I use a Drobo for all of my backups. Most of the time it works exactly as advertised, but sometimes the computer thinks that it's no longer connected. The lights on the Drobo show it still thinks it's connected, but nothing can access it. My workaround right now is to reboot the Drobo, which usually fixes the problem.
Anyone else seen similar behavior or know of a fix?
Im my experience the Drobo goes to standby after some time. Windows file sharing will report the deviec to be offline of the Drobo doesn't resume fast enough. Also there was a problem with the previous firmware, did you update to the lastest ? (1.3.0 on my Drobo)
I have a regular Drobo connected to Windows Server 2003 x64 via USB. Copying to the drobo from network connected client machines (win7, winxp) using Windows Explorer drag and drop is iffy, especially on multi-gb files. Often, partway through connection to the server is lost. [R]etry'ing the copy does nothing. I can usually re-establish the connection first by typing in X:\ in the address bar, or sometimes even logging off and back on again (client side). Sometimes on the server there will be a delayed write failure message.
I've never had this problem using command line utilities (xxcopy, xcopy, robocopy, rsync) on my nightly backups (up to several tens of gigabytes a night)
Not a permanent fix but perhaps faster than rebooting the drobo: Try refreshing the USB connection: Control Panel > System > Device Manager (win7 navigation path), select 'computer-name' at top, r-click and Scan for Hardware changes. If that doesn't work perhaps try using the usb "Safely remove hardware" applet first.
