Two Areca Thunderbolt drivers and I cannot use the latest driver

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Level 1

4 points

Two Areca Thunderbolt drivers and I cannot use the latest driver

There is a previous thread of this exact title. For whatever reason it's closed for replies, however I want to say I have the exact same issue. I did contact Areca support and was told two things. First, the 1.4.2 driver was an apple based driver and therefore cannot be removed. The second was that to get around this issue, you would need to run the updated driver on a silicon based mac.

So the first response from Areca obviously not well informed, as I installed that from the original driver download that I had.

Secondly, the machine this particular Areca storage was connected to was a silicon based M2 Mac studio device.

All this is coming up because I'm transitioning on to a new set of High Point based direct attached Thunderbolt devices, and my original Areca devices need to transfer their core data onto the new device. I do have a backup, though it's not completely up to date and there were some things kept off of it from a storage standpoint. Since I use the OWC product soft raid, I should be able to plug my Eureka into another Mac Mini and at least get all of my data off that unit before it's repurposed. However, I absolutely hate the concept of having that inevitable extension cash rebuild Loop, or an errant older installed driver kept on the machine that's not going to be in use.

Thanks,

Steve

Mac Studio, macOS 14.6

Posted on Sep 8, 2024 8:54 PM

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Answer 1

HWTech

Level 9

60,092 points

Sep 10, 2024 7:14 PM in response to Seriochka1

I seem to recall a post or two on this forum which mentioned needing some sort of DEXT driver. I believe the user installed a DEXT driver from another manufacturer's external drive in order to get their external drive working on an M-series Mac (I don't think it was an Areca though).

Since you are having issues now, I'm assuming you had an older Intel Mac which did work successfully with the Areca. Why not use the older Intel Mac to transfer your files to the new external drive?

I know my organization is using at least one older Areca enclosure with a Mac Studio running macOS 14.x Sonoma without any issues. I believe we are using the Areca's own hardware RAID, but I'm not certain since I've only looked at the setup one time several months ago (My supervisor has given up on SoftRAID at this point due to some issues he has encountered with SoftRAID...I'm not sure what those issues are/were). I do know that after a macOS update, one of the necessary drivers was no longer approved in the Privacy & Security System Settings. I had to reboot the system before I saw a pop-up notice appear alerting the user to this fact and allowed me to see the "Approval" button within the Privacy & Security System Settings.

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Answer 2

Seriochka1 Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 10, 2024 7:44 PM in response to HWTech

So this is a two-fold answer...

I did have a late 2012 MacMini that ran these same Areca DAS devices without issue, and the noted 1.40 and 1.42 driver version was on there (device limited to Catalina at present time). I also DID have the same two devices working on the M1 Max Silicon-based MacStudio device that's now my primary. I know I personally installed the 1.42 driver, the 1.4.4 and 1.47 version of the driver. Up until Saturday last week, everything was working just fine...with some iteration of Sonoma that WAS NOT the 14.6.1 version on there now. It was only with the latest security patch for Sonoma that I cannot get the system to recognize any of the versions of the Areca universal driver at all.

The other answer is that SoftRAID absolutely saved my original storage data. Since the RAID configuration travels with the device, I just restarted the old MacMini, plugged the Areca devices in (and the new Thunderbolt units chained through them) and was able to see the existing Array. I was also able to configure all of my new storage and devices properly, and have started the days' long process of syncing between old and new devices.

My only concern now is that I hate having that vendor-specific driver sitting out there, blocking (or through OS or Security changes, allowing to be blocked) the old devices from functioning if I so choose. I am wondering if an OS-refresh will get rid of this issue... OR if a ticket with Apple support would help (given that Areca is actively claiming that the driver is Apple's to begin with)?

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