Drobopro FS Question

[Mark Potter]

I was given a Drobopro FS and thanks to this group and the drobo-utils page I have it all neatly formatted as ext3 with 2GB LUNS. I haven't had any problems but I do have a couple of questions whose answers seems to be outside of my Google-Fu. I apologize if these are common knowledge, I honestly searched and couldn't find a clear answer.

1. When formatted as ext3 the Drobo presents a 16TB partition (It is filled with 2GB disks). In a normal RAID setup this would imply that I have no data protection. I don't quite grasp all the intricacies of BeyondRAID.

2. Is it possible to format as ext3 with dual drive protection as the Windows based utilities allow when using NTFS?

[Mark Potter]

Of course I typoed this, it's a DroboPro 8 bay, not a Drobo FS.

[Peter Silva]

congrats on the new toy!

Drobo disk layout is fixed, there is always protection against a single drive failure.  You can set an option for dual-drive redundancy with drobom.  

Drobo does thin provisioning, which means that the logical volume is presented as the maximum size of the LUN, even if you only have a fraction physically available.  If you get close to running out of space, all the drive lights on the front panel (and the dashboard) will light up, and give you the opportunity to replace some drives with higher capacity one (one at a time!).  Normally, when adding disks, you have to re-arrange things to incorporate the added storage into the pool.   With Drobo thin provisioning the operating system doesn't make any changes, as you add disks, it just looks like the same file system got more full.

The drobopro should not have presented a 16 TiB unless you are using HFS.   It should have presented two 8 TiB partitions if using ext3.  

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[Romeo Sid Vicious]

Thanks for the welcome!

Here's what data I can provide:

romeosidvicious@htpc:~$ sudo drobom status

[sudo] password for romeosidvicious:

/dev/sdb /mnt DroboPro 00% full - ([], 0)

romeosidvicious@htpc:~$ mount | grep sdb

/dev/sdb1 on /mnt type ext3 (rw)

romeosidvicious@htpc:~$ df -h | grep sdb

/dev/sdb1        16T  152K   16T   1% /mnt

I followed the guide on the drobo-utils page, including using 2TB LUNS, If any other information would be useful I'll be glad to provide it, I don't want to just do a data dump if that's not helpful. I haven't run any tests on storing data, did the LUN size and formatting through the GUI. Parted did say the partition wasn't aligned for optimal performance but parted says that a lot.

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[Romeo Sid Vicious]

At least part of my problem was using an old version of drobo-utils, Ubuntu needs to update their repos. I am reformatting now but I am getting:

hoho! multiple partition types! Brave are we not?

when I execute pretty much any command. 

[Romeo Sid Vicious]

Using the GUI didn't properly wipe out the LUNs that were set up on initially using the Windows Drobo app. I set the LUN size via the command link to 2TB and after the reboot I no longer have messages about multiple partition types, have 8 2TB LUNs showing up, and am in the process of formatting them. Using the newest Drobo-utils I was also able to turn on dual drive redundancy. I think I have this figure out!

[Peter Silva]

16t might work... If your willing to test,

Just fill it up with data,  then delete it all.  The lights should light up as it fills up, then about twenty minutes or so after you remove the data, the lights should go out.

If the lights do not go out, then your lunsize is not supported, and pain will ensue...

You could then reformat by setting lunsize to 8 g which should be fine.

[Romeo Sid Vicious]

I am willing to test as it's not in "production" as of yet. Although I'm concerned about the firmware level. The Drobo site shows 1.2.2. as the latest and fwcheck shows something completely different:

romeosidvicious@htpc:~$ sudo drobom fwcheck

[sudo] password for romeosidvicious:

looking for firmware for: armmarvell 2.56.43538 hw version: 1.00

no matching firmware found, must be the latest and greatest!

It did report the latest firmware when I had it connected to Windows so I am going to guess it's alright.

For testing, do I need to fill up the device or just write a goodly amount of data, turn 3 or 4 lights on and then try to delete it?

