Mavericks corrupts external hard drive

This problem is not only with Western Digital. This just happened to me. I'm using Seagate 4TB drives in a OWC enclosure. No Western Digital drives or Software. The configuration was 4x4TB drives set to RAID 5. I just lost about 6TB of data. Some is backed up, but the whole point of RAID is to keep your data more secure. Thank you Apple

I'm a professional photographer and your OS just lost me about 6 months of clients work which I now have to spend time money and effort to recover. What is the point of Beta testing an OS? This is not some program glitch this is a serious issue - Wiping Hard Drives? How did this go unnoticed. And as soon as the issue was noticed why were all Mavericks users not informed immediately! Shocking. I'll be following this up because I am more than angry at this. This is a major, major problem you've stuck me with, and I'll be asking plenty what you are going to do about it.

blindeyetom

configuration was 4x4TB drives set to RAID 5

Yes, this is known to happen in RAID arrays and certainly not issolated to WD

Could you list, for the assistance of others which model and year Mac you are using (i.e. "macbook Pro 2009" etc) and is this the OWC RAID enclosure you used? :

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Stardom/SR4WBS3/

If so, was it running the

firmware ( JMB394_RAIDON_20130508.BIN ) ?

http://www.stardom.com.tw/sohoraid_sr4_spec.html

blindeyetom wrote:

I just lost about 6TB of data. Some is backed up, but the whole point of RAID is to keep your data more secure. Thank you Apple

I'm a professional photographer and your OS just lost me about 6 months of clients work which I now have to spend time money and effort to recover.

The whole point of RAID is NOT to keep your data more secure. Neither is its purpose to backup data nor archive data. Its purpose is to allow critical data to be availble for users 24/7 or to increase the performance of the disk subsystem, as in video editing, etc.. RAID is NOT a substitute for maintaining backups and archives. Do you know the difference between a backup and an archive? You should. And with large drives, ie those 2TB and larger, with RAID you are going to have an unrecoverble read error at some point - it's a mathmatical certainty.

Google has detemined that the best backup and archiving method is to simply keep three copies of the same data on three different drives, preferably at three different locations. I keep archives off-site.

Besides this, anyone who installs the first release of ANY update on a server or RAID setup deserves what they get. No IT dept worth anything does this on a server. In fact, updates headed for a critical system should be tested on a test machine before applying to your production system. Installed 10.9.0? On a critical production machine? Are you NUTS? Heck, I wouldn't install an iTunes update on a production machine without testing it, never mind an OS update on a server.

Sorry mang, but the data loss is your fault, not Apples. Hard lesson to learn. Next time buy plenty of hard drives and keep backups and archives. Then you will be able to sleep at night.

RogerOut

The whole point of RAID is NOT to keep your data more secure.....etc. etc.

Not everyone knows about backups vs. archives, and yes RAID has nothing to do with data security

,...but its uncouth to 'kick a person' when theyre down.

Ok,... be a bit nicer. Be constructive about "in the future for security do ABC...." not .."well tough luck you should have known better". Ok. 😊

1. Work the 'problem'

2. add assistance if possible / helpful information.

3. test solutions and look for solutions you know about but others may not.

Data loss is painful, and if someone losses massive amounts of data their job, livelihood etc. depends on, ..dont wag your finger at a victim of such a loss.

Peace 😍

Just to update folks, I opened cases with Apple and WD. Apple seemed pretty indifferent about it, but WD called me back a few days after I contacted them and helped me download and activate recovery software (Ontrack EasyRecovery Professional). So if you are in need of recovery options, this is one to consider.

Yes I do know the difference between an archive and a backup, and yes a lot of my stuff is backed up and yes I should have backed up more often. Thanks for those fascinating and useful comments. But my issue is that this is a problem with the OS that should have been identified in Beta, really. A major issue such as RAID configured drives being automatically formatted was not spotted and that IS Apple's fault. Beyond that, the minute this issue started occuring Apple should have at least informed it's customers. They have our Apple I.D., there is a notification center on the computer... Multiple options there.

Seriously, I know what I'm doing. I know data loss is a certainty. But to have it happen in this way and you say it's not Apple's fault? Really? The fact that their operating system does this IS their fault, not mine. The fact all the data is not backed up is my fault yes but that's not the issue here. The issue is there is a major fault with an operating system.

And by the way, thanks for treating me like some idiot in your reply. I hope you feel satisfied with your smugness. Hopefully you have something positive to contribute in the future.

As I say I fully accept responsibility for not having every last file backed up. Should have known better than to comment on a forum then eh? There's always someone on these things looking to just put in a snide comment or two.

The enclosure I'm using is this one: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MRP1UF8U3EP/ An OWC Mercury Rack Pro.

I don't know what the firmware etc is on that model. I'm currently going through the tedious process of rolling back my OS on my machines so I can start assessing the damage and restoring backups, recovering files etc.

