OS X 10.6.7 vs NDAS

Question

Level 1

9 points

OS X 10.6.7 vs NDAS

I installed the update to 10.6.7 a couple of days ago and at first noticed nothing strange at all.

Last night when I went booted my MacBook I left it alone and went to do other things. Returning a couple of hours later the finder had still not launched even though applications were available in the Dock.

After several panics, re-boots and wishing I had hair left to rip out I noticed others were having issues with NDAS devices.

Yes, there is some conflict that need to be fixed, and the short term solution is to shut the drive off or access it via an alternate port.

It does seem that the Windoze formatted drive I use at work had no issues while the Mac formatted drive at home has some conflict that needs addressing - really soon. Both drives are identical with the exception of the format.

My NDAS devices are in IOCELL

MacBook Pro 17", Mac OS X (10.6.7), iPhone 3G 16G, iPad 64G 3G

Posted on Mar 26, 2011 8:49 AM

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Answer 1

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Mar 26, 2011 8:58 AM in response to Lyle Rawlins

Panics are often driver related. Does it use a driver? is there an update? how about firmware/bridge?

So you think 10.6.7 'broke' some network attached storage device enclosure support?

HP NAS MediaSmart Server type? running Windows Home Server?

I really have not seen many, maybe in the Networking forum area?

If you do use NTFS formatted drives, buy Paragon NTFS is more reliable to mount, read and for writing.

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Answer 2

Mar 26, 2011 8:59 AM in response to Lyle Rawlins

Have you asked IOCELL this question?

It appears that you should start there seeing as how it is a third party piece of hardware.

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Allan
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Answer 3

Lyle Rawlins Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 26, 2011 9:12 AM in response to Allan Eckert

Yes there are drivers involved from IOCELL and I will contact them to find if they have any updates. I've had the enclosures for about 6 months with no indication of updates on their website.

Also I will check Paragon NTFS to see if is compatible with these enclosures.

Bye,

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Answer 4

Lyle Rawlins Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 26, 2011 9:28 AM in response to Lyle Rawlins

Come to think of it I am using Tuxera NTFS, but will check out Paragon.

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Answer 5

Mar 26, 2011 3:21 PM in response to Lyle Rawlins

Problem solved. boot MAC to your installation disk and use disk utility. run both Repair Disk and Repair Disk Permissions (From Disk) REBOOT.
My problem started after 10.6.7 update was installed, Network drives would mount but I couldn't open, the only way to get control of my MAC was to turn off the power to my network drives, BUT then I would get the MAC screen of death. thank god it wasn't BLUE.

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Answer 6

Lyle Rawlins Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 26, 2011 7:11 PM in response to Studio Nation

That was the first thing I tried. I even ran it twice.

As long as the NDAS drive is on my finder will not launch even after a system reinstall.

I will see how it behaves with the NTFS formatted drive at work on Monday.

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Answer 7

Mar 27, 2011 1:18 AM in response to Lyle Rawlins

WOW, I wrote my post too soon. after about 30min I ended up in the same boat. problem not solved. I did some more searching and came up with this, in the support tab on apple.com search for support downloads and download MAC osx update 10.6.6 combo. combo is the key, with the combo update you should be able to back step back down to 10.6.6. if you can't back step then install 10.6 from your SL Disk and update back to 10.6.6 "I did this, then found out what combo means"
NOW EVERYTHING IS WORKING GREAT, Problem is fixed and I will wait for 10.6.8.... and skip over 10.6.7

Sorry for the bad post.

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Answer 8

Lyle Rawlins Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 27, 2011 5:21 PM in response to Studio Nation

I ran disc utility and it came back there were errors on the disc that could not be fixed. I had already backed everything up so I reformatted the drive. After formatting I could still not connect to the drive and when turned off I got a panic again.

I have reinstalled 10.6.6 and will also wait for 10.6.8 to come out or find another network enclosure for the drive.

Nothing like having wasted 6 or 8 hours for nothing!

Bye for now

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Answer 9

R C-R

Level 6

17,800 points

Mar 28, 2011 3:36 AM in response to Lyle Rawlins

Lyle Rawlins wrote:
I have reinstalled 10.6.6 and will also wait for 10.6.8 to come out or find another network enclosure for the drive.

Or hopefully just wait until IOCELL releases a fully debugged, final release version driver for Snow Leopard. I notice from http://www.iocellnetworks.com/support-main/#Drivers that the available Snow Leopard driver is still a beta version.

