TR-004 / Big Sur Compatibility Problems

[jblots]

Technically the TR-004 is NAS expansion and not a NAS, but I'm putting this in the Mac OS forum for the benefit of others.

Issue: My TR-004 (with up-to-date firmware) works fine on other Macs running Catalina and earlier. It's also verified as being functional/healthy in the QNAP External RAID Manager. However, when the TR-004 is connected to any Mac running Big Sur, it either doesn't mount, or occasionally mounts in read-only mode with slow performance and seen by the system as falsely having disk errors – basically unusable. There is no known fix, I'm told by technical support that QNAP is aware of this issue and plans to issue an update at some point in the future. Hope this helps anyone experiencing a similar issue.

[danielfajardo]

The software "QNAP External RAID Manager" do NOT work for me in OS Big Sur

[spindja]

QNAP External RAID Manager -> doesn't work on BigSur. I cannot mount my TR004 properly.

[Jason S]

Same for me, I had my TR004 disabled as one of the disks failed and I couldn't put up with the loud beeps every 5 minutes.
WD sent me a replacement disk today. I powered on the TR004 with the new disk in place, so it could rebuild the hardware RAID array.
I found I couldn't launch QNAP External RAID Manager to monitor the rebuild progress, but my two volumes mounted OK.

My Macs started to backup to the TimeMachine volume, then the volumes started reporting errors. so I am stuck at the moment with no reliable backup mechanism and without any means of checking the RAID status.

[dolbyman]

tickets need to be opened, nothing we can do here about it

[Jason S]

I raised a ticket, the response was that QNAP External RAID Manager 1.2.6 will fix the issue.

No ETA on when it will be released though.

[jblots]

I raised a ticket, the response was that QNAP External RAID Manager 1.2.6 will fix the issue.

No ETA on when it will be released though.

Thanks, Jason. I have an open ticket as well, will update here if I learn anything new.

[Jason S]

My ticket was closed..

"It is indeed a confirm issue on Big Sur.
However, it has been identified and fixed.
The new version of RAID Manager should be released soon.

You will be able to find it there when released (version 1.2.6):
https://www.qnap.com/en-uk/utilities/essentials"

Not very helpful. no ETA on when the new version will be released. I've been checking daily.

[jblots]

QNAP External RAID Manager version 1.3.0.1127 is now available for macOS.

I had to check to discover this update myself, as my ticket experience hasn't been very helpful. Since being submitted in November, my support ticket has received basic replies from QNAP support (ie, your problem has been noted), but no contact or updates of any kind from QNAP's engineering or development. I've installed the new QNAP External RAID Manager with mixed/poor results:

• The RAID volume sometimes mounts on my macOS 11 iMac, and sometimes doesn't mount at all (same as before).
• Sometimes the RAID Manager reports the RAID volume as healthy/normal (a change from before), but then will change the status later to 'Unrecognized'.
• Directory/file lists continue to be slow to load in finder (same as before).
• File writes are seen as technically possible by the Finder (a change from before), but writing never actually takes place.
• The RAID volume continues to be perfectly functional/usable/normal on other Macs with previous versions of macOS.

[Jason S]

I installed QNAP External RAID Manager version 1.3.0 build 1127 today.

After installing and allowing the application and service 'full disk access' and rebooting, it has been working OK for the afternoon.

I wouldn't normally have the RAID Manager running.. I remembered why today as it pops up every hour to tell me that it has 'detected volume: <volumename>'. But so far it has been OK, my device has managed to complete local TimeMachine backups.

I have now turned on TimeMachine backups on my other Mac, which backs up to the QNAP RAID as a shared TimeMachine volume. we shall see how that goes as the other device has a lot more data to backup.

[benichols]

Does anyone have experience with the TR-004 (and QNAP Raid Manager software) on a M1 Mac with Big Sur? Does the TR-004 work in hardware RAID and/or does the Raid Manager software work yet (ie does it load its extension succesfully)?

[dolbyman]

it always works in hardware raid mode

the mode is either configured via the

dip switches (hardware)
or
the management software