[Sticky] Big Sur on M1 machines and SoftRAID issues

@sunstarfire

There will be another beta soon, so we can fix the icon jumping issue and get some other features in. We wanted to release this right away, as the support files needed an update.

@softraid-supportall good. I am not complaining, just giving feedback :)

Hi, I am getting errors with the Beta version on my 2019MBP, Big Sur 11.2.2

"Partition Map Needs Repair"

I get the pop-up for each of the individual drives in the arrays.

I get this on all my OWC products... I have 2 Thunderblades, Thunderbay 24TB, and a 4M2.

When I plug any of my devices into Windows 10, I do not get this error.

Is something really wrong, or just a bug in the MAC OS beta?

Thanks in advance.....

GSW

@lexie60

Lets try one thing, then if this does not help, attach a SoftRAID Tech Support file to the forum.

Connect all your disks. Unmount ALL SoftRAID volumes.

Run SoftRAID

restart.

run SoftRAID again. Did that help?

@softraid-support Thanks for the quick reply... can you clarify the steps? 

Unmount drives - do I use MACOS disk utility or Softraid?

Restart - restart my MAC?

Thanks

GSW

Here is the support report.. Also attached a screen shot of my drives/arrays.. Thanks

@softraid-support

Unmount them all from the desktop. You are just unmounting them.

restart, is yes, restart your system.

There is a repair mechanism in SoftRAID. It might fix your issue. But all volumes must be unmounted. Otherwise the partition maps are write protected.

Hey Everyone!

I've been following this thread after switching from a Mac Pro to the Mac Mini M1 16GB. This morning, I was able to get SoftRaid to mount after allowing access in System Preferences. I'm currently on the 11.3 Beta. Once my drive (Thunderbay 4- 48TB) mounted, I was able to copy files onto the drive with no issues. I checked the SoftRaid program and all of the drives look healthy. My only concern is that all 4 lights are green, blinking and making a lot of noise when the computer is not being touched and the drive is not being accessed. This is not something that I experienced on my previous Mac. Just to test things out on a different computer, I plugged in the Bay to my old laptop running Catalina and the drives seemed normal.. no issues with all 4 lights blinking and making a ton of noise.

Thoughts?

OK, I did what you suggested. Now we have more issues..

I unmounted drives, started Softraid, allowed it to do repairs, and then rebooted.

After reboot, all the Raid arrays (drives) have disappeared. They do not mount as drives in MACOS, nor do they show as an array in Softraid. (individual disks do show in softraid)

So I went to my Windows Laptop

I connected one of the OWC drives to my windows PC, and the drive array, with data shows up fine.

Back to the MAC

I went back to the MAC, and the drive arrays still missing.

So I deleted the RAID array, and tried to recreate on the MAC.

It said my maximum array size was 3gb (the Thunderbay has 24GB in it)

So back to Windows

I deleted the array from the Thunderbay using Softraid on Windows

Recreated it, and selected HFS+ (apple) as the drive format

RAID array created with full 24TB of data

Copied some files to the drive just fine

Back to MAC

Drive array now shows up Again

Files I copied in Windows are there, and I can open them

I start Softraid, and I get the "Partition Map needs repair" pop ups again....

So after 2 more hours, I am stuck. Honestly I don't trust Softraid or OWC hardware right now. And I have about $4,000 worth of OWC equipment, so I'm pretty bummed.

Attached is a technical support log from Softraid.... I have attached that and some screen shots...

please help...

Thanks

GSW

I wonder if there is an issue with the paragon software?

For one, I am surprised SoftRAID is able to load. there is an extension present, VMLoader, which is unsigned, and often unsigned extensions in Big Sur can cause other extensions not to load. It may be because it is alphabetically after SoftRAID. I would uninstall Paragon, check in /Library/Extensions that vmloader is no longer present, then reinstall Big Sur compatible versions of Paragon.

(but before you do that, perhaps we should redo the tests with SoftRAID - its also possible that there is a conflict somewhere, I have not seen one like this before, but until now, few users were bringing there volumes to windows, so something new could be going on)

here is what I would like to try:

disconnect the Express enclosure for these tests.

Delete your 24TB volume. Initialize the disks with SoftRAID. now you have a clean starting point.

Create a new volume.

restart and confirm you do not get the status partition errors.

Connect to your windows machine and copy a file, then bring it back to the Mac.

Do you get the status partition error?

If yes, save a SoftRAID tech support file again. then uninstall Paragon software, restart, then repeat this test.

Let me know what happens.

@drives

Spotlight!

Try making your SoftRAID volume extempt in System Preferences/Spotlight and restarting. the noises and lights will go away.

Then you can enable this again by deleting the exemption. Let the system sit for a day or two to create a new index. then it should quiet down again.

@softraid-support Amazing! That did the trick.. thank you! Now the drive just has the blue LED lit when it's not in use. Everything seems normal.

How long should I wait before deleting the exemption? And what do you mean by "let the system sit"? Don't use the computer or drive?

Anyone tested if Big Sur 11.2.3 works? Would be interesting to see. Although I doubt it. 

@softraid-support - I think we have success. I followed your instructions and everything is working on all 4 OWC Raid devices...both on MAC and Windows..

I believe the step I missed this morning was to INITIALIZE the disks after deleting the old (raid) volume....

By the way, according to Paragons website the EXFS is Big Sur compatible... but I had the same thought earlier.....

Thanks for your help, and I'll let you know if I have any more issues.

GSW