A year after my article detailing the removal of the iSCSI initiator from the Drobo Dashboard software, the time finally arrived that I needed to setup a Drobo B800i on a clean install of Mac OS X El Capitan.
Despite being prepared for what I was getting into it still didn’t go smoothly. Read on for how I finally got it going.
Based on discussions and documents from last year I knew I needed to start with a version of Drobo Dashboard prior to 2.6.4, because that was the version the iSCSI initiator was removed from the application. So I grabbed version 2.6.3 from my archives and got to work.
However no combination/order of installing the OS and Drobo Dashboard with or without Java resulted in successfully being able to see the B800i over ethernet. I could connect via USB for management so I knew the unit itself was functioning but had no access to the data.
I decided to take a step back and review all the information I had available, something I should have done more carefully in the first place. Interestingly this old support article from last year now makes no mention of Dashboard 2.6.3 but instead says:
• Drobo Dashboard versions 2.6.2 and earlier included ATTOs iSCSI initiator as part of the Drobo Dashboard install package.
• Drobo Dashboard versions 2.6.4 and later will no longer be including ATTOs iSCSI initiator.
So despite no mention of it in the release notes, it appears something about the iSCSI initiator changed in 2.6.3 as well.
Sure enough, when I dropped the install back to 2.6.2 I was able to connect right away. The iSCSI connection was maintained after a subsequent upgrade to the current Dashboard 2.7.1.
So grab a copy of Drobo Dashboard 2.6.2 at this link to install first before upgrading to the latest release on a clean install.
Thank You! I hope it works on Mojave.
This post is almost eight years old now so a lot could have changed in that time. Hopefully it is still helpful.