[Sticky] Ventura 13.3 and later - what's new

Can I reenable Medium or Full Security Secure Boot on my 2018 Mini and have SoftRAID v7.5 continue to load/work?

Awesome, wasn't expecting the change to eliminate reduced System Security!

On 7.5, are we still limited to a stripe size of 64k with RAID5 to avoid panics?

BTW, you should add the bit about TM restore working with a SoftRAID volume in Recovery mode in the release notes that ships with the update disk image.

Well, I took the plunge and since installing, looks like I can't backup to a Time Machine share on my Mac mini (with Thunderbay 4-bay and SoftRAID 7.5). I can't even access the sharing menu in system preferences. I was backing up to Time Machine successfully with 13.3 running SoftRAID 7.01, but the sharing menu issue could be related to macOS 13.3 as well as I haven't been in there for awhile. Anyone else seeing any sharing weirdness?

@papaskitch 

The kernel panics from the DART controller appear to be fixed in 13.4 beta. A couple users have reported this, which is great news.

You still need to reduce security for other drivers, such as Dock Ejector, audio drivers, etc, but SoftRAID no longer requires it, so installing SoftRAID is easy again.

@papaskitch 

"Well, I took the plunge and since installing, looks like I can't backup to a Time Machine share on my Mac mini (with Thunderbay 4-bay and SoftRAID 7.5). I can't even access the sharing menu in system preferences. I was backing up to Time Machine successfully with 13.3 running SoftRAID 7.01, but the sharing menu issue could be related to macOS 13.3 as well as I haven't been in there for awhile. Anyone else seeing any sharing weirdness?"

Can you give more details? I can back up onto Time Machine. You must use the APFS file system when creating the volume, but otherwise, it works in our testing.

Sharing is another issue in Ventura. There have been many complaints. Usually you can work around it by sharing (+ volume) the volume specifically, or a folder inside the volume. Some users had to create a new folder, and copy their data in

I hae also heard that with 13.3, DropBox and iCloud MUST be stored on the internal drive, which is awful, considering how small most internal drives are.

@wfiveash 

We do have this on our web site. Good point about the release notes but that may have to wait until the next update. We may have another fairly soon, as there are still some issues we are working on.

@wfiveash 

Yes, as long as you have no other extensions requiring reduced security, you can set to any security level. Even Full Security.

Posted by: @softraid-support

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Can you give more details?

Turns out it was a permissions issue. Odd that it didn't quite coincide with 13.3, but I suspect it was related to the macOS update.

All good now, thx!

FYI, I updated Softraid to v7.5 on my Intel Mini, which is running macOS 13.3, without problem so far.  I verified that the Mini is booting with full security enabled and that the Softraid driver is loading.   Nice update!

@wfiveash 

Thank you, it took a couple years of work to make this happen, and it is a huge plus.  ;-)

Sounds very promising but unfortunately I'm having issues.

Of course the update coincided with me changing the disks in my OWC ThunderBay4 from spinning metal to SSD so I'm absolutely not sure if that's the issue or if it's the driver.

I have certified all 4 SSD (Samsung 870 EVO) individually in an external USB dock and they passed without issue. I then installed them in the ThunderBay and created a RAID4 Volume (APFS 16 kB stripe, as recommended by SoftRAID) and the volume was validated successfully with SoftRAID.

However, the moment I'm trying to copy anything to the new volume, the copy stalls and only 1 of the green disk lights is permanently on but nothing happens. 

I've tried changing the position of the different SSD but it's always the same disk light that lights up (third from the left). This is not the parity disk but one of the data disks. 

I also got a kernel panic at the start of this migration.

I haven't tried placing the old hard disks back and seeing what that gives but that'll probably be my next try as I'm without my big data volume at the moment.

@gvansteelant 

Here is what I would try next:

Create a volume with the other three drives and see if it works.

If so, try certifying the hanging disk in the enclosure.

Another thing you can try is in SoftRAID Settings, disk, disable TRIM

See if you make any progress.

Posted by: @softraid-support

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@gvansteelant 

Here is what I would try next:

Create a volume with the other three drives and see if it works.

If so, try certifying the hanging disk in the enclosure.

Another thing you can try is in SoftRAID Settings, disk, disable TRIM

See if you make any progress.

Ok, so I put the 4 SSD in the OWC enclosure and restarted certifying all 4 of them and 2 failed.

I then swapped the "good" and "bad" SSD and again 2 failed but it was at the same positions as the previous "bad" ones so it's the f-ing enclosure that's at fault. Somehow 2 slots have probably bad contact with these SSD although the trays/sleds have positions for 2.5 inch SSD and the drives are screwed in tight.

800 EUR down the drain...