[Peter Silva]

Filling to four lights ought to be enough

But for 2tb there's no suspense
That's fine up to 8tb.  16 would be the only size to test.

Careful that you use ext3,  not ext4.

[Romeo Sid Vicious]

I'll see what I can do with testing tonight but it may be as far out as Friday depending on time.

[Romeo Sid Vicious]

Well as far as the testing is concerned, I've started file create using dd, with dual drive redundancy and the drives I have in the DroboPro it's talking about 8 hrs per 1 TB dd of=/dev/zero. I've almost 2 TB done now so on Sunday I'll be able to start with the deletions. I'm doing 8 1 TB files or four lights, whichever comes first. I sorely wish for ext4's fallocate at this point.

[Romeo Sid Vicious]

I can confirm that a 16 TB partition on the DroboPro 8 bay does not work. At around 2.6 TB the device rebooted, halting the file creation. Once I unmounted and remounted it I removed the files. Both of the blue lights that were on stayed on for half an hour. 

drobom status reports: 

/dev/sdb /mnt DroboPro 23% full - ([], 0)

df reports:

/dev/sdb1        16T  152K   16T   1% /mnt

You had said 8 TB should work I would expect 4 TB to work as well? If so I'll likely use 4 TB LUNs as my use case would make good use of four LUNs. Admittedly I haven't searched much but everything still seems to say that 2 TB is the max for Linux and I just want to confirm before I start actually using the device.

[Peter Silva]

30 minutes is not really long enough.  If you are lucky it will start by then, but it might take longer.  I'd wait three or four hours before accepting the conclusion.

the 2T limit was for the original USB devices when they first came out.  It was related to firmware issues on those drobo's and a bug in USB drivers in the linux kernel.  both are long since addressed.  8T ext3 should be fine in any drobo with current firmware (and any firmware in a b800 is new enough because the model is too new.) and the patch was in the 2.6 stream, so any distro with a 3.x kernel is definitely fine.  thie biggest gotcha is that folks need to be careful to make sure that they do not do ext4.

If you are worried, just test the same way you tested  16TiB.   The only thing ''drobo support'' is about is the ability to reclaim space from filesystem by knowing when it isn't used.  So this test is really definitive.

God save the Queen (She's not a human being)

[Romeo Sid Vicious]

My assumption was partially based the random reboot in the middle of file creation. I've got 4TB LUNs set up now as that works perfectly for my purposes.

I am slightly confused as it will let me create 2 8TB LUNs or a single 16TB LUN but when I create 4TB LUNs it only creates 3 LUNs. I am curious as to why this is the case, all drives are green. It's also disappearing during operations at this point. I think I may have an problem with iSCSI. I'm going to switch back to USB and see what I can do with it. I'd prefer iSCSI for obvious reasons but I'm not sure that's not causing the problem.

[Peter Silva]

I thought you said there was no iscsi support on the B800fs?  I can't test iscsi, but intermittent connections are a known symptom, you should search the google group.  I documented some posters' contributions here:

http://drobo-utils.sourceforge.net/#id5

It will create as many LUNS as it needs to exceed the physical capacity of the disks.  If you have > 8 TiB then you'll get two of them.   If your disks physical capacity is less than 12 TiB then it will create three 4TiB LUNS.

note: disks are sold in base 10 terabytes, where drobo luns are sized in base 2 (hence the 'i') so 16 TB of disk is < 16 TiB.