It was plugged into an Imac 12.2 (mid 2011) via Firewire.

I was provided with a key to "EasyRecovery 11 Professional" by WD and I'm just trying it out right now and so far it is working great. With it, I am able to browse the my unmountable partition and recover files with filenames and the correct folder structure. So far, only one folder has failed.

I experienced unmountable partitions since I juse concatinated disc so I'm not sure if it will work as good as with you who got empty partitions (mine could have been empty as well, I just don't know since I can't mount it after the partition table change).

I used the feature called "explore" or something like that on the partition which gives you a file browser with your entire structure intact and you can simply click on the folder or files you want to recover and save it to another hard drive.

PlotinusVeritas wrote:

RogerOut

The whole point of RAID is NOT to keep your data more secure.....etc. etc.

Not everyone knows about backups vs. archives, and yes RAID has nothing to do with data security

,...but its uncouth to 'kick a person' when theyre down.

Ok,... be a bit nicer. Be constructive about "in the future for security do ABC...." not .."well tough luck you should have known better". Ok. 😊

1. Work the 'problem'

2. add assistance if possible / helpful information.

3. test solutions and look for solutions you know about but others may not.

Data loss is painful, and if someone losses massive amounts of data their job, livelihood etc. depends on, ..dont wag your finger at a victim of such a loss.

Peace 😍

Only a millennial views the world like that. Life too rough? Want daddy to wipe your tears with a tissue? j/k lol. 90% of what I wrote was rhetorical, an adult ought not to take those statements personally.

There is no excuse for anyone these days to make such a basic mistake. Everyone knows about cloud backup services, or Time Machine, or that drives are incredibly cheap, $150 for 2TB. At that price, buy a handful of them, do your due diligence with backups, and develop an achiving routine. Can't imagine spending $1,000 for backup drives? Consider what your hourly rate is worth and then multiply that times a weeks worth of data recovery work. If your time is worth $100 an hour, that's $4,000 in lost production, never mind the value of the data itself. Some data is literally priceless, like digital photos. Those drives look pretty cheap now...

Buy a second machine, used perhaps, and use it as a test machine for OS updates. And never, ever, install version 1.0 of anything. iOS 7 is now in iteration 3, same with the latest iTunes, in just a few weeks since their release. Can't wait a few weeks to update? You need to if you're serious about avoiding disasters like this.

Believe me, I am furious with Apple for these sorts of releases. They've been going downhill for the past 2.5 years in this regard and as Apple is dumbing down all their software, they also seem to be dumbing down their beta testing. So, knowing that, cover your bases.

Peace. 😀

Mavericks turned out to be the most expensive OS upgrade ever for me.

RogerOut, I think you miss the point completely. PontiusVeritas is trying in a very gentle way to point out that you really need to learn basic manners to participate in a forum like this. People are just going to avoid reading anything you have to say otherwise. Sarcasm, lol(s), being "rhetorical" etc is not helpful and just makes people feel worse. Please try to avoid the temptation to rub salt into wounds to make you feel better about yousrself.

There are many lessons for all involved here, one of which is compassion for those who have lost data.

For many people this is the digital equivalent of a force majeure "Act of God" physical event (fire, flood, earthquake, volcanic eruption, etc) which has resulted in total data loss.

This will be a reminder of why you have offsite backups to one or more locations if the data is important to you.

RAID can only mitigate component or drive failure not total digital or physical destruction.

RogerOut wrote:

There is no excuse for anyone these days to make such a basic mistake. Everyone knows about cloud backup services, or Time Machine, or that drives are incredibly cheap, $150 for 2TB. At that price, buy a handful of them, do your due diligence with backups, and develop an achiving routine.

No grasshopper, not everyone knows,

Especially when you can't anticipate Mavericks wiping out the primary backup disk/system/raid.

Not everyone thinks like you, no one will want to think like you with your attitude and smugness here on the forums. PV made a very good point and you just brushed it off in a haughty and sarcastic manner.

From here on out, any future rudeness will get reported to the mods and lest ye not take warning, the banhammer may befall thee.

I had the foresight to not upgrade my Mini server for performance reasons when reports started coming in about the speed issues. Then the RAID issue just exploded across the net...

I'm tagging along with Gramps, you are way too rude to be considered helpful in your current mindset.

I've only been working with computers for 10 years, forums for 7 years, and Macs for 3 years.

Do I know everything? Nope!

Do I have the money for a perfect backup system? Nope!

Do I attempt to keep data secure for a longevity standpoint? Yes indeed.

How? WD RAID disks.

Is it fault tolerant ? Yes

Is it corruption tolerant? Not completely

Plus not everyone's methods madness is the same as yours. So, lighten up, contribute, help, learn who knows their stuff and lower your pride a few notches so you can learn too.

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