Mac OS X 10.13 Slow, acting weird, Disk Utility Errors, Finder Hangs, Can't Open Finder Windows: Drobo!

Update: Seems to be working now but I didn't do anything super technical. I still don't know what the issue is. I think maybe some sort of tiny disk error or issue that the Drobo or Disk Utility corrected...but nothing I could see. If I could only see those secret Drobo logs. But I might panic if I saw the sausage being made.

Update 2: I replaced the USB 3 card and cable because it seemed like that was a factor. The mouse and keyboard would stop working during these system hangs. It has greatly improved my Drobo 3 read/write times...so read the next post up about that swap. I benched it just now at around 100MB/sec which ain't shabby. 

One note is if your Drobo series 3 falls below 15% free space, performance SUCKS. I'm at 12% free and it still sucks.

I'm playing with Unraid, and will be selling my Series 2 Drobo at least. 

Working on this issue as I write and here's what I think solved issues for me:

Drobo 3 wasn't mounting the Time Machine or regular volume (it would only mount one) on the desktop as it should. Right now I'm running Disk Utility First Aid on it. I also have Drive Genius and I may pull the drives to check their SMART status and sector scan them in a sled on my desktop Mac Pro. This shouldn't do anything to the disk as it won't understand the file system to potentially write to anyway, I believe.

(Someone comment if I'm wrong.)

I'm also going to finally, two years after release, upgrade to 10.14 Mojave.

The finder preferences were perhaps corrupt. I deleted them using the terminal as I could not even open finder windows to do it with the GUI.

I'm on OS X 10.13.6...and thank God I have a budget gaming laptop running Windows 10 to type this on.

Also:

I had what looked like an aborted Time Machine backup hanging around and it throws TONS of errors in Disk Utility when you run First Aid.

Here's how to delete them:

MacWorld Article 1

And here's how to turn off mobile backups if you have a desktop or just want to save space. 

MacWorld Article 2

I don't know the purpose of a Mobile Backup for me, personally, as I'm always connected (nearly 100% of the time) to my Drobo 3 anyway.

After deleting the bad snapshots using the instructions in article 1, my boot drive went through First Aid no problem.

Personal Note: my company is entirely gone in about two weeks due to Covid19. Please give me a Subscribe on my YouTube channel so I can monetize it. 

Honestly, there's some good tech and money videos on there. Thanks for helping me out.



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