[Romeo Sid Vicious]

You must've missed my correction. My first post was incorrect, I had been reading all day type DroboPro FS when it's just a DroboPro

romeosidvicious@htpc:/etc/iscsi$ sudo drobom info

---------------------------------------------------------

Drobo Name: DroboPro   Devices: /dev/sdd:/dev/sde:/dev/sdf

      Time: Sat Apr 18 13:20:50 2015

---------------------------------------------------------

Configuration maxima: slots: 8, luns: 16, lunsize: 36028801 TB

Capacity (in GB):  used: 0, free: 11936, total: 11936

protocol version:  0.11

SCSI emulation information:

Vendor: DROBO     Model: DroboPro         Revision: 1.00

/dev/sdd: bus=scsi7 channel=0 id=0 lun=0 (vendor=DROBO   , version=30527)

/dev/sde: bus=scsi7 channel=0 id=0 lun=1 (vendor=DROBO   , version=30527)

/dev/sdf: bus=scsi7 channel=0 id=0 lun=2 (vendor=DROBO   , version=30527)

query slotinfo result:  number of slots: 8

slot   GB                Model               Status

   0 2000 Hitachi HDS722020ALA330                green

   1 2000 Hitachi HDS723020BLA642                green

   2 2000 Hitachi HDS722020ALA330                green

   3 2000 Hitachi HDS722020ALA330                green

   4 2000 Hitachi HDS722020ALA330                green

   5 2000 Hitachi HDS722020ALA330                green

   6 2000 Hitachi HDS722020ALA330                green

   7 2000 Hitachi HDS722020ALA330                green

Firmware: 1.2.2

Revision: 2.56 ( 43538 ) built: Oct  7 2011,11:32:31

Features: NO_AUTO_REBOOT,NO_FAT32_FORMAT,USED_CAPACITY_FROM_HOST,DISKPACKSTATUS,ENCRYPT_NOHEADER,CMD_STATUS_QUERIABLE,VARIABLE_LUN_SIZE_1_16,PARTITION_LUN_GPT_MBR,FAT32_FORMAT_VOLNAME,SUPPORTS_NEW_LUNINFO2,feature x0800,LUN_MANAGEMENT,feature x2000 ,SUPPORTS_OPTIONS2,SUPPORTS_SHUTDOWN,leftovers (0x460000)

/dev/sdd:/dev/sde:/dev/sdf - DroboPro 00% full - ([], 0)

query options result:

        UseStaticIPAddress True

        UseManualVolumeManagement False

        YellowThreshold 85

        SpinDownDelayMinutes 15

        RedThreshold 95

        SpinDownDelay True

        NetMask 255.255.0.0

        DualDiskRedundancy True

        IPAddress 172.20.0.2

lun     size (GB) used    PTFmt  FStype:

  0     4398         0  No Partitions ['NO FORMAT']

  1     4398         0  No Partitions ['NO FORMAT']

  2     4398         0  No Partitions ['NO FORMAT']

---------------------------------------------------------

What's really humbling about all this is that I actually do HPC for a living but know so little about storage that I feel like a total noob right now.

[Peter Silva]

Looks great!

the netmask is wrong, unless you are really on a Class B.  Dunno if it will cause a problem, but I would fix it.  should be 255.255.255.0 (99% probability... unless you are a networking guru who chose a non-standard one.)

the reason you have three volumes:

     8 disks.  Actual usable capacity is based on leaving one out for redundancy, so you have seven.

     you have DualDiskRedundancy set, so subtract two instead of one.

so you have 6*2000, which is 12 TB, but that is less than 12 TiB, as described before.

If you turn off DualDiskRedundancy, and repeat, I think you´ll get four luns.

[Romeo Sid Vicious]

I am using a class B, it's silly but I was tired and just set up the same thing I use at work all day, yes, I used a class B for a single wire. LOL

I like the three LUNs, this was a gift so the drives in it are of unknown age and use, DualDiskRedundancy is going to be my friend until I slowly swap them all out.

[Peter Silva]

ok, i dub thee network guru for use of a class B out of Laziness...

