A continuing problem with OWC ThunderBay 4 mini enclosure.

[fredlord]

Over the usage of three different computers (late 2015 iMac 27, 2021 Mac PowerBook Pro 16 M1 Max, 2022 Studio M1 Ultra) I have been dealing with a problem of crashing and restarting whenever the OWC ThunderBay 4 mini has been connected.

The ThunderBay 4 mini is filled with four 2.0TB Mercury Electra 6G 2.5-inch 7mm SATA 6.0Gb/s Solid-State Drive that were purchased along with the enclosure from OWC. I am using RAID 5.

With the iMac, it slowly got better with updates to the SoftRaid and Mac OS software. It would still intermittently crash the iMac and the iMac would not start up with the mini but it would accept it if it were turned on after a couple of minutes of running. This made the situation bearable. The iMac was using Catalina.

When I started using the PowerBook, running Monterey up through 12.5, the mini was usually pretty good and the intermittent crashes were far less frequent. It would even start up with the mini daisy chained through a newly added OWC ThunderBay 4 full-size enclosure. The new enclosure is also using RAID 5. At that point, I erased and reinitialized the mini drive using the larger RAID as a backup.

Now, with the Mac Studio, running Monterey 12.5, the ThunderBay 4 mini will not mount and always crashes the Mac Studio whenever it is connected.

I installed the ThunderBay 4 full-size enclosure using (4) WD 8tb Red NAS drives. It has performed perfectly with both of the M1 computers. The mini was piggybacked on the full-size enclosure to save ports. Therefore, the fact the larger enclosure works fine means that all permissions and such are correctly implemented. Am I wrong?

I think that points to a problem in the smaller drive enclosure rather than problems with SoftRaid and the Mac OS.

Has anyone else experienced these problems? I can't seem to get OWC to really find a solution. I have reinitiated the problem with OWC.

Suggestions? It seems such a waste to have this small NAS drive sitting idle.

 

[lightandaprayer]

I did a Startpage search using OWC ThunderBay 4 mini enclosure crashes Mac. On the first page there were 5 hits related to various issues with the enclosures. . .

Here is a tech support page from SoftRAID:

Kernel Panic with Apple Silicon (M1) Macs

Workaround: If you are experiencing a kernel panic connecting your OWC Thunderbay to an Apple silicon (M1) Mac, a solution can be changing your RAID to RAID 4, or RAID 5 with 64k stripe unit size.

Checking other search hits may turn up something that pertains to your particular situation.

Since OWC deals with this stuff all the time one would hope that they could be more helpful. My experience with them is being a squeaky wheel helps keep them focused on your problem.

 

[fredlord]

Thank you.

I will look into this.

The drive is currently 16k stripe unit size.

I appreciate your help.

Now all I have to do is to see if it will mount again on the laptop so I can reconfigure it.

--
Fred Lord
https://fred-j-lord.pixels.com

 

[dspoel]

I did a Startpage search using OWC ThunderBay 4 mini enclosure crashes Mac. On the first page there were 5 hits related to various issues with the enclosures. . .

Here is a tech support page from SoftRAID:

Kernel Panic with Apple Silicon (M1) Macs

Workaround: If you are experiencing a kernel panic connecting your OWC Thunderbay to an Apple silicon (M1) Mac, a solution can be changing your RAID to RAID 4, or RAID 5 with 64k stripe unit size.

Checking other search hits may turn up something that pertains to your particular situation.

Since OWC deals with this stuff all the time one would hope that they could be more helpful. My experience with them is being a squeaky wheel helps keep them focused on your problem.

Does not MacOS have built-in support for software raid, just like Linux? In that case one would not need a third party software for that. There is really no excuse for this kind of old technology failing. If the company providing raid software suggests changing the raid level as a work-around for their bugs I would ditch them.

Right, you can only create mirrored or striped partitions with macos, i.e. not raid 5:

Create a disk set using Disk Utility on Mac

Use Disk Utility on your Mac to create a RAID set to optimise storage performance and protect your data.

support.apple.com

Mirrored+Striped will give you faster disk than raid 5 but lower capacity, however if you use raid 5 with one spare disk there is no difference in capacity.

