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You need the WD drive manager to config the various raid modes on some units. That's why you HAVE to use it.

So, if you want RAID, make sure you buy a unit that offers JBOD then you can use the RAID in OS X's Disk Utility (as long as RAID 0 or 1 is suitable for your needs).
 
Has anybody had or heard of anyone having a WD drive crap out on them that was Extended Journaled, no WD software installed, and connected through USB?

The common factors I'm picking up with most all of these reports is that there is either the WD software installed, or the disk is formatted as RAID, or it's connected through FireWire or some combination of all of these.

Has anyone experienced something outside of these factors?
 
I mean one could argue that WD should have offered updated software that works with Mavericks, but the problem is this case who really is pro-active making sure pre-existing software is compatible with a new OS version.

Pretty much every major software vendor on the planet and a good proportion of smaller ones and hardware manufacturers.

Even if WD didn't update their software, they could have at least taken the time to test it and issue a warning before the general availability of Mavericks.

I realise it would have been a massive investment of time for them to see if there was a problem but it might have gone something like this.

1. Install Mavericks DP (60 minutes)
2. Install their software (2 minutes)
3. Plug in drive and access it (20 seconds)
4. Realise drive is nuked (2 seconds)

They then could have raised an incident and investigated further.

It's not unreasonable to expect the largest hard drive manufacturer in the world to do this, especially when their crappy software is completely unnecessary in the first place and they are the ones who push it on people.

WD software worked fine pre-Mavericks, and obviously Apple changes something that breaks that software.

You really have no idea why their software broke - certainly not enough to be pointing fingers away from the obvious culprits (WD). They might have poorly implemented some protocol or standard, they might have been doing something hacky like exploiting some OS bug which was fixed in Mavericks, or the bug was present in the software from the start and Mavericks simply created the conditions necessary for the bug to be widespread rather than isolated.
 
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Nothing wrong with the disk drive. It's the junk software they give you with it. I always blow that junk away without even looking at it.

The last external drive I bought I spend a while figuring out how to remove a hidden partition. WD had to do a lot of non-standard magic to put that on and mess up an otherwise great product.
 
I'm kind of confused by those who seem to think that this is Apple's fault. Third party software houses write their products to work on Apple's, not the other way round.

OK, if Apple (or MS) didn't make beta versions of new OSes available then there would be some validity in that reasoning as software houses would not have chance to test prior to public release.

Taking the "it's Apple's fault" argument to its logical conclusion, it must be Apple's fault that software designed for the Lisa doesn't run under Mavericks?
 
I guess if its important, then re-download Mountain Lion, from the 'Purchased' section of the App Store. or run in VM.
 
Let this be a lesson to ALWAYS have the operating system itself be in charge of file system management.

I exclusively use Western Digital drives and set them up as bare drives. I have drives set up as a RAID through Disk Utility so OS X and have never had an issue.
 
Pretty much every major software vendor on the planet and a good proportion of smaller ones and hardware manufacturers.

Even if WD didn't update their software, they could have at least taken the time to test it and issue a warning before the general availability of Mavericks.



You really have no idea why their software broke - certainly not enough to be pointing fingers away from the obvious culprits (WD). They might have poorly implemented some protocol or standard, they might have been doing something hacky like exploiting some OS bug which was fixed in Mavericks, or the bug was present in the software from the start and Mavericks simply created the conditions necessary for the bug to be widespread rather than isolated.

The last time something like this happened was when the My Book Studio II was finally ran on a Lion OS, which had no Rosetta support, and some portions of the software quit working since it had not been updated for quite some time.
 
haha, already happened on my end... luckily had a backup of the stuff on my external. only thing lost was the the time machine backups :/


Happened to me to. External volume got wiped.

TechTool Pro7 volume rebuild fixed it in 10 seconds. Everything works normal.
So, if you want RAID, make sure you buy a unit that offers JBOD then you can use the RAID in OS X's Disk Utility (as long as RAID 0 or 1 is suitable for your needs).


Software raid is much less efficient as Hardware raid.

I test my Cineraid CR-h212 with both OSX software raid and hardware jumper switch RAID, and the difference was 20-30mb/s in favour of hardware raid + less CPU cycles used.
 
Sorry if this is a silly or obvious technical question, I'm having trouble following your second paragraph...

Are your WD drives formatted as RAID or something else? I am very hesitant at this point to plug in my WD MyBook that I use as a Time Machine drive that is formatted as OS Extended Journaled.

I have two WD MyBook external drives. Both are formatted with HFS+ and they are combined in a raid 0 using Apple's "disk utility".

No WD software in use what so ever. Still I'm screwed.

It's frustrating seeing all people "confirming" that it is some WD software fault. WD has pulled their software because of all reports but there is no proof yet. WD has also contacted me after writing in forums and are investigating it while, as usual, Apple keeps absolutely quiet.

We'll see whom is to blame. Right now, I think it is Apples fault. At least in my case, maybe there are several issues. From my point of view, I can't see how it can be WD's fault since I use none of their software and never have.
 
