Performance of encrypted APFS RAID5 fixed?

@seth-goldin 

Yes I can confirm on Sonoma, there is no improvement. We have special tools to fragment files on volumes.

We have submitted a bug fix for Apple to re-enable creating encrypted HFS volumes, but currently to set it up, will require Ventura, sorry. Until Apple restores this feature, it will be the only way to make this happen.

It seems Apple has realized that HFS is here to stay (for HDD's), so its likely they will enable this. in the past, "APFS is the future, and no development will be done on HFS, it is deprecated" was kind of the motto.

Either they need to fix APFS (a feature needs to be disable-able called copy on write for HDDs), or have full support for HFS. One of the two will happen.

I have sourced a Catalina machine and have connected our ThunderBay to it. Would appreciate some guidance on how to create the encrypted HFS Plus drive. The Disk Utility GUI was throwing a mysterious error, and was having some trouble figuring out exactly what subcommands for `diskutil` were required.

@seth-goldin 

Let me find the instructions.

@softraid-support can you send the instructions? This is the difference between this hardware being usable or not for our use case.

Sorry to hijack this thread. 

I just pulled the trigger on a Thunderbay. Now I am stuck choosing the raid level because of the Raid5 performance issue. HFS+ might not be an option, due to current lack of an old Mac. We are M1 only. 

Question:

If a fix will ever be found for said Raid5/APFS encryption issue, would this likely require a start from scratch, I.e. will this likely trigger a re-initialization of the raid?

If that’s so, I’m inclined to go Raid10 instead - despite the fact that I won’t need the level of redundancy on this device. 

@softraid-support, I‘d appreciate if you could share the instructions on how to go HFS+ with an older Mac - in case I can locate one. 

@ovq 

the directions are complex, I just got them, I need to test myself, otherwise you will need a second volume nearly as large as the one you want to encrypt.

@seth-goldin 

I just posted to another user, I need to confirm they work without special tools before posting.

@softraid-support Thanks. 

Can you please elaborate on this question as well:

If a fix will ever be found for said Raid5/APFS encryption issue, would this likely require a start from scratch, I.e. will this likely trigger a re-initialization of the raid?

@ovq 

I cannot get the HFS encryption to work yet. I uncovered a bug that allows an encrypted Core Storage volume to be copied unencrypted. Maybe that is why Apple removed this feature. When I get something, I can post it, however.

When we add encryption or find a solution, its likely you will be able to convert your volume. Its not a "promise" as this feature is not implemented, but based on how we are proceeding, very likely.

@softraid-support I am seeing marketing material for 8.1, but I see no mention of this issue. Are there any developments?

@seth-goldin 

Not yet. this will require changes in MacOS. We have a solution planned, but it is likely at least year away.
Only thing we can offer today is to use Flash media, or for HDD's; RAID 0 or RAID 1+0.

We really want a solution on this and are working on multiple angles to do so.

@softraid-support 

Any updates on encrypted HFS volumes? Thanks!

@softraid-support 

What's the latest on encrypted HFS volumes?

@normanbumdar We do not have RAID 4/5 solved for HFS encrypted yet.

I doubt this will be resolved this year. It is going to require a change in MacOS.

Lol, you've got to be kidding me. I just spent $1000 on new SSDs to populate my Thunderbay 4 mini and $150 on a new license of SoftRAID 8, and then eventually hit this issue and find these posts and the FAQ. What a comical mess. 

In my case using encryption takes me from 1GB/s to 250MB/s. 

I saw the other thread where support actually suggested to someone to just use RAID 0 and frequent backups instead. Come on...