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OWC Mini Thunderbay 4 Does Not Mount My External SSD Drives

S

Sossity

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 12, 2010
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I recently bought this; https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0942XJWB4?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details, to use these hard drives; https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX50...f6-9581-e41c5bc9db44&pd_rd_i=B003J5JB12&psc=1

I set it up, installed the drives, plugged it into my 2018 mac mini running Ventura, and nothing, it gets power, but the hard drives do not show up, there is not light activity on the unit indicating the drives have mounted. The fan does not spin up.

I just want to use the drives as a JOBD, no RAID of any kind.

Am I missing something? do I need to use the raid softweare with it?

My drives already have data on them, so I do not want to format them.

I checked the thunderbolt cable, it is plugged in.

Nothing in finder, or disk utility either.
 
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Sossity said:
I recently bought this; https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0942XJWB4?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details, to use these hard drives; https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX50...f6-9581-e41c5bc9db44&pd_rd_i=B003J5JB12&psc=1

I set it up, installed the drives, plugged it into my 2018 mac mini running Ventura, and nothing, it gets power, but the hard drives do not show up, there is not light activity on the unit indicating the drives have mounted. The fan does not spin up.

I just want to use the drives as a JOBD, no RAID of any kind.

Am I missing something? do I need to use the raid softweare with it?

My drives already have data on them, so I do not want to format them.

I checked the thunderbolt cable, it is plugged in.

Nothing in finder, or disk utility either.
Click to expand...
Sounds like the drive case may be DOA. Return and exchange.
 
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Ok, here is a weird thing; I had another one of these in the thunderbolt 2 version, to see if it worked. I swapped in my drives, plugged it in, and connected the cable to my mac mini with the appropriate adapters, and the same thing; power lights show, but no fan spinning, and the drive lights did not light up, and no drives seen. I also tried just plugging in the units into another power outlet, just to see if the fan would spin up, but nothing.

I went to OWC website, checked the specs, and system requirements, and it seems compatible, and it says it does not need any drivers.

Do these thunderbay mini units only work with blank drives to be formatted?

The drives had data on them, and I had three in the 4 bays. I just want to use the drives in JBOD, no raid stuff.

I am on a mac mini 2018 running macOS Ventura.

I am now really confused and very disappointed as to why these units are not working.

These turn up in most of my searches for an aluminum SSD enclosure, it seems to be popular and well rated, but not so good in my experience so far.

I have tried Googling my problem, but little information turns up, there are some problems, but it seems to be with M1 macs, and my mini is an intel mac.

Anybody who has this unit have any experiences?

I am about ready to call these a lost cause, and try a docking station instead for my SSD drives.

Do those work well with SSD drives?
 
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xraydoc said:
Very odd. It SHOULD work as long as the case switch is set to the JBOD setting.
Click to expand...

Well that is the thing, I am just placing these drives in the enclosure, and trying to use them, I was told I did not need the soft raid app to use with this drive, but maybe I do?

The case has no external RAID switches or settings, it is all done via software. There is not even a power switch, if I wasnt to power down, I have to unplug it, after dismounting my drives.

Is this thing plug and play? or does it need an app to use with it?

The other thing is, when I plug it in to power, there is a bright white light on the OWC logo on the front of the unit. When I plug in the USB-C cable it goes blue, and then nothing happens, no drives are visible, no fan goes on.
 
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