Deader'n A Maggot - with Drobo

There can be few more heart-stopping moments for a digital photographer than seeing nothing on the screen of your monitor - even when it is just the disappearance of a small icon.

I worked away for a small time this morning on my iMac before I thought that I needed a file from deep storage - I use a Drobo storage system. I looked to the space that normally has the little black icon and it was blank. So I opened the desk drawer that contains the Drobo - and the characteristic green and blue lights on the front were not alight. Cold and dead.

I did not panic. I moved the plug of the 12V 7.5A power supply box to a different socket behind the desk. Cold and dead.

I did not panic. I tried that same socket with a desk lamp. Light.

I did not panic. I unplugged the Drobo and the power supply and brought them into Ernest here in the shop. He applied the voltmeter probe to the end of the cable from the power supply. Cold and dead. High five - the failed part was the cheap one- the power supply. Thank you SEC... The data was safe.

I shall obtain another power supply today and will be up and running this evening.

This scenario has a happy ending but in the past some of my cold and dead episodes did not. I purchased El Cheapo portable hard drive units from chain stores and entrusted images to them. Fortunately just before they went to electronic heaven they made enough of a rattle to alert me and I was able to save the data just in time. The big hard drive units in the Drobo can take a great deal more than the little flat packs and fortunately the Drobo analyzes the state of the storage constantly and will alert me if one of the drives is funny - I have set the criteria in the Drobo dashboard to press this information on me whatever I am doing.

In addition, should I manage to fill the Drobo to capacity in its present form, it allows me to dramatically increase the storage by just plugging in bigger drives while it re-distributes the contents. I think it will be safe for a good long time.

But it will all depend on giving it the 12V and 7.5A. I no complain - I am going to get out of this easy.