Hi all. I need advice.
Last fall I purchased a 4-Bay drive enclosure from OWC. A Thunderbay with Thunderbolt 2. I ran it almost a year without any problems. A few months ago they had a sale on the updated product with Thunderbolt 3. Since my 2017 iMac has TB3 ports, I decided to buy a new model.
I have the enclosure setup as 4 independent drives, each for a different purpose. Everything was fine for two weeks, then one of the drives Unexpectedly disconnected. I looked in Disk Utility and it didn't show up any longer. However, the other three drives were just fine. A few days later it happened again. Different drive.
After a few weeks of this nonsense and after going back and forth with OWC Tech Support, I sent it back. They held onto the unity for 3 weeks and shipped it back to me. Apparently they ran it for a few days and then replaced the logic board.
Now that I have it back, one of the drives keeps disappearing every couple days. I can't just remount the drive because it doesn't show up anywhere. I either have to power down the unit or remove and reinsert the drive. It's only the single drive that goes away. (And that drive is fairly new.)
I've tried changing the Thunderbolt port I'm using, but that doesn't seem to help. I could try switching the drive order around, but that didn't help when I sent it back the first time.
When I contacted OWC about it they told me to install SoftRAID because that would monitor the drive, but none of the drives are giving me errors or failing their SMART status.
I am using a 2 meter Thunderbolt cable, because that's the length I need to put the enclosure on the lower shelf of my desk.
Do I buy a new cable to see if that changes things? (If so, how do I ensure I get a good one?)
Do I sent my enclosure back to OWC? (And get a refund? And buy an older version?)
Do I take the time to move all my drives back to the old enclosure and see what happens? (And do I buy a TB2 to TB3 adapter so I can plug the enclosure into my dying 2011 iMac to see what happens?)
I use these drives for work and the idea that they'll just drop out on me in the middle of a project is terrifying, but at the same time, I don't want to chase my tail moving drives between enclosures when I could be getting actual work done. (Yeah, that sounds lame now that I type it out.)
Any other things I could try to diagnose the problem? Is it an issue with my iMac?
Any advice is appreciated. Thanks much.
- Your Friendly Neighborhood Philip
Last fall I purchased a 4-Bay drive enclosure from OWC. A Thunderbay with Thunderbolt 2. I ran it almost a year without any problems. A few months ago they had a sale on the updated product with Thunderbolt 3. Since my 2017 iMac has TB3 ports, I decided to buy a new model.
I have the enclosure setup as 4 independent drives, each for a different purpose. Everything was fine for two weeks, then one of the drives Unexpectedly disconnected. I looked in Disk Utility and it didn't show up any longer. However, the other three drives were just fine. A few days later it happened again. Different drive.
After a few weeks of this nonsense and after going back and forth with OWC Tech Support, I sent it back. They held onto the unity for 3 weeks and shipped it back to me. Apparently they ran it for a few days and then replaced the logic board.
Now that I have it back, one of the drives keeps disappearing every couple days. I can't just remount the drive because it doesn't show up anywhere. I either have to power down the unit or remove and reinsert the drive. It's only the single drive that goes away. (And that drive is fairly new.)
I've tried changing the Thunderbolt port I'm using, but that doesn't seem to help. I could try switching the drive order around, but that didn't help when I sent it back the first time.
When I contacted OWC about it they told me to install SoftRAID because that would monitor the drive, but none of the drives are giving me errors or failing their SMART status.
I am using a 2 meter Thunderbolt cable, because that's the length I need to put the enclosure on the lower shelf of my desk.
Do I buy a new cable to see if that changes things? (If so, how do I ensure I get a good one?)
Do I sent my enclosure back to OWC? (And get a refund? And buy an older version?)
Do I take the time to move all my drives back to the old enclosure and see what happens? (And do I buy a TB2 to TB3 adapter so I can plug the enclosure into my dying 2011 iMac to see what happens?)
I use these drives for work and the idea that they'll just drop out on me in the middle of a project is terrifying, but at the same time, I don't want to chase my tail moving drives between enclosures when I could be getting actual work done. (Yeah, that sounds lame now that I type it out.)
Any other things I could try to diagnose the problem? Is it an issue with my iMac?
Any advice is appreciated. Thanks much.
- Your Friendly Neighborhood Philip
