Old Drobo

Many people have old hardware laying around. At one time there was a NAS unit called a Drobo. High in favour for photographers and very efficient when running. Good at rebuilding as it had a proprietory Disk File System (BeyondRAID) that was capable of fast rebuilds and good recovery for power outages.

Then one day.

A firmware upgrade came out that bricked the units.

Rumours Started about the Company

A Buyout...

Then a full collapse the company files for Bankruptcy. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drobo )

A Post about recovery for the firmware update. ( Opening the unit and connecting to the serial Port ) Returning the unit was an option..

Alas now most of them have failed or people have moved to reliable units like a Synologyt or QNAP.

I got handed ond of the N2 units and repaired it ( unbricking ).. Only to realise the fan had died and the machine nearly fried on the bench.

Only now to take up the Mantle with the Hardware and convert it to a Raspberry Pi NAS.

Pi NAS

Physically the machine was nice and robust so my idea is to keep the chassis, power supply and layour exactly as it is bu retrofit a Raspberry Pi and Sata cables to the rear of the unit and mount it to a chopping board or MDF. Stay Tuned for Photos and HowTos'