same label is a bug, though a harmless one.
> > > the "hoho! multiple..." should show up when a single LUN has > 1 partition,
> > > and
> > > they are not all the same type... It's a bug for it to show up when there
> > > are no partitions,
> > > but again, afaik, totally harmless.  Drobo-utils does not care what the
> > > label is it just supplies a fixed default value.  to fix/change the label:
>
> > > tune2fs -L  <LUNLABEL>  /dev/sdc1
>
> > > would be great if you could file a bug on each of those.  They're harmless
> > > but they should get fixed.
>
> > > I don't understand the mention of FTP...
> > > shot in the dark:
> > > drobom never mounts the partition, it just formats it.  Mounting is left to
> > > normal OS utilities
> > > (HAL/DBUS, or fstab)
>

> ...
>
> read more »

[Peter Silva]

do:

sudo drobom -V 

to make sure you are getting the right version.  

Note that the right version will only work with the "S" when connected via USB.

So you can format it etc.. with USB, and then use it with SATA.  However

drobo-utils will not be able to perform monitoring unless it is connected via USB.

When connected via SATA, drobo-utils will not find the drobo, because the drobo 

does not provide the same API.  However, it should still present the same /dev/sdX devices, and you should be able to use them.  If /dev/sdX do not present, then there is something wrong with kernel/driver/OS combination.  

Have you connected some other drive via ESATA to the system (does the esata work with some other device?) BIOS settings enable/disable esata?

> ...
>
> read more »

[plaine]

Per the earlier part of this thread, I have the current version and
was then able to format (0.6.2.2) and its able to see the one volume
(Drobo01) with eSATA connected, but it won't show Drobo02, the other
2TB volume. When I plug in via USB, both Drobo01 and Drobo02 (sdb and
sdc) show up. But when I plug in via eSATA, only sdb shows up
(Drobo01). So it sounds like I'm just destined to return this Drobo
if there is some incompatability that won't let it show me both LUNs
within a single Drobo via eSATA. Since I can see 1, seems that all is
working fine and with USB hooked up, both appear, but with eSATA, only
the one appears.

On Mar 1, 4:43 pm, Peter Silva <informa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> do:
>
> sudo drobom -V
>
> to make sure you are getting the right version.
>
> Note that the right version will only work with the "S" when connected via
> USB.
> So you can format it etc.. with USB, and then use it with SATA.  However
> drobo-utils will not be able to perform monitoring unless it is connected
> via USB.
>
> When connected via SATA, drobo-utils will not find the drobo, because the
> drobo
> does not provide the same API.  However, it should still present the same
> /dev/sdX devices, and you should be able to use them.  If /dev/sdX do not
> present, then there is something wrong with kernel/driver/OS combination.
>
> Have you connected some other drive via ESATA to the system (does the esata
> work with some other device?) BIOS settings enable/disable esata?
>

> ...
>
> read more »

[Peter Silva]

perhaps this will help:

http://drobo-utils.sourceforge.net/#only-one-lun-shows-up

there may be a tunable parameter for your SATA needed...

not sure...

> ...
>
> read more »

[Hylton Conacher (ZR1HPC)]

Hi Chris et al,

Sorry coming in late:

plaine wrote:
> Another bit of info, I just decided to put another drive into Drobo to
> see what would happen, while connected. It is still undiscoverable,
> but now the output of sudo drobom -v 16 status shows an additional
> device. Not sure if this offers up any clues or not, but posting it
> anyway.
>
> BEFORE (with 3 drives in Drobo S):
> sudo drobom -v 16 status
> examining: /dev/sda
> rejected: not from DRI
> examining: /dev/sdb
> rejected: not from DRI
> returning list: []
> No Drobo discovered, is one connected?

I notice in the paste above that you state there are 3 drives yet I only
see two detected? Likewise in the post below after bringing the Drobo to
4 drives, I only see three identified.

> AFTER ADDING 1 ADDITIONAL DRIVE (to bring the total to 4 drives):
> sudo drobom -v 16 status
> examining: /dev/sda
> rejected: not from DRI
> examining: /dev/sdb
> rejected: not from DRI
> examining: /dev/sdc
> rejected: not from DRI
> returning list: []
> No Drobo discovered, is one connected?

> <snip>

My thought on this is that you have a mix of SATA I and SATA II drives
that is resulting in the SATA I being partially detected but not able to
be used.

Check the drives are all SATA II as perhaps they are labelled
incorrectly as I also had an issue when using mixed SATA drives.

Hope it helps

Hylton
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[plaine]

Thanks for all of the replies. I actually just got this figured out.
When I started poking around about Peter's last post regarding the
SCSI LUN issue, I found that things were ok there. However, in
scouring the internet learning about that, I came across another post
that then led me to check my BIOS. It turns out, I needed to enable
ACHI in my BIOS. When I did that and rebooted, it now shows both
volumes and all systems appear to be go! So thanks again for the
responses on this issue.

On Mar 2, 1:38 pm, "Hylton Conacher (ZR1HPC)" <hyl...@conacher.co.za>
wrote:

> Lions Club member ofhttp://www.fishhoeklionsclub.org.za