I have two WD MyBook external drives. Both are formatted with HFS+ and they are combined in a raid 0 using Apple's "disk utility".

No WD software in use what so ever. Still I'm screwed.

It's frustrating seeing all people "confirming" that it is some WD software fault. WD has pulled their software because of all reports but there is no proof yet. WD has also contacted me after writing in forums and are investigating it while, as usual, Apple keeps absolutely quiet.

We'll see whom is to blame. Right now, I think it is Apples fault. At least in my case, maybe there are several issues. From my point of view, I can't see how it can be WD's fault since I use none of their software and never have.

Try Techtool Pro 7 volume rebuild. I did that before touching the volume (which appeared as empty formatted volume) and it restored completely.

I also didn't have ANY WD software installed. Two WD Blue are in Cineraid HR-212 and were connected during update. Only one of two RAID0 partitions was damaged
 
I had PHYSICALLY removed the drive from the WD casing, formatted it several times over a couple of years, used it in a DOCK (for gawd sakes) and it still reverted into the MyBook empty ZOMBIE!

Damn, how the hell is that possible? Is there a separate hidden hardware partition on there or something? What model do you have?

I have a WD MyPassport USB 3.0 and it seems totally fine so far... But I want to make sure it stays that way!

Why don't they just sell empty hard drives, what's wrong with that??
 
Damn, how the hell is that possible? Is there a separate hidden hardware partition on there or something? What model do you have?

I have a WD MyPassport USB 3.0 and it seems totally fine so far... But I want to make sure it stays that way!

Why don't they just sell empty hard drives, what's wrong with that??

You can easily unhide this with Acronis.

Selling empty drives would be allot easier.... The extra partition uses up space with their automatic backup....and software.

There's better stuff out there 'free' to easily to all this..
 
This is why you don't install third-party crapware drivers. OS X can handle external drives just fine on its own, thank you.
 
months is not much development time.
...
Development cyclings are a lot longer. 6 months is consider fast for big things. Often times a minor update you should not expect stuff to break.

Absolute rubbish - they didn't even need to update their software, they just needed to test and warn people.

DP1 was released on June 10. Parallels managed to test and update Parallels Desktop 8 to run on Mavericks by June 17. 1 week for a much larger and more complex piece of software:
http://forum.parallels.com/showthre...Mavericks-10-9&p=689723&viewfull=1#post689723

They then got version 9 with full Mavericks host and guest support out the door 5 weeks before the GM hit.
 
At least I tried to upgrade the semi- sacrificial laptop first. Only lost about five documents that I really miss. (and a number of Gb of porn that I never watch anyway). Seems to have wiped out the time machine backup too. :mad: The other partition ( with the backup for the important computer) seems ok.
I wasn't aware of having any third party drive software installed, but may not have wiped what it came with. :confused:
*sigh*. It was time for a clean install anyway.
 
I upgraded to Mavericks, and it gave me a list of incompatible programs when I did. Just 2 things on there, one thing I forget and this WD drive manager thing. I know the software that comes with hard drives is total trash 99.9% of the time, but you actually need this to set up the RAID on certain WD drives (like mine). I haven't connected the drive yet, but I'm pretty sure the WD software has been broken for a long time on my Mac without causing data problems.

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This is why you don't install third-party crapware drivers. OS X can handle external drives just fine on its own, thank you.

Not RAID unless you want to do a software RAID.

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Has anybody had or heard of anyone having a WD drive crap out on them that was Extended Journaled, no WD software installed, and connected through USB?

The common factors I'm picking up with most all of these reports is that there is either the WD software installed, or the disk is formatted as RAID, or it's connected through FireWire or some combination of all of these.

Has anyone experienced something outside of these factors?

No, but WD drives are known to be generally unreliable. If you ask me, Hitachi is the best.

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So, if you want RAID, make sure you buy a unit that offers JBOD then you can use the RAID in OS X's Disk Utility (as long as RAID 0 or 1 is suitable for your needs).

Software RAID isn't as good. I'm pretty sure their software enables a hardware RAID mode on the drive.

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Looks like WD didn't even bother to test their software before Mavericks shipped.

:rolleyes:

Mavericks even warns you that it's incompatible during the installation process. It's KNOWN. Not sure what they were thinking.

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Then you should buy a piece of hardware that uses standard RAID configurations.

What is a "standard" RAID configuration?
 
Software raid is much less efficient as Hardware raid.

I read a test once where they found that for RAID 5, where a parity bit has to be calculated for every byte on disk, only ~5% of one CPU core was used.

I test my Cineraid CR-h212 with both OSX software raid and hardware jumper switch RAID, and the difference was 20-30mb/s in favour of hardware raid + less CPU cycles used.

Perhaps OS X s/w RAID can't utilise the cache in the Cineraid?

The risk with h/w RAID is that if the controller dies you will almost certainly need to replace it with an identical controller - and maybe even the same firmware version - in order to recover your data.

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Software RAID isn't as good.

But, as this story shows, a lot safer!



I'm pretty sure their software enables a hardware RAID mode on the drive.

I don't think so. I believe that it can RAID two disks in separate USB enclosures.
 
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