I’ve mentioned before that I’ve had problems with my 2nd generation Drobo. I’m not the only one.

I have to say, Valorie in Drobo tech support did a great job handling my case. It seems that it may be a PSU problem (yes, just like my Lacie drives!). Both the Drobo and the Lacies come with cheap Chinese-made PSUs.

As you can see from the photo, it should be capable of outputting 6.7A at 12V. My multimeter said 12.36V, though I’ve no way of measuring the current draw when active. Drobo support said that the 1TB Hitachi Ultrastar HUA721010KLA330 drives are a known “power hog”. The drive itself states a current draw of 850mA (I have 2 installed, the other 2 are 750GB Seagate Barracuda ES ST3750640NS, with a stated draw of 520mA, so there could be some truth in that. If this is the case, I know from personal experience that it’s possible for multiple restarts to corrupt volume information resulting in data being lost.

They are sending me a new PSU, so we’ll know soon enough.