Drobo 5D Getting Started Guide 22
Formatting the Drives
After installing Drobo Dashboard, inserting the drives into your Drobo 5D and connecting cables,
you are ready to turn on your Drobo device and format the drives.
Before following steps for this, however, it is important to know what file system format and
volume size you will choose when you format the drives.
Selecting a File System and Volume Size for Your Drobo 5D
When you turn on your Drobo 5D, you will be prompted to format the drives in your Drobo 5D with
a particular file system. What file system formats are available to you depend on your operating
system. (See Figure 1 below.)
You will also be formatting your Drobo 5D into at least one volume, and you will need to choose a
size for that volume. A volume is a storage area that has been formatted with a file system format
your operating system can recognize. In Windows, volumes are sometimes called “logical drives”
or “partitions.”
The largest volume size you are allowed depends on the file system format you choose and the
total capacity of the drives in your Drobo device. The following table (Figure 1) shows the
maximum volume size allowed for each file system format.
Figure 1: Table of file system formats and maximum volume sizes
Important Notes:
-
Volume size does not represent how much actual storage space is available on your Drobo
5D. It represents virtual storage space. For example, your Drobo 5D may be loaded with 2TB
of drive space, but you can create a volume of 16TB. What this enables you to do is add
more capacity to your Drobo 5D (by inserting an additional drive or replacing a smaller
capacity drive with a larger capacity one) without having to format an additional volume. The
additional capacity becomes part of the same volume you formatted originally.
-
Your operating system may show the virtual space you have available on your Drobo device,
as defined by the volume size.
- If the amount of available, protected storage space in your Drobo 5D ever exceeds the size
of the volume that you chose (this may occur when you add one or more additional drives to
your Drobo 5D), then Drobo Dashboard will automatically create a new volume (or volumes)
of the same size as the original volume. Drobo Dashboard will notify you when this occurs
and ask you to format and name the new volume(s).
Tip: For most customers, we recommend choosing the largest volume size available for the
selected file system. Note, however, that smaller volume sizes can be more efficient and
manageable in certain situations, such as when indexing, scanning or searching volumes.
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