New Mac Studio M2. SoftRaid 8.3. ThunderBay Flex8. All Volumes Disappeared Waking Up - Not A Good Start!

@guitarflex 

This disk has other volumes on it. Do you need to remove them? (initialize the drive will clear up the partition maps.)

The two-week delay was that I had family in town. During those two weeks I continued to work on this independently because I'm getting tired of what feels like a run around. You previously told me you'd seen this before but didn't remember what the fix was. That was one month ago on February 12th

Posted by: @softraid-support

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I have seen the 18.4 issue on drives before, I cannot remember the cause, I will have to think about it.

Its odd that the correct capacity shows on intel, however.

Because I needed a fix for this yesterday, I ordered four more disks. This time Western Digital. Two 6TB Gold, two 4TB Gold. These are just the facts of what I've found out.

This afternoon I installed one 4TB and one 6TB Western Digital. Initialized and created some test volumes. "Largest Free Block" shows the disk capacity and there is no 18.4 - plague. Volume creation went smoothly four times in a row. I'll certify these all together when the next WD shipment arrives this upcoming week but as for the Seagate EXOS disks (literally every single one) that were originally purchased in the loaded Flex....

Seagate EXOS volume creation works fine on version 7 on my old i9 MacBook Pro. I already re-certified and re-initialized an entire  disk precisely due to figuring out for myself that it would clear the partition maps as said in the most recent reply (quoted below). 

Posted by: @softraid-support

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@guitarflex 

(initialize the drive will clear up the partition maps.)

And yes, initialization did clear up the partition maps and the 157 or so I/O errors following the incident. Thankfully the Seagate EXOS with the damaged partition map after trying it on SR 8 was blank so I didn't lose anything.

Recall that was about 4 weeks ago now. Following re-certification and re-initialization, I still could not get past "Largest Free Block Remaining: 18.4 -" without connecting to the old computer and running SR 7.5, at which point volume creation went fine without error. 

Posted by: @softraid-support

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@guitarflex 

This disk has other volumes on it. Do you need to remove them?

Removing volumes isn't the answer because there were no volumes on the disk that this first happened with. I repeat, it was a blank Seagate EXOS 4TB. I created a new volume, the new volume was damaged upon creation immediately following the 18.4 designation in "largest free block," and I had to re-certify. And to be even clearer, no, removing volumes on disks in the Flex that are contained on Seagate disks does nothing to show an updated "largest free block" section under "Create New Volume." It only shows 18.4 - with no designation of MB, GB, TB or even PB. Largest free block clearly shows a usable number and designation on old software. Not on the new. 

I'm greatly appreciative for you and everyone else who has helped me through what were clearly hardware related problems. As I see it, there were 3 distinct and separate issues: (1) Disk Ejects which the onus is still on Apple for. (2) Random incidents of disks not showing which I've all but given up on but so far have always been able to recover from. (3) The latest and last 18.4 - issue which renders SoftRaid 8 unusable for me with Seagate disks (purchased with the Flex). Because I am now paying for the software, I'm further funding the solution by switching to Western Digital which I am hopeful will be the definitive solution. I should mention Western Digital also ejects during sleep. Once more, that is on Apple. 

So far as the 18.4 - issue goes, I've stuck by SoftRAID and have been fully fine with -- even supportive of SoftRAID's side as business models changed. Right here on these forums I saw others got hacked off about the switch from perpetual to subscription models. I didn't even blink an eye or say a word at all when the upgrade price from 7 to 8 expired and my price to reinstate jumped from $80 up to $150 last summer. I accepted that was my responsibility for having waited too long to upgrade. 

This very clearly looks like a bug in version 8 though. 

If I'm wrong and if it is on Seagate, then either I need to be told to contact Seagate directly, or as I understood it from my long conversations with phone support, since the disks were purchased with the original unit, OWC told me that all claims with disks are to be handled by OWC. I'm not looking for a warranty claim on the Seagate disks though because the disks themselves are functional. Disk creation is not however in SR 8. 

With 7 EXOS disks (all purchased with my loaded Flex), this issue clearly followed the SoftRAID software. Furthermore I paid  for the SoftRAID software specifically to cross the last t and dot the last i, making sure that it wasn't unique to the trial version. And of course paid in good faith that this would be addressed and fixed.

I'm not willing to test version 8 on the i9 machine because it's the only way I can safely create volumes on these Seagate disks right now. Since I've been told in this thread the driver makes it impossible to then downgrade back to version 7 on recent macOS then I'll lose the last without-issue version of SR that I own with no recourse or way of getting back. And if I'm the nice guy finishing last, then at least I have to protect the last useful version of the software I own from breaking too. That way, I can still create disk volumes on those EXOS disks using an old perpetual version of 7.5 

Approaching April now, I've been fully dropped from the algorithm based on analytics after returning from this extended hiatus. The perfect storm wasn't exactly the "momentum forward" one would have hoped for with a new rig. The new rig was the beginning of what turned into a major setback from which I will now begin to pick the pieces up from. I'm not blaming anyone but myself for that, because no matter what happened, I'm the one who wasn't backlogged enough to deal with taking 4 months off. No one else owns that but me. And now I'll move on from it because ultimately in the end, it was my responsibility to handle the effects of.