 

[Greybeard2017]

I installed the ThunderBay 4 full-size enclosure using (4) WD 8tb Red NAS drives. It has performed perfectly with both of the M1 computers.

Is this a positive recommendation for the Thunderbay 4 full-size enclosures?

 

[fredlord]

I installed the ThunderBay 4 full-size enclosure using (4) WD 8tb Red NAS drives. It has performed perfectly with both of the M1 computers.

Is this a positive recommendation for the Thunderbay 4 full-size enclosures?

Not now. It also started creating kernel panics this morning. I am awaiting instructions from OWC.

 

[Greybeard2017]

I installed the ThunderBay 4 full-size enclosure using (4) WD 8tb Red NAS drives. It has performed perfectly with both of the M1 computers.

Is this a positive recommendation for the Thunderbay 4 full-size enclosures?

Not now. It also started creating kernel panics this morning. I am awaiting instructions from OWC.

Hmm - thanks

 

[lightandaprayer]

I did a Startpage search using OWC ThunderBay 4 mini enclosure crashes Mac. On the first page there were 5 hits related to various issues with the enclosures. . .

Here is a tech support page from SoftRAID:

Kernel Panic with Apple Silicon (M1) Macs

Workaround: If you are experiencing a kernel panic connecting your OWC Thunderbay to an Apple silicon (M1) Mac, a solution can be changing your RAID to RAID 4, or RAID 5 with 64k stripe unit size.

Checking other search hits may turn up something that pertains to your particular situation.

Since OWC deals with this stuff all the time one would hope that they could be more helpful. My experience with them is being a squeaky wheel helps keep them focused on your problem.

Does not MacOS have built-in support for software raid, just like Linux? In that case one would not need a third party software for that. There is really no excuse for this kind of old technology failing. If the company providing raid software suggests changing the raid level as a work-around for their bugs I would ditch them.

Right, you can only create mirrored or striped partitions with macos, i.e. not raid 5:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/disk-utility/dskua23150fd/mac

Mirrored+Striped will give you faster disk than raid 5 but lower capacity, however if you use raid 5 with one spare disk there is no difference in capacity.

My main intention with my post was to let the OP know that he isn't alone experiencing issues with that particular enclosure. . . I posted the SoftRAID workaround only because it might provide a temporary fix until a better solution is available.

 

[fredlord]

I did a Startpage search using OWC ThunderBay 4 mini enclosure crashes Mac. On the first page there were 5 hits related to various issues with the enclosures. . .

Here is a tech support page from SoftRAID:

Kernel Panic with Apple Silicon (M1) Macs

Workaround: If you are experiencing a kernel panic connecting your OWC Thunderbay to an Apple silicon (M1) Mac, a solution can be changing your RAID to RAID 4, or RAID 5 with 64k stripe unit size.

Checking other search hits may turn up something that pertains to your particular situation.

Since OWC deals with this stuff all the time one would hope that they could be more helpful. My experience with them is being a squeaky wheel helps keep them focused on your problem.

Does not MacOS have built-in support for software raid, just like Linux? In that case one would not need a third party software for that. There is really no excuse for this kind of old technology failing. If the company providing raid software suggests changing the raid level as a work-around for their bugs I would ditch them.

Right, you can only create mirrored or striped partitions with macos, i.e. not raid 5:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/disk-utility/dskua23150fd/mac

Mirrored+Striped will give you faster disk than raid 5 but lower capacity, however if you use raid 5 with one spare disk there is no difference in capacity.

My main intention with my post was to let the OP know that he isn't alone experiencing issues with that particular enclosure. . . I posted the SoftRAID workaround only because it might provide a temporary fix until a better solution is available.

Thank you for your help. I did go back and rebuild the ThunderBay 4 mini using the 64k stripe unit size. It connects without issue now but the SoftRAID software that runs it is having a problem with it reliably using all the disks in the array.

