2017 Uganda: Saga of the Drobo

UPDATE - It works!  After 3 hours of hard work, the drives came out at Room Temperature.
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Here is the assembly video.

So on my last full day - Friday June 9th - we drove from Kampala to Fort Portal in the West end of Uganda.  This is the home of Mountains of the Moon University, the hosting institution for all the paper District archive work that Derek has been doing for several years.  The university is named after the nearby Rwenzori Mountains which are also called the Mountains of the Moon.  They top out at 16,762 ft. (5109 meters) which is the height of Africa's third tallest mountain.  They actually found glaciers up there - in Africa!

We were there to install a new DROBO 5c 5-drive enclosure to host all the digitized files of the archive work.  It will provide many TB of storage, allowing for future additions.

Unfortunately, once it was all set up and we were testing it, I discovered that the drives were extremely hot - so hot that I almost dropped the first one I popped out!  I measured the temperature when we got back to the USA and the case for each drive was about 145 degrees F.  You could actually have cooked an egg on it!

Disappointed, we brought it all back with us to figure out what was going on.  After much time on the phone with Drobo and HGST (drives) I was told that it was all operating "within parameters" and no one was going to help.  Drobo did say that if I wanted to ad a fan to the back of the enclosure that was fine with them.

So I did.  I had to make it removable and easy to attach once it all arrives back in Africa, as the fan can not be attached when the Drobo is back in its box.

Here are some shots of the process. Next step is to see if the USB fan I ordered will still provide enough cooling and be quieter.

The workbench view.  I cut some screen material to cover the unprotected side of the fan, which faces out.

The protective screen in place, with clearance for the fan blades.

One captive screw in place on the back of the Drobo unit.  These stick out to accept the fan and
still have enough thread showing to allow for securing the fan with with nuts & lock washers.

All 4 screws in place.

The fan and the Drobo ready to be reassembled.

Fan in place and ready for testing.