Personally, I would not trust my data to such a device if it required a beta version driver, even if it appeared to be working OK with 10.6.6. That's because in the computer industry the "beta" designation means the software may still have known bugs or not be fully tested -- essentially that you use it at your own risk.

If it were me, as a temporary workaround I would remove the beta driver & attached the device directly to the Mac via a USB port, & if necessary use File Sharing to make its contents available to other computers on my local network (which of course means that Mac has to be powered up for the other computers to access those contents). I don't know if that would work for you, but if it might you might want to check the first item in the "USB / eSATA" section of http://www.iocellnetworks.com/support-main/ ("After plugging into the USB or eSATA port I cannot see NETDISK in My Computer") for some tips about the requirements for that setup.

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Answer 10

Creep89

Level 1

0 points

Mar 28, 2011 12:13 PM in response to R C-R

I've experienced the same issues with my NDAS from IOCELL. So I wrote to the IOCELL support but.. Well.. They have no idea how to fix this issue with the driver and the kernel panic.

"Thank you for the notice. Seeing that you have trouble with NDAS after upgrading to OS 10.6.7, we might have a problem with the latest release from Apple."

Arghs.. Yeah. LoL. Great news.

I sent some logs and information about my MacBook's to IOCELL. Maybe they will fix the driver, but I didn't think so. They told me to install the older version of the NDAS driver 1.8.3 instead of the newer one (1.8.4). Ximeta developed this protocol, but the latest driver is a year old. Because of the fact that Lion will have a 64bit kernel, I asked them whether they will release a new driver or not, but no answer yet..

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Answer 11

R C-R

Level 6

17,800 points

Mar 28, 2011 1:54 PM in response to Creep89

Unfortunately, what little I can find about NDAS suggests that it is a proprietary protocol patented by Ximeta but that the company is struggling with the development of high quality, bug-free drivers, especially for platforms other than Windows. Even for that platform there apparently are still unresolved data corruption problems when multiple computers connect to the same NDAS device.

The "user satisfaction survey" that both Ximeta & IOCELL driver download sites link to begins with the comment that "We need your help to improve NDAS quality and to meet your network storage needs." This seems ominous, as if the protocol itself isn't as yet fully developed, much less the drivers that implement it. 😟

As I said, I think it might be best to use the device as a USB enclosure for now & hope that this "next generation" network connection technology matures into a solid, reliable one.

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Answer 12

zman17

Level 1

0 points

Apr 19, 2011 6:44 PM in response to R C-R

Any update on this issue. I can't find anything to address?

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Answer 13

Apr 30, 2011 8:41 PM in response to Lyle Rawlins

I'm having the same problem with my iMac running 10.6.7. Oddly enough I also have a macbook running 10.6.7 which doesn't have the problem. I've tried every recommendation on my imac and nothing has worked.

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Answer 14

bobbles!

Level 1

0 points

Jun 25, 2011 8:34 PM in response to Lyle Rawlins

I just updated to 10.6.8 and -- guess what -- my NDAS device still wasn't working.

After poking around a little, I found out that some people have solved their problems with external NDAS devices and Snow Leopard by disabling spotlight indexing on their NDAS device.

I created the directory .metadata_never_index in the root directory of my drive and it's been working ever since!

Good luck

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Answer 15

MacTavish

Level 2

229 points

Aug 2, 2011 8:24 PM in response to Lyle Rawlins

support@Ximeta.com

I suggest everyone that owns one as well as anyone you know that owns one write to the support address above, I have NOT heard from Ximeta in two days now. I did however hear back via email today (8-2-11) from Iocell support (the company that markets the boxes), here is the part that counts:

"Ximeta has moved operations as far as I know overseas, so here in IOCELL tech support we don't have a lot of contact with the developers any more. It is getting anxious though. I think the release of the latest MAC will spark some extra emails too."

Ximeta is the company that writes the horrible drivers for the hardware, when they feel like it, last update was 1.8.4, OVER 1.5 years a go, and they obviously don't own a Mac computer otherwise they might have felt compelled to actually keep up with the OS updates and would have discovered as we all have, that the drivers NO longer work, which means the product no longer works as designed. My other shock was Iocell stating they "don't have a lot of contact" with them, geez how do they expect to sell any product, why not hire someone to write drivers that work and test them in house. Cannot recommend these NDAS products to my clients anymore, looks like standard NAS boxes are the only way to go for networked drives.

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