Unfortunately, the full-size ThunderBay 4, which was working fine, is now causing a kernel panic every time I try to connect it. I cannot erase it and start over like I could with the ThunderBay 4 mini, which is connecting just fine but still has issues. The full-size enclosure has some important work on it so I may have to try connecting it to a different computer to get the information off of it.

 

[fredlord]

OWC has finally found a workaround for me regarding the ThunderBay 4 RAID enclosure.

The trick is to pull out one of the four drives from the RAID before powering up the RAID.

When the RAID mounts on the the desktop, plug the disconnected drive back in.

The SoftRAID controlling software thens cleans up the disruption and the RAID is available for use.

I don't want to do this more than once a day, I think.

The word is that Mac OS Ventura has a cure for the problem. Let's hope so.

The ThunderBay 4 mini has been running fine since I changed the size of the stripe from 16 to 64 bit.

To be continued...

 

[Mavots]

I too have been experiencing kernel panics with my OWC Thunderbay 4 (x4 4TB WD Black HHDs) RAID 5, 64 stripe. Mac Studio Pro with the current version of Monterey.

After much back and forth with OWC and my own experiments with different combinations, what it came down to in my case was putting the Mac to sleep.

Every time I either manually put the Mac Studio to sleep or did it via schedule, when starting up the next morning the TB4 was missing and a kernel panic warning was present. OWC says Apple did something in Monterey that causes this (too techy for this photographer). They say it happens with Raid arrays created by SoftRaid and Apple software as well.

I tried connecting the TB4 to my M1 MB Air and had a slightly different problem with the drive constantly waking right up after sleep. The Mac was in sleep mode but the drive just went into a cycle of sleep/wake/sleep/wake.

The OWC tech, who was VERY helpful and patient as we worked through this, said Apple needs to fix the issue in the next OS update or the next OS version.

In the meantime, I do not use the sleep feature at all with my Mac Studio Pro and TB4 and the issue is "solved".

 

[Alanl33]

I've also had a similar problem with a 16in MacBook Pro M1 Max after upgrading to Ventura, the OWC Thunderbay 4 Mini enclosure would randomly restart the Mac, starting with a Pink screen, giving me a message on-restart that there was a Kernel Problem.

After pulling my hair out and trying all the remedies online, Hub, PR Ram, USB connection, monitor etc etc. I came across a fix that suggested using Apple Raid or Reformat to Raid 0, that seems to have done the trick, I had no problems with Monterey, but with Ventura and the latest Softraid, something isn't playing well.

I've lost the benefits of the Parity disk, but at least I can get some work done and will back-up to Dropbox and a slower SSD Hardware Raid for now until there's a fix.

 

[lightandaprayer]

I've also had a similar problem with a 16in MacBook Pro M1 Max after upgrading to Ventura, the OWC Thunderbay 4 Mini enclosure would randomly restart the Mac, starting with a Pink screen, giving me a message on-restart that there was a Kernel Problem.

It sounds like the rumored fix in Ventura did not come to fruition. . . I wonder whether OWC has done more than twiddle their collective thumbs re a solution.

 

[fredlord]

I've also had a similar problem with a 16in MacBook Pro M1 Max after upgrading to Ventura, the OWC Thunderbay 4 Mini enclosure would randomly restart the Mac, starting with a Pink screen, giving me a message on-restart that there was a Kernel Problem.

It sounds like the rumored fix in Ventura did not come to fruition. . . I wonder whether OWC has done more than twiddle their collective thumbs re a solution.

You are correct. Apple has not fixed the problem. I erased and reset my 8tb Thunderbay 4 mini to 64bit stripe unit size on formatting and it works normally. My 35tb Thunderbay 4 full-size RAID with 16-bit stripe unit size can only be accessed by pulling one of the HDD when it's turned on. If I wait until it mounts that way, I can push the disc back in and, with help from SoftRAID, mount the disc for the day. I've been told this doesn't work in all cases and I'm one of the lucky ones.