Ventura/Sonoma and Drobo?

[satcomer]

Well, I've updated my 27" iMac to Mac OS Ventura and now it will not connect to my Drobo 5D3, so I guess that it's time to replace my Drobo enclosure. I watch Terry White's "Protecting your most valuable asset: storage and backup" video course over at Kelby Training's "Photography Gear Conference" back in May and he recommended Qnap and Synology brands. Anyone have experience with these brands?
Will all that I have to do is swap the drives from my Drobo to the new enclosure? I realize that more than likely, the data will be wiped off the drives that are swapped to the new enclosure, but then I will have a fresh backup set on the drives in the new enclosure, correct?

Don't forget about TrueNAS Mini though!

 

[rjtiedeman]

Drobo’s ability to take various drive sizes and types is yet to be accomplished by competitors. It was a big savings for our office. We have a new 5n2 and a really old firewire drobo running with out an issue. Since we have older macs on the network still running they will be tasked with updates and nightly backups. I hope they find a way back because Drobo made solid hardware. They just didn’t keep up with apple.

 

[mkummer]

Update to Ventura 13.2 still works with Drobo if installed before like described earlier in this thread.

 

[mkummer]

13.3 Beta works too.

 

[pixxelpusher]

13.3 Beta works too.

Is this still working well for you under Ventura?

 

[mkummer]

As I wrote: yes - with final 13.3 too

 

[dwcdv]

Hello, I just upgraded my OSX to 13.3. The Drobo 5D3. It mounts, but often disconnects. The dashboard says I should update the firmware from 3.5.5 to 4.2.3. I tried the automatic upgrade and the manual-as per instruction, but both were unsuccessful. Actually the rebooting I also had while running Catalina. I have 4 Drobo.... don't ask how much data is at its stake!

 

[diligiant]

3.5.5 is indeed really old. Can't you download the firmware from Drobo software, firmware ?

 

[mkummer]

Possibly a good idea to update the Drobo Dashboard to the newest version. Sure, Firmware should be actual. The dashboard allows to install FW manually, if you have downloaded it from Drops website as written by dilligiant

 

[stooovie]

I can't make my Drobo 5D work in Ventura anymore. I allow the kexts ("Reduced security") but there's a "Some system software requires your attention" thing in System Settings that apparently resets the kext cache... only to appear again on the next boot. Tried four times, no dice. M1 Pro, Drobo 5D on current versions.

 

[mkummer]

That sounds pretty bad. I run my Mac Studio with 13.4. newest Beta and did not encounter this problem. I always shut down the Drobo for installation of new betas and have to start up it every time - no problems until now. Did you follow the instructions for the kext override for the last two macOS versions as listed in a very early post in this thread?

I hope that is not an early indication Apple will shut down those kext workaround soon.

 

[pwygant]

I can't make my Drobo 5D work in Ventura anymore. I allow the kexts ("Reduced security") but there's a "Some system software requires your attention" thing in System Settings that apparently resets the kext cache... only to appear again on the next boot. Tried four times, no dice. M1 Pro, Drobo 5D on current versions.

What OS are you on?

 

[mkummer]

Ventura 13.4 beta 4 still runs on my Mac Studio.

 

[mkummer]

Hello everyone - for a long time, if I put my Mac in Sleep Mode, the Drobo deactivated itself turning all green light off and the left one went to orange. After waking the Mac, it took a little while to activate the Drobo and turning on the green lights and the blue row of dots again. As I understand - that was a savings mode during Sleep Mode. After the last update of macOS 13.4. RC, the Mac still goes to Sleep Mode, but the Drobo keeps the green/blue illumination. As a side effect, I can now use the Drobo from iOS and ATV w/o waking the Mac. Is this a bug or feature? The advantage is - Drobo is running w/o automatically turning it down and the Plex server f.e. is active all the time. On the downside could be the power consumption of the Drobo when running in the background too. What do you think?

Thanks as always for sharing your thoughts. Michael

 

[CWallace]

Drobo Inc. is now being liquidated so looks like any chance of support being resumed for Drobo products is over.

 

[mkummer]

This news are sad but more or less a matter of fact. Still, the Drobo.com pages exist - support is off since Jan 27th. All support docs are still available.

So far, the Drobo can be run under Ventura.

My posting is related to the way, Ventura handles sleep mode with external drives.

 

[eelpout]

Drobo Inc. is now being liquidated so looks like any chance of support being resumed for Drobo products is over.

yes, but we don't know for certain how this will play out. I get letters about the StorCentric bankruptcy since I'm a Retropect Backup user (back from the original Dantz days ).

There will be a creditor meeting hosted by the trustee law firm on June 1st and we will likely know more then.

 

[mkummer]

Hope dies last...

 

[Abacab]

Having been a loyal Drobo user since 06 and pretty much trouble free I named my 5n "Set it and forget it".
I since have made the jump to Qnap. My 5n & 5n2 still work flawless and since they are history has anyone tried flashing their processor to run something open source or similar to Sinology or Qnap? Even as something simple as a Jbod array.
It's not ready to be repurposed as furniture like my 2 Mac Pro Towers from 2004.

 

[mkummer]

Since yesterday, the Drobo starts going to sleep again w/o changing anything. Later the day, I updated macOS to 13.5. public beat 2 and now the Plex app has a black screen after waking the system up. All very strange...

Any news about the creditor meeting??

 

[mkummer]

Hello - since Sonoma is on the horizon, I wonder, if this OS might support the old Drobo Kext like it did under Ventura. If somebody has any news during the beta phase - please post here.

 

[mkummer]

Has anybody running Sonoma newest Beta with Drobo yet? It runs with all new versions of 13.5

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

I opened Drobo Dashboard 3.6.1 and logged in to check something about my Time Machine share, yesterday. And that seemed to work as it should... I'm on the third Sonoma beta.

The reason I did this is because Time Machine hasn't been able to complete a backup since July 5th, but that might be a Sonoma bug, and not Drobo...?

 

[mkummer]

Just installed Beta 3 of Sonoma - no change for using the Drobo.

 

[Triumphs]

I was also scared and wanted long before I did my iMacPro give Ventura. I bought a USB box for 4 and 5 drives to be safe. Backup my Drobo 5D (thunderbolt 2 to 3 with Apple adapter) and Drobo1 (usb2 FW800 with 2 adverts FW800 Thunderbolt2 and Thunderbolt2 to 3) And installed Ventura 13.4.1c
And everything worked I was surprised and happy can send the boxes back