G-Speed Shuttle SSD / macOS Monterey / Apple Silicon M1 Max

Hello. I’m three weeks out from starting a local film job as a DIT and I just stumbled across this issue of M1 and G-Tech raid incompatibility and found this thread. I too would love to know what external drives folks are using that are working on their M1 Macs/Macbook Pros. I have a new MacBook Pro M1 Max that I’m going to be using to transcode and offload footage through. We estimate a total of 32 TB of total data for this shoot and I was hoping to get the producers to spring for the G-Technology 32TB G-SPEED Shuttle 8-Bay Thunderbolt 3 SSD RAID Array (8 x 4TB). But clearly that is going to be a big headache if it even works at all.

My questions are:

  1. It is just G-Tech raids that are having this issue or are all raid companies having an issue with the M1 Pro/Max chip?
  2. Are the Promise Raids working with M1 Pro/Max?
  3. What about single drive external enclosures like the SanDisk Professional 18TB G-DRIVE Pro Thunderbolt 3 External HDD?
  4. If you got something/anything to work, is it 100% or intermittently working?

Thanks in advance for any info you can provide. :slight_smile:

The most recent update to macOS Monterey greeted me with this notice upon reboot:

Legacy System Extension
Existing software on your system loaded a system extension signed by “Promise Technology Mobile Apps” which will be incompatible with a future version of macOS. Contact the developer for support.

Western Digital has known this was coming for a couple years. Apple notified developers far in advance. Western Digital support continues to tell me this is an Apple issue that will be addressed in a macOS update. It won’t.

In 2019, Apple informed developers that macOS Catalina will be the last macOS to fully support legacy system extensions, and we’ve been working with developers to transition their software.

What is Western Digital going to do about the two $10K door stops I have sitting under my desk.

Legacy System Extension
Existing software on your system loaded a system extension signed by “Promise Technology Mobile Apps” which will be incompatible with a future version of macOS. Contact the developer for support.

In 2019, Apple informed developers that macOS Catalina will be the last macOS to fully support legacy system extensions, and we’ve been working with developers to transition their software.

So is it fully decided that these drives are NEVER going to work on an M1 Apple machine?

I bought one used as Sandisk assured me it should work, as did Apple. My m1 mac should be here in a few days so fingers crossed…

My employee managed to mount G-Tech Shuttle XL 70TB drive to our new Mac mini M1 (works as a file server in our studio). The drive works well for a while and then it unmount and restarts. This is super annoying! Nothing new from WD?

Sounds about right. I am able to get a couple days out of my SSD RAID before it randomly unmounts, trashing work and losing file along the way. Such a wonderful experience. Two 32TB SSD $10K door stops.

Just got my new MacBook Pro M1 Max, and trying to migrate my G-Speed Shuttle XL from my old 2015 MacBook Pro. Followed the instructions on the WD site, and downloaded what I thought would be the same G-Speed Software Utility (https://support.g-technology.com/downloads.aspx?lang=en and opened the G-Speed Software Utility section and clicked the download button for Mac OS 10.12+). What downloaded and installed was titled G-Raid Software Utility instead??? I phoned support and was assured that this would work fine with my G-Speed Shuttle XL. Just wondering if everyone else is also seeing the G-Raid Software Utility instead of the G-Speed Software Utility using the G-Speed Shuttle XL on M1 silicon Macs?

Note: I understand there are ongoing issues with using the software RAID G-Speed devices on M1 Macs, but I’m just trying to confirm whether the software utility download is an errant link or correct. Thanks.

The Promise driver R_MacDrv_V6_2_17-3 was installed but did not solve the problem.
The Sandisk S_USB_Filtrer_MacDrv_V3_2-5 enabled my G-Speed Studio R on M1 MacBook Air. I will let it grind away for now, then install same on MacBook Pro M1 Max.

…I found that both of the drivers noted above are necessary to use the G-Speed Studio R 12 tb on MacBook Pro M1 Max and Air; one to connect and one to manage the device.

Any chance Western Digital could provide an update on this issue? I still have two very expensive 32TB door stops and Western Digital has provided NO help. I have tried all the hacks, all the suggestions and while drives will sometimes mount, they don’t stay mounted, the access speed is 10% of what it should be, and overall the drive is useless.

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Same here! I have a 24TB G Shuttle and a 60TB G Shuttle, ive spent close to $10K between the two of them and was ensured by apple and G-Tech they would work with my M1 laptop and M1 MAC STUDIO and neither work with EITHER. Ive spent days troubleshooting and trying every option and nothing has worked. Its completely absurd!

Any updates? Any chance WD could let us know if they have any intention of making these two $10K door stops I own work under Monterey and now Ventura. Apple told manufacturers over two years ago that the current model of drivers would no longer work, and Ventura is the death sentence.

None of the hacks using Promise drivers work well if at all under Monterey (with Apple silicon) and none of them will work on Ventura.

What is Western Digital’s plan? If there is no intention to fix this, I’d like to talk about some sort of refund or rebate.

THANK YOU!

This was extremely helpful and worked for me with my new M1 studio. Made an account just to say thank you!

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Glad it helped!

Considering how many folks have run into this problem, not sure why they didn’t post this far and wide on their support forum, but perhaps I missed it:

Due to how the M1 Mac computers function and work with our G-Speed Shuttle units, we have released a driver update that needs to be installed in order for the G-Speed Shuttle to work properly with the M1 Mac computers. We have a Knowledge base article that you can find below. There you can find the download for the Driver itself, and step by step instructions with pictures on how to install it:

https://support-en.g-technology.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/31112/kw/m1

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Has anyone experienced issues with the latest Mac OS Ventura -
I had 2 x Shuttle XL 48TB working fine on my M1 Mac with Monterey after following the instructions above.
I Updated last night to latest Ventura and my system just reboots on startup when the drives are plugged in. I tried re-running the install process but this did nothing to fix the issues.

Any help or advice much appreciated -

Same issue noted here: G-Speed Shuttle XL and M1 MBP running MacOS Ventura - #4 by goxmedia

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This is what got it working on my Mac Studio - hopefully this solution gets a bit easier to find for folks. Thanks welshofer for posting this link!

The latest update to macOS has made it clear that the end is near for these extensions.

Sonoma will be the end.

What is Western Digital going to do to keep these two $10K RAIDs under my desk from becoming door stops?

I used to work at Apple. I was in the meetings years ago where WD was given a heads up that this was coming. Same with Promise and G-Tech.

WD, what’s your plan?