# Drobo-S constantly indexing in Mac OS 10.6



## jep_51 (Mar 16, 2011)

I have a Drobo-S, hooked up via SATA with a Tempo SATA E2P (TSATAII-E2P) card. MacPro 2.8 gHz 8 core, 2008 tower. 10gb Ram, OS 10.6.6
4 out of 5 drive bays in use, single drive protection is on.

The Drobo is constantly indexing. On for ~15 secs, then off for 10~15 sec, then on again.
Drobo tech support is little help. I placed the Drobo in the Privacy section of Spotlight, and it's still doing it.
Found a link aout a possible similar problem (OS 10.5 though)
http://flop.me/prevent-drobo-from-constantly
and tried his solution in Terminal:
"To constantly disable our friend build_hd_index go to the Terminal and disable the execution privileges with this command: sudo chmod a-x /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Support/build_hd_index"
But no luck there.

I've run Disk Warrior a couple of times, found a dozen or so damaged image files & tossed them. Ran Disk Utility a few times also to repair any damaged files. None of this helps.

Any suggestions??


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Mar 16, 2011)

One thing to try is to reset the indexing for the Drobo drive by hitting up the Terminal and doing:


```
sudo mdutil -E [path/to/Drobo]
```

...where "[path/to/Drobo]" should be replaced by the absolute path to your Drobo drive (usually something like "/Volumes/MyDroboDrive" or whatever you have it named).

This will cause a complete re-index of the drive, which you should let run to completion (maybe overnight, while the drive is not in use).

Let us know if a complete re-index helps.


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## jep_51 (Mar 16, 2011)

Thanks! I'll try it tomorrow & let you know.


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## jep_51 (Mar 18, 2011)

OK then. It's been indexing non stop since ~10:30 yesterday. A bit over 24 hours. Seems like that should be done by now. 1.31 TB of data (2.69 total capacity with single drive protection on)
My guess is that it's not working.....
Drobo suggests that it may be my SATA card? Maybe I should connect via FW800 & see if it still does this.
Or I can run TechTools or Drive Genius? I did Disk Warrior a couple of times before writing here. Found a few corrupt files & deleted them. Maybe TechTools or Drive Genius can find something DW missed?
Suggestions?


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Mar 18, 2011)

Does the indexing progress bar move at all?  In other words, is it making "progress?"

When you click the Spotlight icon, it should give you a progress bar and estimated time of completion for the indexing operation for your Drobo... does it or does it not do this, and if so, is it progressing, however slowly?

I would think that Diskwarrior does everything needed.  Have you tried a "repair disk" (NOT "repair permissions") operation through Mac OS X's own "Disk Utility?"  Does it find anything wrong?

I have a hard time believing that using one interface over another is going to cause Spotlight to somehow, magically, "index better," but then again, you never know!

If indexing via Spotlight is something that isn't a requirement on your Drobo, you could always force Spotlight to NOT index that drive by dragging the mounted Drobo drive to the "Privacy" window of the "Spotlight" pane in the System Preferences.


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## jep_51 (Mar 18, 2011)

No. No progress. The bar just says "Estimating index time..." for 24 hours.
No actual progress shown.
Tried Repair in Disk Utility first, all fine. Then Disk Warrior. Doing the file scan brought up maybe a dozen image files from 2 particular jobs that were irreparably damaged. I deleted them, Ran it again, found 2 more that were emailed to me, deleted them. Shut down & restarted.
That's when the intermittent indexing began.
Now that I did the Terminal command you suggested, it's constant. With no progress. 
Before writing to you (this forum) I did place the Drobo in the Privacy area of Spotlight prefs - and it still did it.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Mar 18, 2011)

You mean even after placing the Drobo in the privacy pane, it still tries to index it?

If so, it may take a restart of the computer and/or Drobo to get that setting to "stick."  My programmer's voice in my head is screaming, "No!  Voodoo fixes do not work!  You must be able to logically explain the actions that are occurring!" but I'm choosing to ignore that voice and suggest a shut down and/or restart of the devices.  

Maybe it's that if an indexing procedure has begun, that it will not respect privacy/non-index preferences until the index procedure is complete -- and since your index procedure can't complete, it may be stuck in "I'm trying to ignore indexing, but just lemme get through indexing it completely first" mode.


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## jep_51 (Mar 18, 2011)

I'm afraid that's what's going on - can't complete, can't stop.


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## jep_51 (Mar 18, 2011)

I dragged it into Privacy again. Restarted. MacPro got stuck on restart. Held power button for force quit. Restarted again. 
All seems well. And so far (less than 2 min) no indexing of Drobo.
Fingers crossed.
Does this mean when I do a "Find" it won't find files on the Drobo?? Or is Spotlight a separate operation from a normal Find operation?


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## jep_51 (Mar 18, 2011)

After dragging into Privacy again &  a double restart, seems to be holding with no indexing. Appreciate the help.
What does this mean for file searches though on Drobo?


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## axy60 (Mar 20, 2011)

I have the same problem; Spotlight keeps indexing (without showing any bar or estimate time).
I am using a tempo sata e2p pci card with which I did not have problems before (upgrading iTunes to 10.2.1). My Drobo S holds about 3.3 TB of data (mainly the iTunes library). iTunes starts up very slow; editing the library and playback in iTunes results in a non responding application (spinning wheel).
I have changed the settings in Spotlight and added my Drobo S in the Privacy section, restarted my MacPro (5,1). Now, iTunes is responding normally but no results when searching the Drobo S...


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## jep_51 (Mar 20, 2011)

does that mean any general search of your system ignores the Drobo? Mine finally stopped indexing after putting it in Privacy, but I haven't tested the Search.


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## axy60 (Mar 20, 2011)

Yes - Drobo files are not included in the search.
I have now followed some advice in other forums: 
- Add Drobo S in the privacy section of the System prefs->Spotlight (if not done already)
- Remove Drobo S from this section
- Add Drobo S again
- Close any application that would use files on the Drobo S (maybe not neccessary)

Indexing started (including showing the estimated indexing time and bar) and took about 1.5 hrs.

Seems that either the iTunes update corrupted the index file or Drobo S was disconnected/shut down incorrectly...

Hope this helps for you, too!


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## jep_51 (Mar 21, 2011)

Thanks for that tip. now that I got it to stop TRYING to index, maybe it will do this properly now. I have had a couple of iTunes updates recently. But I don't have any music at all on the Drobo. It's 98% photography image files & related stuff.
No system files either.


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