Can't access G-RAID from Mac Mojave

G-Technology G-RAID & G-DOCK
1

I have two G-RAID 2x6TB Thunderbolt 2 drives, one for each of two older Mac Book Pro’s running Mac OS Sierra. When first purchased (less than a year ago) I used the Configurator to set both of them for RAID 1. These drives are used for both Apple Time Machine system backups and for large photo repositories - different directories, same partitions. Both drives worked fine - until I upgraded both Macs to the latest Mac Book Pro’s running Mac OS Mojave. Both drives are connected to the new Macs via Apple branded Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 (aka USB C) adapters and both drives appear on their respective desktops and can be read and written to without apparent error.

However, one of the drives is now displaying a constant red LED indicating (I assume) a failed drive. The Configurator for this drive reports “No device found”. In troubleshooting, I find the Configurator on the other Mac with the “good” drive (white LED) also yields the same “No device found”. I haven’t yet tried accessing the drives via USB (which will obviously also require an adapter).

How do I access these drives to determine whether they are mirrored and how do I fix the “red” drive?

2

You are very likely using the wrong configurator and that is why it states no device found. You need this one: G-RAID removable with TB Utility

3

I used the Configurator that was on the drive. It originally allowed me to configure RAID 1.

I’ll pull the one you linked later today and report back.

Jim
(from my iPhone)

4

Yes, this is the same Configurator and same version I’ve been using. And it still reports “No device found” on both our systems.

FWIW, the “bad” drive, when powered up but laptop shut down, shows solid white LED, goes red when laptop is booted. The LED on the “good” drive is solid white at all times. As noted above, the Configurator reports “No device found” on both systems.

5

How long are you leaving the software open for when you launch it? It is known to take up to 20-30 seconds in some cases to recognize the device is attached. If you are opening it and closing it as soon as it says no device found that could be the issue as well.

It also is expected to flash red briefly upon boot up of the device as it is doing a health check on the RAID controller.

I would suggest calling in to our support if you are still not getting anywhere with the configurator. 888.426.5214 for US based support.

6

OK, I left the Configurator open overnight, “No devices found”, but Time Machine backups ran successfully hourly all night so the drives are mounted and working.

To recap, these drives are both described as “G-Technology 0G04093 12TB G-RAID Removable Thunderbolt 2 USB 3.0 - Silver”. And I originally used the Configurator software named “G-RAID with Thunderbolt Configurator”, version 1.1 (52) to configure both of the drives to RAID 1, mirrored. Both drives report 6 TB capacity indicating they are mirrored. However, one of these drives has a failed disk with a red indicator on one and blue on the other disk. The other drive appears to be fine with both disks showing blue LED’s. However, the G-RAID with Thunderbolt Configurator is unable to find either drive for either of two brand new identical Mac Book Pro’s.

What’s next?

7

The configurator as long as you have the correct one, like you mentioned prior the 1.1(52) should be able to recognize the device with no issue. We have no reported issues of the device not being recognized. Have you tried attaching the device over USB instead just to see if it an issue with TB recognition?

8

I have resisted changing the connection port from TB2 to USB since I wasn’t certain the hardware based RAID might be port-specific. However, after swapping to USB, I find the G-RAID does appear in the Configurator but when I click on the drive name, it shows Slot 1 is my named drive but Slot 2 reads “empty”. Note that this is only for the drive with both disks blue lighted.

When connected via USB, the drive with one red disk still refuses to appear in the Configurator (shows “No devices found”) but does appear in the drop down menu from the G-Technology Assistant which provides access to information similar to what the Configurator shows. Clicking on the drive name also shows Slot 1 is the named drive and Slot 2 reads “empty”.

Although the information implies mirrored drives (6 TB instead of 12) neither of these interfaces provides information regarding the status of the RAID array. In one case both disks appear to be active. In the other case, one disk is clearly bad since it displays a red LED. Without status confirmation I am concerned as to whether either drive is actually using active RAID 1 mirroring.

Now what?

1 Like
9

Your best option is to transfer data off to another device and use the configurator to set the drive back to RAID0 and then back to RAID1 and reformat. This will force them back in sync and not require the process of rebuilding.

If you have access to a computer that isn’t on Mojave just in case there is a incompatibility that you’ve found. We have yet to notice any issues.

10

Just to be clear… are you suggesting that the “empty” slot 2 indication means we no longer have RAID 1 security on either drive? I thought hardware RAID management would prevent loss of RAID configuration.

We’re talking about copying approximately 2x4 TB of data - not a trivial task and I don’t have 8 TB of spare capacity lying around. Moreover, Configurator on one machine can see the drive, Configurator on the other machine can’t even see the drive.

At the very least, one disk shows a red LED which I assume means it is toast and needs replacement. These drives are both under a year old.

In case it’s not clear, I’m using the term drive to apply to the two 12 TB RAID devices, each drive consisting of two 6 TB removable disks.

Further information: Both workstations are identical Mac Book Pro (15-inch, 2018), 2.9 GHz Intel Core i9, 32 GB RAM, running MacOS 10.14, Mojave. Obviously, we have to use USB-C to Thunderbolt 2 adapters to utilize the Thunderbolt ports on the drives. The adapters are Apple branded.

11

FWIW, the Apple Disk Utility indicates the G-RAID with Thunderbolt has a Child count of 2. I’m not sure if this indicates the second/mirror drive or if there is another hidden partition on the visible disk. The Child count is the same for both the “good” drive and the “bad” drive.

Should I contact Support for this issue? It seems that at least one of these devices has a failed HD.

12

I’m having a very similar issue.

My G Raid with T3 isn’t being recognized at all with an Apple T3 > T1 adapter. Worked flawlessly until update to Mojave.

