[Sticky] Running Big Sur (beta) on Intel Macs

@dfortney

I am pushing to reduce the notices on beta versions.

@softraid-support It isn't that bad just wasn't sure if it was expected or a bug or could be an indication of why I was getting those disk errors with Parallels during sleep.  Perhaps the best policy until this is released is not to warn users until say 5 days before it expires and only on launch.

I want to make it once a week, then once a day when a week remains.

To be fair, everyone running it right now knows it's a beta.  Once it's released maybe that would make sense but I think at this point less is more.

I cannot seem to install the beta b48. Running 11.1 on an M1 Mac mini with a Thunderbay 4 I am afraid to plug in until I can verify the driver is working correctly. I followed the (convoluted) installation method: First I installed the driver, then I restarted to reduce security and allow third party extensions. Then I installed and I got the warning about turning on OWC access in privacy. I did that. Then something told me that I might have done this out of order because I got a warning message about the driver being blocked. So I promptly uninstalled SoftRaid from the Uninstall menu option and started over. I rebooted into recovery and made sure that the options from before were still selected. They were. So I rebooted normally. Then I reran Softraid to reinstall the driver. It told me it was blocked. There was NO option to allow OWC from the privacy menu. Weird. So I uninstalled again. Rebooted. Started SoftRAID again. No warning this time. I went into Security. There is NO option to allow OWC as an identified developer.

I appreciate the efforts, but this is seriously affecting my work and shaking my trust in OWC and software RAID in general. Sorry to say that, but this is not a good situation for those of us who depend on these drives for our livelihoods. 

So is the driver installed or not? What do I do now? Am I safe to proceed? Is it "normal" not to see any mention of OWC in security pane? BTW this is a clean install that I am painstakingly working on to avoid any migration issues.

Its frustrating I agree.

the correct steps are:

1. Allow Third party developers (reduced security)

2. Run SoftRAID and install teh driver.

3. Before restarting, go to System Preferences and "Allow" OWC.

4. Navigate the restart windows and restart.

If the driver does not load or you do not get the dialog box, then it is most likely obsolete extensions, or an extension that macOS cannot load into the extensions cache. In which case, post a SoftRAID Tech support file I can help you figure out which are causing the issue.

Thank you for the quick reply. I definitely appreciate it. I’m not sure how I could have any obsolete extensions since the only extension I installed was SoftRaid. In any case, I will post the report on the M1 topic since I realize now that I am in the Intel topic. Thanks.

Just got the Beta pop-up and it wasn't waking from sleep, I was using the computer for awhile actually and it just randomly popped up.  Nothing about any restart in the logs but it does incidentally have started and finished it's SMART test on all disks at the same time it popped up.

We will be reducing the frequency in the next beta, hopefully.

Currently running b48 - is this the latest beta version still??

I notice the odd system restart (usually during sleep) which only ever happens after running SoftRAID. If I don't run SoftRAID and just use my drives normally everything is generally fine. Not too fussed as once drives are setup I do not run SoftRAID software itself very often anyways. However, wondering if I'm still running the most up to date beta version?

Is it possible to put the current version on the download page maybe?

Yes beta 48 is the latest.

I have not seen what you describe. Try this:

SoftRAID disk preferences, disable SMART USB drivers. restart.

See if you notice the same pattern.

Hello. I am running SoftRAID on my Late 2013 MAC "trashcan". Im currently running Mojave and want to upgrade to Big Sur. A bit late to the party here but just wanted to get an idea if upgrading is safe yet? Have 12TB Drive which has softRaid running. Thanks

Yes, you just need to be sure to "Allow" OWC as an identified Developer.

I know about the Big Sur 11.2 issues with SoftRAID on M1 Macs. But I have a non-M1 iMac, and my volumes won't mount anymore under Big Sur 11.2 either (using beta 6.0.1 b48).

@bldraid

When you reinstalled the driver, did you again "Allow" OWC as an identified developer? Its necessary.