Mybook studio raid 0, empty after installing Mavericks

Thanks for your answer.

Drew Reece wrote:

I'm not sure that I fully agree with the idea that Time Machine will defragment data, I think it is a mis-translated concept that is simply easier to use to describe a nebulous idea… 'backup thinning'

Time Machine generates backups hourly, as a part of that process it also needs to delete older copies, for example at the end of the day, only the last copy is needed, at the end of the week & month the same situation is true. It also needs to account for backups that didn't complete.

This means it will periodically remove a lot of files & update links to the structure that describes the backup history (it looks like a bunch of folders, but they have metadata on them too).

I'm afraid there was some misunderstanding when I wrote:

AFAIK when the drive is idle after a backup it performs defragmentation.

I meant the time AFTER TM has displayed (via System Preferences > Time Machine) that the backup is completed (after that 'backup thinning' and everything else): THEN I can often hear the backup drive writing, and I had read that this means WD-internal defragmentation works (or RAID-1-copying/syncing), which are not controlled by OS X.

When I would switch off the backup drive (button on the rear) - without "WD Drive Manager" and "Safe ShutdownTM" - how would be ensured that these write operations would have been completed before shutting down the drive?

Ah now I understand. I would eject the drive, disconnect the cable & wait for silence.

There is very little control you have over the internal RAID controller if it mirrors the data in this delayed fashion the best you can hope for is that you can hear it finish.

That makes it clear what the WD tool was needed for. You should probably email WD for advice too they may have a better solution. It may be a simple as leaving it on until it spins down & sleeps when synced across the two HD's.

Ok, I've have had the same unpleasant experience as everyone else. Drobo 2nd Gen. 4 volume FireWire 800 unit, 8 TB's gone after OS X 10.9 upgrade. The odd thing is that I have a WD,My Book Studio 2, Raid 0 daisy chained to the Drobo that is unaffected, so far. I called Apple care today and explained the situation and pointed out the 20+ pages of posts regarding this issue. I was connected to a senior support advisor, who is now passing the information on to the engineering team at Apple. Thru my conversation with the support advisors at Apple care, it seems that the good folks at Apple are for the most part unaware of the situation ,at least these two individuals were. My point being, posting the unpleasant results of upgrading to Mavericks may not be getting the attention of the people who need to know the situation and can do something about correcting it. As posted earlier, a phone call may be more afflictive. Best of luck to everyone during this time, it will get better!!!! Apple Care 1-800-629-7753

I am one of the few people who has upgraded to OS X Mavericks with Western Digital My Book External Drives and experienced no trouble with the external drives. So I tried to figure out what I did that was different. Apparently I only installed part of the Western Digital Software package. Primarily the WDDriveManagerStatusMenu, so that I could see what the drive status was. Also the WD RAID Manager program is installed, but has only been used to display Drive Info. From what I am reading, if I had installed any additional Western Digital Software for these external drives I would have lost all the information on the drives. From what I have read on the internet, the only way to upgrade to OS X Mavericks and use these drives is to uninstall all the Western Digital Software before upgrading to OS X Mavericks.

Drew Reece wrote:

I would eject the drive, disconnect the cable & wait for silence.

OK I will ask WD about that too.

I intend to continue running Time Machine nightly via "Back Up Now" and wouldn't want to disconnect/connect the drive every day for that purpose.

I have been following these threads for 5 days now and had assumed they were all local (Australian). Only this evening noticed California and then UK on the next, i had assumed if you wheren't local then your location popped up. Not so; simply if you haven't entered your location in your details it doesnot show up. So i have entered mine now as i think knowing where people are also has some significance.

This evening (Tuesday) had call back from Apple care senior support advisor, who i had spoken to on Thursday,

says engineers still working on problem and wanted the model numbers for my thunderbolt duo and mybook studio drives and acurate title of wd software i have deleted and that was it.

No feed back from engineers at all, not even a tiny hint as to where they're at.. Apple does not even talk to its own people.

They just work on protocols and forward to next department (engineers?) when the protocols to fix problems don't work.

So this guy never really sees the process of illimination and can never really give you feed back; Mushroom? I know in terms of litergation etc companies like Apple have to be careful but with this current problem i think some customer care instead of Apple care is needed. FEEDBACK!

I did ask him if the Engineers were in California and he said no Asia . He said if they don't fix the problem there then it goes back to California.

Is David Grisez's mac working because he's an Apple hometown boy?

Sorry for waffling.

Hope they pull finger out and get this sorted soon as i am finding this is now affecting my bussiness too.

I too am one of the people not experiencing any issues with my WD MyBook external drives on Mavericks. Touch wood.

I have SmartWare installed but that is all I beleive. All three drives are connected using a FireWire to ThunderBolt adapter.

I fear they might just suddenly pack in and evrything will be lost so I guess I'll need to back up 8TB of data onto discs while I can, **** that's a lot of discs.

Just to keep you all updated, my fault log on the WD support site led them to reply with a request for a lot of detail including firmware versions and everything I'd done with the disc (everything short of log files, really).

Having provided the info, this is their response:

> Your case is forwarded to our second level of support for further investigation.

> As soon I will receive respond form them I will contact you back.

which, as with Apple, is the best I was expecting. Good that at least they're passing us on from "call centre" level!

Altery, have you tried any data recovery programs? I just lost months of video work, my 3 tb Raid1 is empty!

There are several reports of corruption with great success of recovery using Techtool Pro 7

http://www.micromat.com/products/techtool-pro

The other being Disk Warrior

http://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/

😊

From WD forums:

November 5, 2013 Update

You can now download the WD Software Uninstaller. This utility will remove Mac WD SmartWare and WD Drive Manager software. You can find the uninstaller under any of the Mac Drive Downloads sections such as the My Book Studio below.

Western Digital Software Unintaller released 11-4-2013

For Mac

WD Software Uninstaller

• File Name: WD_Software_Uninstaller_1_0_0_8.zip
• File Size: 1.26 MB
• Version: 1.0.0.8
• Publish Date: 11/4/2013

I don't think I have any WD software on my Mac since I the only WD drive I ever owned wouldn't run and I returned it, do you all think it's OK to run it the uninstaller anyway. Still using 10.8.5

My mate is using Mavericks and WD drives but isn't knowingly using any WD software. I assume this Mac should run the uninstaller.. Yes?

It will run on any recent OS version, Ive verified this, ...however if youre running mountain Lion, I see no purpose to running it in your instance.

I stand corrected – the uninstaller unearthed both the WD RAID Manager.app as well as the WDDDriveManagerService on the second Mac I previously assumed never had contact with a WD MyBook. Apparently, it had. I don’t have the foggiest where these files hid. Neither Spotlight nor Find were able to find any WD software on said MacBook Pro last time I checked, and I also checked the paths posted in this thread (/Library/LaunchAgents etc.) using the Terminal.

The clean-install iMac appears, well, “clean”, but small wonder. Whether the components mentioned above were responsible for my external drive mayhem? No idea. On the iMac, too, I hadn’t found any WD software components. But as my Macbook Pro has shown me, this doesn’t have to mean much. The stuff appears to be well-hidden. Or perhaps it installs itself on connecting a MyBook? I’ll see.

So, next steps will be to re-initialise my MyBook data vault, rescue one of the backups off it, then copy back the data. As I have multiple backups of all my data, I’ll give it a try. And keep a close eye on when/if drives fail again …