The drive is not recognized at all. Not by DU, or the Configurator.

When plugged in the drive is happily recognized by the OS and the Configurator via USB C > USB 2.0 cable.

13

Yes Jim I recommend the transfer, also you can use the USB 3 connection. the Type c to A that came with the device. The performance will be identical so you won’t miss out on anything doing it that way. If the system has a red LED it is usually due to a drive being out of sync with the other unit in the RAID1. This can be due to a failed drive, out of sync fluke or controller failure or lack of power.

The easiest one to verify is to make sure that you are using the correct power adapter. for the TB3 equipped units its a 19V 4.72A adapter.

After that then it is going to mean transferring the data off to another location so you can test the other issues. You test them by swapping the drives in the slots and redoing the RAID. Switching to 0 then back to 1. If you are having TB recognition issues on one system and not the other you will want to contact Apple to have them run a diagnostic on your system since the Mojave update or you can attempt to fix it on your own with a SMC and NVRAM reset.

14

I am having the same issue. I have a G-Raid removable with Thunderbolt 2 connected via USB. The G-RAID with Thunderbolt configurator is giving the “No Device Found” message. The drive is functioning perfectly in RAID-0 But I was going to change it over to RAID-1. It would appear to be a problem with Mojave based on this thread.

15

Ahoy! Same issue here as well. I’ve formatted my drive as an APFS volume instead of Mac OS Extended. Noticed that the latest version of the “G-RAID with Thunderbolt Configurator 2” hasn’t been updated since June of 2017, I’m wondering if that might have anything to do with it?

16

There are no known issues with the configurator that we have been able to re-create. Also the format of the drive will play no part in the hardware recognition of the drive.

We don’t recommend APFS however since these are rotational drives in a RAID and APFS is an OS designed for very fast flash(SSDs) as an OS disk, not storage.

17

I have exactly the same problem with Mojave, it all worked find until the update. Plugging my drive into my sons laptop with Mountain Lion, the configurator worked fine. It simply doesn’t work on Mojave. I had an extended conversation with support, the below is the final email I had from Alexander S.

Thank you for contacting G-Technology, a Western Digital brand Customer Service and Support.

Thank you for your kind update. I am glad that the rebuild process went smoothly.

I have also informed the engineering department regarding the compatibility issues of G-RAID with Thunderbolt Configurator with macOS Mojave (version 10.14)

They are currently working on it, but unfortunately engineering team does not provide a calendar date for releases of updates.

When this will be released/updated it should normally appear under the Downloads Tab on the G-RAID with Thunderbolt 3 support page.

So to me, it looks like a recognised problem that no-one has fixed yet.

Roger

18

Any news on this yet? I am a newbie with the issue.

ft.

19

Nope, no change. The G-Raid Configurator app still doesn’t recognize the two G-Raid drives I have mounted on my 2018 MBP running OS X 10.14.5. My wife also has one on her MBP and it can’t be seen either. I configured these drives using an older MBP running Mountain Lion which I keep around just for this purpose. (Requiring an old laptop for setup/support adds quite a bit to the cost of the drives.)

I reported this and described the source of the problem to WD tech support. They agreed with my assessment and said they would provide a software update but didn’t know when. Well, it’s been more than 9 months since I first reported this problem. That’s long enough to produce a new human for crying out loud! Even though it’s already a 64 bit app, the Configurator app, version 1.1, is dated 6/19/17 and hasn’t been updated for more than two years.

Absolutely dismal support.

Jim

20

Having a very similar issue with a G-RAID Thunderbolt 3 16TB I purchased a few days ago.

I had upgraded to Mojave version 10.14.6 even before attaching the device for the first time, and there are no adapters involved as the drive is directly connected to an iMac 27" 2019 with a Thunderbolt 3 port.

At first the Configurator (version 1.1 (52)) recognised the device and I was able to set it to from RAID 0 to RAID 1 mode. Then, after I formatted it with Disk Utility (to Mac OS Extended), the system recognised it as a 8TB drive, as expected, and Time Machine was able to run backups on it.

But the Configurator then stopped recognising the device (even after many prolonged attempts, leaving the Configurator open for quite a long time) - it constantly gave “No devices found”. As a result, I was unsure whether the RAID 1 was indeed working (i.e. whether the data was being written simultaneously to both hard disks inside).

I wanted to check whether the Configurator would recognise the device if one of the two hard disks was out. I dismounted the device from the computer, disconnected the Thunderbolt 3 cable, powered the device down, disconnected the power cable, and pulled out one of the hard disks. Then connected the device again, with only one disk inside it, the Configurator still did not recognise it.

I repeated the dismounting and power-down sequence, and put the second hard disk back in. Then, however, its LED indicator went red (and so did the G-shaped LED on the front cover), and both remained so even after I swapped the two hard disks (top and bottom), to ensure the issue was not power-related.

An erase of the hard disk via Disk Utility (it is now empty) did not change anything in that respect. But then I pulled out the hard disk with the blue LED, and the one with the red LED went back blue, and displayed all the data from before the erase - which means that it had not failed, and that the most likely source of the problem is (as suggested by Rydia in the 21 November 2018 post) the two hard disks’ being out of sync, or some sort of controller failure or fluke.

In this situation, I would follow Rydia’s advice (from the same post) and use the Configurator to set the device back to RAID 0 and then again to RAID 1 - but cannot, as the Configurator is still not recognising it. Tried connecting it via the USB 3.0 cable rather than the Thunderbolt 3 one, and the situation remains the same.

Any suggestions, apart from waiting for an update to the Configurator?

Thank you very much in advance.