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Frequent Drobo corruption after upgrading to OS X 10.8

On the same day I upgraded to OS X 10.8, I started seeing frequent volume corruption on my Drobo. The corruption persists even after I have reset and reformatted the Drobo, and can happen at any time - after copying a bunch of files, or even after starting up the Drobo. For example, I can use diskutil to verify that the Drobo is fine before shutting it down, only to find the volume corrupted when I power it on. Several times I even saw corruption after leaving the Drobo idle for several hours.


Here are some of the errors I see with diskutil when there is corruption.


Started file system verification on disk5s2 Drobo

Checking file system

Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume

Checking extents overflow file

Checking catalog file

Checking multi-linked files

Checking catalog hierarchy

Checking extended attributes file

Checking volume bitmap

Checking volume information

Volume header needs minor repair

The volume Drobo was found corrupt and needs to be repaired

Error: -69845: File system verify or repair failed

Underlying error: 8: POSIX reports: Exec format error


Started file system verification on disk5s2 Drobo

Checking file system

Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume

Checking extents overflow file

Checking catalog file

Invalid sibling link

The volume Drobo was found corrupt and needs to be repaired

Error: -69845: File system verify or repair failed

Underlying error: 8: POSIX reports: Exec format error


Started file system verification on disk4s2 Drobo

Checking file system

Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume

Checking extents overflow file

Checking catalog file

Checking multi-linked files

Checking catalog hierarchy

Checking extended attributes file

Overlapped extent allocation (id = 275951, /Aperture Backups/Aperture Library 2008.aplibrary/Masters/2008/09/07/20080907-231132/DSC_2081.NEF)

Overlapped extent allocation (id = 275952, /Aperture Backups/Aperture Library 2008.aplibrary/Masters/2008/09/07/20080907-231132/DSC_2082.NEF)

Overlapped extent allocation (id = 275953, /Aperture Backups/Aperture Library 2008.aplibrary/Masters/2008/09/07/20080907-231132/DSC_2083.NEF)

Overlapped extent allocation (id = 275954, /Aperture Backups/Aperture Library 2008.aplibrary/Masters/2008/09/07/20080907-231132/DSC_2084.NEF)

Overlapped extent allocation (id = 275955, /Aperture Backups/Aperture Library 2008.aplibrary/Masters/2008/09/07/20080907-231132/DSC_2085.NEF)

Overlapped extent allocation (id = 275956, /Aperture Backups/Aperture Library 2008.aplibrary/Masters/2008/09/07/20080907-231132/DSC_2086.NEF)

Overlapped extent allocation (id = 275957, /Aperture Backups/Aperture Library 2008.aplibrary/Masters/2008/09/07/20080907-231132/DSC_2087.NEF)

Overlapped extent allocation (id = 275958, /Aperture Backups/Aperture Library 2008.aplibrary/Masters/2008/09/07/20080907-231132/DSC_2088.NEF)

Overlapped extent allocation (id = 275959, /Aperture Backups/Aperture Library 2008.aplibrary/Masters/2008/09/07/20080907-231132/DSC_2089.NEF)

Overlapped extent allocation (id = 275960, /Aperture Backups/Aperture Library 2008.aplibrary/Masters/2008/09/07/20080907-231132/DSC_2090.NEF)

Overlapped extent allocation (id = 600188, /Aperture Backups/Miscellaneous Library.aplibrary/Masters/2010/08/03/20100803-090117/DSCF9143.RAF)

Overlapped extent allocation (id = 600191, /Aperture Backups/Miscellaneous Library.aplibrary/Masters/2010/08/04/20100804-145503/DSC_6409.NEF)

Overlapped extent allocation (id = 600192, /Aperture Backups/Miscellaneous Library.aplibrary/Masters/2010/08/04/20100804-145503/DSC_6410.NEF)

Overlapped extent allocation (id = 600193, /Aperture Backups/Miscellaneous Library.aplibrary/Masters/2010/08/04/20100804-145503/DSC_6411.NEF)

Overlapped extent allocation (id = 600194, /Aperture Backups/Miscellaneous Library.aplibrary/Masters/2010/08/04/20100804-145503/DSC_6412.NEF)

Overlapped extent allocation (id = 600196, /Aperture Backups/Miscellaneous Library.aplibrary/Masters/2010/08/04/20100804-145617/DSCF9178.RAF)

Overlapped extent allocation (id = 600197, /Aperture Backups/Miscellaneous Library.aplibrary/Masters/2010/08/04/20100804-145617/DSCF9179.RAF)

Overlapped extent allocation (id = 600198, /Aperture Backups/Miscellaneous Library.aplibrary/Masters/2010/08/04/20100804-145617/DSCF9180.RAF)

Overlapped extent allocation (id = 601790, /Aperture Backups/Miscellaneous Library.aplibrary/Masters/2011/09/29/20110929-225140/IMG_0565.MOV)

Checking volume bitmap

Volume bitmap needs minor repair for under-allocation

Checking volume information

The volume Drobo was found corrupt and needs to be repaired

Error: -69845: File system verify or repair failed

Underlying error: 8: POSIX reports: Exec format error


Most times DiskWarrior can usually fix the problems in place, but there were times when the corruption was so severe DiskWarrior would instruct copying to a new disk.


I have been working with Drobo Support for the past 3 months and they have replaced the Drobo 3 times to no avail. I see this problem on 3 different Macs and on different interfaces (FW800, USB 3.0 and USB 2.0) and even with base OS installs of 10.7 and 10.8. At this point I have ruled out cables, drives and software conflicts. Drobo Support even had me try different versions of firmware. We are now out of ideas and I'm open to suggestions on tracking down the root cause.


Alvin

Posted on Dec 7, 2012 6:13 AM

Reply
10 replies

Dec 23, 2012 8:15 AM in response to Alvin Koh

I have the same issue with my Drobo 2nd Gen right now. I have 2 volumes on the Drobo and only the Time Machine volume keeps corrupting. This is happening frequently when the machine wakes from sleep and starts a missed backup. With sleep disable, the Drobo seems to be working ok, but I would like sleep to work.


The second volume has basic file storage on it and never corrupts. I just format the Time Machine volume and start over. Luckly, I also use Crashplan so my data is backed up somewhere else also. My issues seemed to start with 10.8.2. 10.8 and 10.8.1 ran without any issues. If I turn off Time Machine, there are no issues with the Drobo. Are you using sleep on the Mac and is the volume used for Time Machine?

Dec 23, 2012 8:22 AM in response to Sean_W

I think there is an issue with Time Machine and Drobo. That was one of the questions Drobo Support kept asking me. But no, I don't use Time Machine with my Drobo, just a normal HFS+ Journaled filesystem. Sleep is also not enabled on my Mac. Drobo Support RMA'd my Drobo S twice and eventually replaced it with a Drobo 5D but to no avail. I have half a mind to revert to Snow Leopard and see if that helps.

Dec 23, 2012 8:55 AM in response to Alvin Koh

I was thinking it was my Drobo also, but since it ran ok in 10.8 and 10.8.1, it seems to rule it out. On the other hand, I can hook a cheap usb drive to the machine and run Time Machine without any issues so I may just go that route and move on. Wish there was a fix for these issues. I may try ZFS on the Drobo as a final test just to rule out HFS issues. Of course both Apple and Drobo won't support this, but it is worth a try.

Frequent Drobo corruption after upgrading to OS X 10.8

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