Drobo Storage - Understanding Drobo Capacity Reporting

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My Mac Says Drobo Has More Capacity Than It

Actually Does

When you look at the properties for your Drobo using any of your Mac tools such as Finder or Get Info, you will find that

your Mac reports that Drobo has more capacity than it actually does. Depending on the volume size you choose to format

your Drobo with, what is reported by Mac OS will vary. By default, Drobo will be presented as a 2 Terabyte (TB) drive.

This property allows Drobo to easily expand, without forcing complex management and configuration.

Drobo lets you add capacity in seconds, whenever you need it. We have designed Drobo to appear larger so that you can

easily grow your capacity. As larger capacity hard drives become available every year, when you add enough hard drive

capacity for your Drobo to exceed the set volume size, Drobo will simply create a new volume on your Mac resulting in an

additional "virtual" drive, where both virtual drives share the total capacity available on your Drobo.

For example, by default, the Drobo is presented as a 2TB drive by the Mac OS. When you add enough drive capacity to

exceed 2TB (for example, inserting four 1TB drives in Drobo), Drobo will create an additional drive. In this case, the Mac

OS will present two 2TB drives. Although they are presented as separate volumes on Mac, the capacity for both volumes

is combined into one large storage pool in Drobo. You can avoid multiple volumes from being created by selecting a

larger volume size during the format process. See

Formatting Drives Using Drobo Dashboard.

If you want to know the current used capacity on your Drobo, you can get a quick idea with a glance at the utilization

meter on the front. Additionally, Drobo will always warn you if you are starting to run low on available space. If you want

detailed information, Drobo Dashboard provides any information you may require.

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