Which is not to suggest I was the one who ran the stop light and caused the crash. Whether Apple, Seagate, or SoftRAID, at this point no one else can help me but myself. 

@guitarflex 

I did pull disks out of inventory and did not see this. I do not even see it with your supprot file, which is the odd thing, and which indicates it must be a UI bug.

What I did not do was paste your partition maps onto a set of drive, I will try that.

And I am happy to extend your license subscription for all the problems. I will do that off line for you. It seems fair enough.

Note: you can run version 7 on older MacOS versions, even with newer driver versions, but version 8 is required for Sonoma/Sequoia.

Thank you. Please let me know what information (if any) that you need from me in order to extend the license subscription. I appreciate that.

As for a UI bug, what is the suggested course of action to debug it? When this all began in January, someone at Apple even told me to hold off on Sequoia after all the trouble things began with, and the rollback to Sonoma early on by erasing the entire internal drive and installing from a bootable USB created with Terminal. Since a lot of time has passed and 15.3 is out, I'm willing to reconsider the possibility of now upgrading the macOS to Sequoia but not unless there's any chance of that fixing a UI bug. 

What would the end-user do in order to troubleshoot a UI bug and solve it? 

Is the fan in an old Elite Pro Dual enclosure sufficient for cooling to enable "Random Access Testing" during disk certification? Wanted to install a 2 out of the 4 new WD disks temporarily in a second system on a second computer so that productivity doesn't remain dead in the water into the end of March. On the Flex I'm sure the fan is adequate but need to know if it's sufficient on an Elite Pro Dual with two disks stacked on top of one another in the chassis/enclosure. Thanks. 

@guitarflex

I think I see the 18.4 problem. The issue is not in the main window, its only when you create a volume using the disks labeled Daily Uploads...?
Then I see the issue. The problem is these two disks are fully partitioned. (only 134MB free space for volumes)
If you try to create a volume using the SSD Mirror labeled disk, in the new volume dialog, it should show 160GB?

@guitarflex 

Maybe set it to 5 minutes, these are tight enclosures.

I reset your license out to August, BTW.

Posted by: @softraid-support

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@guitarflex 

Maybe set it to 5 minutes, these are tight enclosures.

I reset your license out to August, BTW.

Thanks. This information might be compelling enough to just use the Flex and certify all four disks together. I appreciate you getting back to me quickly. It helped.

What does resetting the license out to August mean? The "Manage License" page (and my account) still both show a purchase date of Feb. 19, 2025 with an auto-renew set for Feb. 19, 2026. 

Posted by: @softraid-support

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@guitarflex

I think I see the 18.4 problem. The issue is not in the main window, its only when you create a volume using the disks labeled Daily Uploads...?
Then I see the issue. The problem is these two disks are fully partitioned. (only 134MB free space for volumes)
If you try to create a volume using the SSD Mirror labeled disk, in the new volume dialog, it should show 160GB?

Correct that 18.4 is not shown in the main window and only when trying to create a volume. However, it is more than the disks "Daily Uploads." Specifically, any Seagate disk. I see that the disks are fully partitioned, correct, but it first occurred on a Seagate with no partitions at all. When I try to create a volume using the SSD Mirror labeled disk, in the new volume dialog, it does not show 160GB. Instead, it shows 18.4 - in the disk selection column on the left, and 18.4 in the Volume Size field at the bottom right. The dropdown menu immediately to the right is blank by default. Attached are some screen shots in an attempt to make this as clear as can be. (see screen shot 1 - Seagate "SSD Mirror")

5 or 6 weeks back when things began on the disk that was blank at the time, that's when I was tired and just "wrote in" the size I wanted, then clicked on the dropdown and selected TB. It allowed me to create a new volume but then immediately flashed 157 I/O error and you've heard the rest since then (partition map was damaged).

By contrast, the disk labeled 16TB Mirror is also fully partitioned, but the brand is a Toshiba not Seagate. If I do the same routine on that, the New Volume dialog box clearly shows 134 MB next to "Largest Free Block" in the volume creation window, and the volume size field in the lower right defaults to 134. Immediately to its right, the next box over defaults to MB. So there's no funny dash ( - ) next to "largest free block" and the fields default to 134MB (see screen shot 2 - Toshiba)

This matches what I found with the test volumes on the new Western Digital disks. I created a 6TB volume on a 6TB WD to double-check. (see screen shot 3 - Western Digital). Test volume fully partitioned. 

But any Seagate disk won't do this. Which is precisely why I never want to "force" it/write-in any size under the New Volume dialog. I could deal with re-certifying a blank disk. Don't want to risk torpedoing other Seagates containing other volumes. Can follow up with screen shots from SoftRaid 7 if that is useful for comparison. 

@guitarflex 

Maybe I saw your older license (7.x) only. It does not really make much difference until you upgrade to 8, however.