Remember the three virtues: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LazinessImpatienceHubris

[Romeo Sid Vicious]

Alright, finally got all o the kids sorted and work a little calm so I could play this weekend.

drobom info doesn't report any FS even though the paritions are formatted:

sudo drobom info

---------------------------------------------------------

Drobo Name: DroboPro   Devices: /dev/sdd:/dev/sde:/dev/sdf

      Time: Sat May  2 18:21:40 2015

---------------------------------------------------------

Configuration maxima: slots: 8, luns: 16, lunsize: 36028801 TB

Capacity (in GB):  used: 207, free: 11728, total: 11936

protocol version:  0.11

SCSI emulation information:

Vendor: DROBO     Model: DroboPro         Revision: 1.00

/dev/sdd: bus=scsi7 channel=0 id=0 lun=0 (vendor=DROBO   , version=30527)

/dev/sde: bus=scsi7 channel=0 id=0 lun=1 (vendor=DROBO   , version=30527)

/dev/sdf: bus=scsi7 channel=0 id=0 lun=2 (vendor=DROBO   , version=30527)

query slotinfo result:  number of slots: 8

slot   GB                Model               Status

   0 2000 Hitachi HDS722020ALA330                green

   1 2000 Hitachi HDS723020BLA642                green

   2 2000 Hitachi HDS722020ALA330                green

   3 2000 Hitachi HDS722020ALA330                green

   4 2000 Hitachi HDS722020ALA330                green

   5 2000 Hitachi HDS722020ALA330                green

   6 2000 Hitachi HDS722020ALA330                green

   7 2000 Hitachi HDS722020ALA330                green

Firmware: 1.2.2

Revision: 2.56 ( 43538 ) built: Oct  7 2011,11:32:31

Features: NO_AUTO_REBOOT,NO_FAT32_FORMAT,USED_CAPACITY_FROM_HOST,DISKPACKSTATUS,ENCRYPT_NOHEADER,CMD_STATUS_QUERIABLE,VARIABLE_LUN_SIZE_1_16,PARTITION_LUN_GPT_MBR,FAT32_FORMAT_VOLNAME,SUPPORTS_NEW_LUNINFO2,feature x0800,LUN_MANAGEMENT,feature x2000 ,SUPPORTS_OPTIONS2,SUPPORTS_SHUTDOWN,leftovers (0x460000)

/dev/sdd:/dev/sde:/dev/sdf - DroboPro 01% full - ([], 0)

query options result:

        UseStaticIPAddress True

        UseManualVolumeManagement False

        YellowThreshold 85

        SpinDownDelayMinutes 15

        RedThreshold 95

        SpinDownDelay True

        NetMask 255.255.0.0

        DualDiskRedundancy True

        IPAddress 172.20.0.2

hoho! multiple partition types! Brave are we not?

hoho! multiple partition types! Brave are we not?

hoho! multiple partition types! Brave are we not?

lun     size (GB) used    PTFmt  FStype:

  0     4398       207      GPT []

  1     4398         0      GPT []

  2     4398         0      GPT []

---------------------------------------------------------

The format script threw errors about an unknown partition type so I copied it line by line except I used mkfs.ext3 to create the filesystem, all of this completed without error save mkfs reporting no filesystem label. Here is the Parted output:

(parted) print list

Model: ATA Micron_M500DC_MT (scsi)

Disk /dev/sda: 800GB

Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B

Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End    Size    Type      File system     Flags

 1      1049kB  792GB  792GB   primary   ext4            boot

 2      792GB   800GB  8476MB  extended

 5      792GB   800GB  8476MB  logical   linux-swap(v1)

Model: ATA ST2000NM0011 (scsi)

Disk /dev/sdb: 2000GB

Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B

Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags

 1      1049kB  2000GB  2000GB  primary  ext4

Model: DROBO DroboPro (scsi)

Disk /dev/sdd: 4398GB

Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B

Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name     Flags

 1      17.4kB  4398GB  4398GB               primary

Model: DROBO DroboPro (scsi)

Disk /dev/sde: 4398GB

Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B

Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name     Flags

 1      17.4kB  4398GB  4398GB               primary

Model: DROBO DroboPro (scsi)

Disk /dev/sdf: 4398GB

Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B

Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name     Flags

 1      17.4kB  4398GB  4398GB               primary

Does this look safe to use?