Is 64k stripe size the only working option for RAID5 on Apple Silicon with v7 as well?

The problem is more nuanced than this. A percentage of systems get kernel panics with 16k stripe unit size. With Ventura, a very small percentage gets panics even with 64k, the fix put into Ventura was not 100% effective and still triggers some crashes with the DART controller chip.

You need to try to find out on your system, as most users have no issues at all, but we have not figured out why this is the case.

Posted by: @kurt765

Because of the known issue, RAID5 causes kernel panics with any stripe size other than 64k in 6.x. Is that still the case with Ventura / Softraid v7?

With SoftRAID 7.0.1 I've just tried moving from RAID4 to RAID5 (new disks gave me the opportunity - 4 x 8TB) and 16k still causes crashes. I'm on an M1 Mac mini for what it's worth.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

@papaskitch 

For some users, 13.1 fixes this. It is still in beta, but you can test it.

If the system still crashes in 13.1, it is a related, but different bug.

@softraid-support RAID5 is now working flawlessly for me using the 64k stripe size (it wasn't on SoftRAID 6.x/macOS 12), so I'll call this a win. Besides, I'm not convinced I'm missing anything at the 16k party, so I'll just stay here until I need to mess about with new drives. Though I do hope Apple gets their bugs fixed!

How do you set the stripe size?  Is that "Optimized for: Server?"

@jduprey 

You can only set Stripe unit size when you create the volume. You will be prompted to set it, 16k is the default, so change it to 64k

@softraid-support Right! What I was missing was where in the volume creation screen I could set it.  It was after the initial screen where I chose RAID type and optimization scheme.

Now that I'm on Mac OS 13.1, Using SoftRaid 7.0.1, I'm hoping RAID 5 will work reliably with the recommended 64k stripe unit size.  Perviously, I had been using Raid 4 because that was the only thing reasonably stable for me pre Mac OS 13 and SoftRaid 7.

@jduprey 

It should be OK!

I have a Thunderbay with 4 drives in RAID 5 on an M1 MacMini running softraid 7.1 with Mac OS 12.6. I am getting kernel panics that I thought were sleep related, but after turning off sleep I am still getting them. Would the 64K stripe size fix it? What is the way to do that? Do I need to backup / erase / rebuild the entire volume with all the disks?

@MountainCat

Yes, with Monterrey, 64k is the only known workaround. Apple will never add a fix for this MacOS system.

You need to backup, delete the volume and create it again, selecting 64k when prompted.

Posted by: @softraid-support

↑

@MountainCat

with Monterrey, 64k is the only known workaround. Apple will never add a fix for this MacOS system.

And if I move to Ventura does that help? Is this absolutely required or only if you are currently having instability?

@MountainCat

Only if you have instability. Considering It is not really fixed in ventura, either, that says something to your question. Its not fixed in 13.2, as far as I know, so the wait has to be at least to 13.3.

Does this issue impact all Apple Silicon or only the M1 units? In other words, is M2 impacted as well?

@rexbinary

Great question. Its an Apple Silicon issue, so yes, it affects M2, as of the moment. The fix, whenever it comes, will likely be in a MacOS update, or firmware update as part of the macOS update, my speculation.