Send me a supprot file, with a Seagate that shows this issue, but has no volumes on it. That will help. I do not see it on the 18TB drives I an testing with. They initialize/create volumes normally on 8.3 and Both Sequoa and Sonoma. So I am doing something different.

Posted by: @softraid-support

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@guitarflex 

Maybe I saw your older license (7.x) only. It does not really make much difference until you upgrade to 8, however.

Send me a supprot file, with a Seagate that shows this issue, but has no volumes on it. That will help. I do not see it on the 18TB drives I an testing with. They initialize/create volumes normally on 8.3 and Both Sequoa and Sonoma. So I am doing something different.

Wait a second, I have upgraded to 8. Specifically, version 8 is the one I am running into the issues on. I paid for it on Feb. 19th (I think...away from my account at this second). Version 7.5 runs perfectly fine. 

To send a support file with a Seagate is going to require that I wipe a disk fully. After re-certifying the disk following the disaster in SR8, I then used 7 on the old machine to re-certify, create a new volume, and copied a bunch of stuff over to it that I needed to backup. If I can accommodate this request at all, it'll have to be after I certify the Western Digitals and have time to transfer the backup over to one of them before wiping the Seagate to re-create the original issue and generate a tech file. 

I'm reticent to consider this after all I've been through but any chance that updating the macOS from Sonoma onto Sequoia would be worth a shot? The computer shipped with Sequoia and it was a major nightmare with Apple to roll back when first chasing my tail sorting out the disk eject issues. Now that Sequoia is up to 15.3, I'm willing to consider the possibility of upgrading the macOS back to what it shipped with, but not unless the macOS might have anything to do with the UI bug you're suggesting is the issue. 

And/or can I run two versions of SoftRAID on the same machine? If I can install version 8 on my old MBP running Monterey without losing access to my perpetual 7, I could be convinced to try that. All can happen far sooner than I'll be able to wipe a Seagate fully to send a support file. 

I'm trying to help but probably including too much information that doesn't get read so scratch the whole last half of the above update. I'm taking matters into my own hands. Just booted from an external Sonoma install on an i9 (to rule out the machine), installed SoftRAID 8 (it let me in trial mode), same identical issues. Now I will upgrade this external operating system to Sequoia to see if a macOS upgrade would affect anything at all. I will update with what the results are. Still looking for the answer to how an end-user would chase down a UI bug to solve it. That seems like it's not really my job to do but here I am approaching April. Again, I have already purchased SoftRAID 8. My current subscription ends Feb 19, 2026. How do we get that extended? (there's nothing to extend with 7.x - I paid for it in perpetuity before the switch to subscriptions). SoftRAID 8 is the entire problem/issue we're dealing with on the 18.4 nightmare. 

@guitarflex 

Starting with Ventura, the SoftRAID driver is "fixed". With Monterey, you can reinstall the driver, yes. And go back, but you have the logistics of "allowing" OWC as a developer. Its a hassle, but there is no risk to data, just upgrading/downgrading the driver.

Let me look again for your subscription, I did not see it when I searched the server.

Lets do this: you have a second system installed, already. Sonoma and Monterey. Save a support file from both. (one 7.x one 8.x) Let  me look at them and see if I can see a difference.

@guitarflex 

The best way to chase this down is for me to be able to reproduce this. I will keep working on it, what I skipped before is you only saw this in the new dialog box, although it was with a drive that had multiple volumes on it. I think we are close to figuring this out.

Posted by: @softraid-support

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@guitarflex 

Starting with Ventura, the SoftRAID driver is "fixed". With Monterey, you can reinstall the driver, yes. And go back, but you have the logistics of "allowing" OWC as a developer. Its a hassle, but there is no risk to data, just upgrading/downgrading the driver.

Let me look again for your subscription, I did not see it when I searched the server.

Lets do this: you have a second system installed, already. Sonoma and Monterey. Save a support file from both. (one 7.x one 8.x) Let  me look at them and see if I can see a difference.

Thanks. Helpful information. I can hold off on upgrading the external boot if you'd like a support file form Sonoma first. Or if Sequoia will be just as well, then I'll test an "upgraded" macOS once I get your green light to check it out on Sequoia.

Or if total overkill is helpful, theoretically I could generate a support file from all three operating systems: Monterey (7.x), one from Sonoma on the Studio (8.x) and upgrade the external boot to Sequoia for a third support file from that.

Let me know how much you want and I'll pick it up again tomorrow once I hear back. 

Moving forward. Going to generate support files for all three operating systems. Here is the report from macOS Monterey with the old perpetual SoftRAID version of 7.5 that I never upgraded. After this I will boot into Sonoma on the Intel, generate a new support file, then repeat again with Sonoma from the paid for version of 8.3 on the M2 Studio. Last, I will upgrade the external macOS system to Sequoia and generate one final support file from that. Look for these support files to drop throughout this afternoon (upgrading the os will take a little time on the last step). 

Attached: macOS Monterey 12.7.6, SoftRAID 7.x, Intel i9 MBP machine 

to drop steadily through the remainder of this afternoon.