Thunderbay 4 RAID stuck on "Preparing 'Time Machine'" - Solving Problems

RE: Thunderbay 4 RAID stuck on "Preparing 'Time Machine'"

eabartsch — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 15:07:52 +0000

@softraid-support

Thanks. I fought it yesterday, going back and forth between Disk Utility and the SoftRAID app (interesting, you can create APFS when doing a partition, but not when creating a volume). After a bunch of crashing, where the APFS container was rendered under the wrong hardware, it corrected itself. So, I now hav a HFS+ partition up and running, RAID0, for my regular applications, and an AFPS partition, which Time Machine recognizes (odd that Time Machine doesn't flash an error when it is directed to HFS+, it just freezes during the setup stage).

I've noted the comments above that HFS+ is actually faster for spinning media, but APFS is what Time Machine now needs to see. In any event, good conversation, above. Took more work that I expected, but it seems like all is now working. Dropbox & Time Machine now seem to be getting along on their own partitions/volumes.

RE: Thunderbay 4 RAID stuck on "Preparing 'Time Machine'"

SoftRAID Support — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 14:44:48 +0000

@eabartsch

Use the SoftRAID 6 beta to create the APFS volume. SoftRAID 6.0 does not support APFS, but 6.1 will. Just create the volume and then go back to 6.0.5. You do not ever need to update the driver with the beta.

http://www.softraid.com/sr_beta

RE: Thunderbay 4 RAID stuck on "Preparing 'Time Machine'"

eabartsch — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 00:43:25 +0000

My ThunderBay had a hard drive that failed. Since it was under warranty, I returned it per a RA# and received the new unit. 4TB total storage.

I partitioned it, RAID0, with half being used for photos/video and the other half for TimeMachine. Like above, I can't get Time Machine to run--gets stuck on the "Preparing" dialog. So, the system won't back up. I attempted to use Disk Utility to reformat the Time Machine partition to APFS. No go. The other partition is HFS+, per the SoftRaid software. What is the solution? Move the whole RAID array over to Apple formats, so APFS can be accessed (SoftRaid doesn't support APFS format)? Although, if APFS is slower, that defeats the purpose of the RAID 0 configuration.

RE: Thunderbay 4 RAID stuck on "Preparing 'Time Machine'"

SteveK — Mon, 04 Jan 2021 23:10:13 +0000

@softraid-support Right. The initial backup seemed a bit slower but I just had my 7TB media volume back up overnight so it didn't bother me. Hourly incremental backups don't seem slower to me.

Thanks again!

RE: Thunderbay 4 RAID stuck on "Preparing 'Time Machine'"

SoftRAID Support — Mon, 04 Jan 2021 00:15:13 +0000

APFS is up to 50% slower than HFS (on rotating media), but Time Machine requires it now, I believe. It is just backing up, so performance is probably not critical.

good luck!

RE: Thunderbay 4 RAID stuck on "Preparing 'Time Machine'"

SteveK — Sun, 03 Jan 2021 23:25:02 +0000

That did the trick! I re-initialized my 4 drives with b48 of SoftRaid and created a new Time Machine volume as APFS. Overnight it successfully backed up like 8TB of info without a hiccup.

Thank you so much.

Sorry I was so confused because for a few years I was told not to format HDDs as APFS an stick with HFS. But it worked great. And it's backing up every hour like it's supposed to.

And then of course I use CCC to clone my internal startup SSD to an external SSD via Thunderbolt 2 every other night, so if something terrible happens I can just boot from that and keep working. Clients don't want to hear sob stories about how your gear failed — they just want their work done and sent to the printer on time. So you saved my bacon.

I am not updating Big Sur to betas or anything until you tell us it's a good idea.

Thanks again.

RE: Thunderbay 4 RAID stuck on "Preparing 'Time Machine'"

SoftRAID Support — Sun, 03 Jan 2021 17:04:29 +0000

that is correct, as SoftRAID cannot unmount APFS yet.

RE: Thunderbay 4 RAID stuck on "Preparing 'Time Machine'"

SLeM — Sun, 03 Jan 2021 16:02:21 +0000

I was able to create a RAID0 APFS and Time Machine to that.

Some of the problems I had creating APFS volumes might have been related to the situation mentioned in one of my other posts, where it appears to be necessary to unmount all APFS volumes that share the physical drive(s) in the finder before being able to create a new APFS volume.

RE: Thunderbay 4 RAID stuck on "Preparing 'Time Machine'"

SoftRAID Support — Sun, 03 Jan 2021 15:34:47 +0000

I believe in Big Sur, Time Machine does not work correctly with non APFS volumes. Create a fresh APFS volume for Time Machine and see if it works for you.

RE: Thunderbay 4 RAID stuck on "Preparing 'Time Machine'"

SLeM — Sun, 03 Jan 2021 11:15:39 +0000

I am having this same problem. My ThunderBay4 and SoftRaid are brand new (installed in the last 12 hours). I have them attached to a MacBook Air newly upgraded to Big Sur 11.1.

Earlier I was about to set up a non-RAID HFS+ volume, configured it for Sharing, enabled Remote Time Machine (Sharing options), and back up to it over ethernet from a different system. That worked fine.

However when I set up a Raid0 or non-raid HFS+ volume and try to select for Time Machine on the Air itself, then it gets stuck half way exactly like SteveK showed.

I set up a non-raid APFS volume and do seem to be able to use it for Time Machine directly on the Air itself.

I am having difficulty setting up RAID APFS volumes, but I will test that again, and if necessary report in a different thread.