LaCie 6Big - M1 Mac Mini Driver

Whelp, I learned a lovely lesson about Lacie today. Their customer driver extensions on MacOS are ultimately as bad as I figured they would be and it seems to have bitten them in the ***. It seems their current drivers aren't compatible with M1 Mac minis (and I haven't seen a single post/article mentioning this). I was planning on migrating my Plex server from an i3 Mac mini to an M1 based device, but now I have to reshuffle my setup with another one of my computers due to lack of driver compatibility (and no advertised lack of support). I'm seriously considering getting rid of my Lacie 6Big at this point and swapping it out for an OWC thunderbolt 3 rack supported DAC. -_-. I'm hoping other people just read this because honestly, I have nothing but nasty remarks towards Lacie in this regarding considering their #1 use for their RAIDs involves the people who will be buying M1 Macs. Does anyone have a workaround for this?

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There is another thread, below, discussing this topic. We are trying to get as many people affected to reply/post there, instead, so we may begin to build a compelling case to LaCie to acknowledge and address this issue.

Please check out....

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252212343?login=true&page=2

jc

  • July 25 - 2021. I have restored the speed on my 20TB 5BIG by converting the whole box to OWC SoftRaid PRO. After LaCie fixed the driver and allowed the drive to mount, I was getting speeds in the order of 49 MB/sec write and 225 MB/sec read ..... after converting to SoftRaid, with a the RAID loaded to about 75% of its capacity I am getting speeds in the 300 / 500 range.

    Reply if you want details.

    jc

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July 25 - 2021. I have restored the speed on my 20TB 5BIG by converting the whole box to OWC SoftRaid PRO. After LaCie fixed the driver and allowed the drive to mount, I was getting speeds in the order of 49 MB/sec write and 225 MB/sec read ..... after converting to SoftRaid, with a the RAID loaded to about 75% of its capacity I am getting speeds in the 300 / 500 range.

Reply if you want details.

jc

  • Interesting! How did you do that?

  • I just wanted to add to your comment, that I also switched to softraid and getting speeds of almost 1000MB/s write and read. I purchased a Lacie 6Big just last week, and was very disappointed with the out of the box performance and don't get me started about their support. So I am still able to return it, but I just installed the trial version of softraid 6 and made a RAID 5 configuration and getting finally the write speeds advertised (or almost) on an M1 macbook pro. It was very easy, and very fast to setup. I have no long time experience with softraid, but at least their forums are highly active and it seems they are up to date with apple silicon. Hope that helps.

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I have two G Tech drives a Studio R and Studio XL both of which have run fine for years they are great and stable as and run on an older I Mac and I Mac Pro but friends have and still run fine on my 2015 Mac Book. I just proudly brought the new I Mac (brought last week, took seven weeks to get) spec'ed with more ram to then run Da Vinci Resolve 17 on and the two drives don't mount -- I am told they won't as the M1 chip is too modern and its not a hardware fault of the Mac but my drives -- I have spent about 8k on these drives and used them for some time in my work as an editor they are great drives and I am gutted that a brand new I Mac and now my wives new Mac book Air also M1 (brought today)won't see these drive. Strange thing is a 2014 G Tech Studio drive (6 TB) works fine so how come these two don't?????? Its thousands of dollars wasted when you think you are buying the best out. I don't know what to do as i need these drives for work and the content on them for work and they are great drives but i cant see them. NO where does it say from Apple that drives won't work with an M1 Mac not anywhere and its gutting to have invested in two you devices from the the I mac and Air and if I could return all my products I just about would as this is thousands of dollars of equipment that really doesn't do the job. Apple support say its not their fault that other companies don't keep up with them Does anyone have any ideas on this or any drivers from G tech???

Hi, All.

I have the same problem.

Macbook pro 13" M1 6Big Thunderbolt 3 connection

Write/ 40 Read/ 340

Same problem here. 50 MB/s wite, about 250 MB/s read. Brandnew Macbook Air M1. Lacie 6big 48TB.

