TerraMaster Forum

Reference: TERRAMASTER D2-300 USB3.1 (5Gbps)

Hello,

I have the above unit which has been running a few months. It is connected to a MacMini running Monterey which sits as a stand-alone server, hardly ever under load. I have a 4TB WD drive in each bay of the Terramaster. Each disk loads onto the desktop as a separate drive.

The MacMini backs up to the Terramaster via TimeMachine. It selects each disk alternately.

I am having to unplug the USB from the Terramaster on a daily basis - It completes a few backups and then seems to "crash" and the MacMini can no longer backup to it, Time Machine just says "Preparing Backup" and does not stop, seems to just hang with that message even for days if not unplugged - It seems it never starts the backup because it remains "preparing". If I unplug the USB then the MacMini does a backup without problem but by the next day it is stuck in the same loop "Preparing Backup".

Is there something I can do about this? I wonder if the unit is defective?

D2-300 as a USB storage is a two-disk hard disk box.
I don't quite understand the information you fed back. If you use it as a hard disk box to troubleshoot the issue, you need to troubleshoot whether the HDD is faulty or the USB cable is faulty.
Or you can try a normal copy to see if there is a problem.

Hello,

There's nothing wrong with the cable or the drives inside. The first few backups work fine then it goes into some kind of loop where Time Machine just carries on saying "Preparing Backup" and the drive light on the front of the Terramaster flashes orange.. It then stays like this, ongoing (until I unplug it). If I unplug the USB cable the drives come off the desktop, I plug the drive back in and then the drives remount and it backs up as normal - By the next day it is stuck in the "Preparing Backup" loop again and I have to unplug.

Perhaps there is some software conflict, or something. Can the firmware in the Terramaster be updated?

If not I will just return it for a refund, bought it from Amazon so they will give money back or replace, will then get another brand I guess.

Please make sure your drives are all healthy.

As I said before, the drives themselves are functioning perfectly. If I place them into another enclosure then they work absolutely as they should.

You are using backup software and we cannot determine which process is causing the problem.
You can download the Disk Speed Test APP software to read and write the disk for 24 hours to see if the same failure will occur.
In addition, the orange status of HDD means that there is an error in the reading process, or the prompt of HDD failure.
In the process of backing up data, you can try to close the mac hibernation option.