This absolutely breaks my workflow. Honestly: Even if they fix it, I am not going to touch a Lacie product ever again. Its been a year since the release of M1. They should at least openly communicate incompatibility and admit their unwillingness to provide a solution.

Since I need to access all my video and photo files on a fast drive, I'll probably switch over my hard drives from the Lacie device into another enclosure. Bye bye Lacie.

hi peeps. Dunno if this might help. Found a solution that seems to work. I had as well 43MB-430MB W/R, Lacie Big 6 84TB, MacBook Pro 13" M1. just did this and jumped to 1000MB/s for both R/W

  • Apple disc utility - erase
  • SoftRaid 6.2.1 Initialize
  • SoftRAid New Volume RAID 0

=> LaCie RAID Manager keeps recognizing the Big 6 as Raid 5 and does not appear to have issues with the new system as if nothing happened. If true or not this I don't know yet. the speed jumped up to 1000, see attachment. it's not the 1400/MB/s they declared but temporarily better. is it safe ? I have no clue

I just forwarded the same info to Lacie's support as the person I got in touch with seemed to not know as well.

asked/suggested that Lacie might need to check with SoftRaid Driver and possibly fix. suggested warranty should be be extended and not start until they resolve problem. 43MB/s is not acceptable for a professional external drive + should offer option of refund if not resolved within 60 days + keep all clients with this issue informed and demonstrate support.

  • Hi, any new infos from Lacie? Have same Problem on my M1. Using Soft Raid Beta Version now.

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Hi, Same problem here, I have a new apple M1 max and my Lacie 6big 60to in Raid 5 is really slow. 45 mb/s in write speed and 350 mb/s for the read speed with thunderbolt 3 of course. I've tried with usb cable instead of thunderbolt but still the same. Before I had an Imac without apple silicon and my 6 big was working as expected. I can see by this forum that this problem have been here for more than a year now. It's crazy that lacie didn't manage to find a solution for their product to work correctly with apple silicon.

I'm having the same problem now. I'm currently using a MacBook Pro (16 inch, 2021) Apple M1 Max 64 GB computer with macOS Monterey 12.2.1 system.  My LaCie 6big Thunderbolt 3 ( 6x4 20 TB ) RAID System gives the following values with Thunderbolt 3 cable.

I am having the same issue, Blackmagic 35 WRITE; 300 READ. 6BIG, 32 TB. Raid6, LaCieRaidManager 2.9.3.225 (current version), all firmwares up to date. The 2Big 32 TB RAID0 is about 300/300.

I thought the 6Big was hardware RAID, why does it have such troubles? Seagate, please fix this – basically this is hyper expensive Hardware not working anymore due to software problems.

  • My problem also continues. I wonder when Lacie or Apple will fix this issue. Everyone blames each other. It's us users who get upset.=((

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I've been trying out my Lacie 6big 40Tb on a new M1 Mac Mini at 12.2.1. Experiencing same problem with read and write speeds. Getting about 40 WRITE, 400 READ. Latest version of LacieRaidManager and all firmware up to date.

I a having the same issue with my M1 Max. 45mb/Read 320/right at Raid 5. This broke my workflow :( Off loading my files now and changing to OWC

I have the same issue with my LaCie 6big TB3. Interestingly ONLY in RAID 5. When I re-initialize towards RAID 0, the read/write speed goes up to 1000 Mb/s+. I am in contact with LaCie support. We‘ll see….

Hi! Anyone has any news about this issue? Just bought my Mac Studio today and found out about this problem.. I have a LaCie 6big 84tb RAID 5 and same as everybody here I'm getting 50 mb/s write and 350 mb/s read speed. It's been so long and still no solution? What in the world

Hi Adam. I am also still experiencing the same issue as you, both my M1 Mac mini or my M1 Max Mac Studio. There's nothing we can do until Lacie fixes the driver.

Personally, I am moving away from Lacie. Either to another SAS or switch to NAS and Gigabit ethernet for future proofing.

Synology DiskStation DS1821+ or OWC ThunderBay 8

50MB/s write speed and 355MD/s read. Lacie 6Big on M1 Max. Any news?

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