need both pegasus and pegasuspro drivers? which ones?

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Larry Yaeger posted this 4 weeks ago

I have a mix of 3 Pegasus2 R8, 2 Pegasus3 R8, and 1 Pegasus R12 volumes hanging off my Mac Studio. I have both com.promise.driverkit.pegasus.dext version 21.1.0 and com.promise.driverkit.pegasuspro.dext version 22.1.7 installed. The pegasus version at least used to be required for the Pegasus2 and Pegasus3 drives and is the latest version in the Downloads > Drivers section for those models. I believe when I installed the Pegasus 5 it required the pegasuspro driver and (I think) it shipped with this driver version. Disturbingly, the Pegasus R12 is not represented anywhere in Current Products and the Pegasus5 R12 lists no drivers. And the latest Pegasus Pro driver listed is 22.0.2. My 22.1.7 isn't listed anywhere I could find from the GUI, though it is findable using Google's site: functionality.

My main question is:  Do I really require both pegasus and pegasuspro drivers? Note that the older Promise Utility.app shows only the Pegasus2 and Pegasus3 drives, not the R12, whereas the PROMISE Utility Pro.app shows all of the drives.

My secondary question is:  How can I determine the latest driver for the Pegasus R12 and where can I download it? Despite being just barely over 1 year old Promise seems to have abandoned it for the Pegasus5 R12. (Yeah, I wish I'd waited.)

The motivation for investigating this is that one of my Pegasus2 drives has been dropping offline suddenly, for no reason I can discern, and I thought maybe, just maybe having two promise drivers could cause some issues.

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R P posted this 4 weeks ago

Hi Larry,

Happy New Year!

You will need the PegasusPro driver for the R12 and the regular Pegasus driver for the Pegasus2 and Pegasus3. In this case you need both.

The Pegasus R12 is still in the downloads page but it has been moved to Legacy downloads. The R12 is still fully supported but it seems to be a policy decision that when a new model in a product line (Pegasus5 R12) is introduced they move the old model (Pegasus R12) to Legacy. 

I don't know when the Pegasus5 R12 will be released but I suspect it will be relatively soon. It uses the same driver type (PegasusPro family) as the Pegasus R12, but it will probably be a newer driver version. I suspect that they will put the Pegasus5 R12 driver on the web page shortly before release. Please note, I have no actual information here and I'm just speculating based on previous releases.

As for the Pegasus 2, there is not enough information here for debug, but having both the Pegasus and PegasusPro drivers installed is not a problem and it (the driver) won't cause issues with older Pegasus units. Which Mac do you have?

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Larry Yaeger posted this 3 weeks ago

Thank you! Knowing it is necessary and normal to have both drivers is a relief and eliminates one avenue of enquiry. It is also a relief to be able to confirm that 22.1.7 is the latest driver for the Pegasus R12. (I found it in the Downloads area once I knew to look in the Legacy area.)

This Mac is a first gen Mac Studio with M1 Ultra. I don't have much other useful info on the intermittent unwanted unmounts. It used to always be video4, which is a Pegasus3. Now it's ususally video2, which is a Pegasus2. But just last night video1, the R12, dropped offline. It seems to be more frequent following my recent upgrade from Sequoia to Tahoe, but it has been happening for a long, long time (gratefully, infrequently until this upgrade). I was thinking I might replace some cables, but the R12 is using the cable that came with it only a bit over a year ago, I think.

There are other issues to deal with too... Tahoe has some serious problems on this Mac Studio that I'm not experiencing on my MacBook Air. They're bad enough I think I'm going to wipe my upgraded-in-place boot drive and do a clean install plus Migration Assistant (from a CCC backup). Plus, video3 (another Pegasus2) lost PD3 and it's about 60% of the way through a rebuild, and while fiddling with that I saw a notification that seemed to suggest I needed to apply a firmware update. But when I checked, it left me puzzled. All my 2s say "Checked", while my 3s and R12 say "Up-to-date". I'm guessing those are actually the same thing, because over on the left it says "You're up to date", and I can't tick any of the selection boxes next to the volumes. But what's one more mystery in my currrent morass.

EDIT: If nothing springs to mind on the unmounting front, just say, and I'll mark your first reply as resolving the enquiry, because you definitely answered my key questions. I'm only leaving this open in case you have some insights into the problem that prompted them.

R P posted this 3 weeks ago

Hi Larry,

But just last night video1, the R12, dropped offline.

Please make sure the Pegasus R12 is updated to the latest firmware. I have seen cases where the Pegasus Pro Utility indicated up-to-date firmware on a Pegasus R12 that had downrev firmware. If it is downrev you can do a manual update with the firmware file linked below. The latest firmware version is v24.0.10.0000.

 

 

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Larry Yaeger posted this 3 weeks ago

Wow, thanks again R P. Indeed, PROMISE Utility Pro reported the R12 as up to date, but it was running v24.00.08.0000. Now updated and rebooted. Doubt I'd have looked beyond Utility's report without your prompt. Much appreciated.

Larry Yaeger posted this 3 weeks ago

Hmm, given the warning and good advice on R12 firmware I decided to check on firmware for the Pegasus 2 and 3 units. Happily, the 3s were up to date (6.06.0000.45). However, I genuinely can't tell what's going on with the 2s...

In the Downloads Center what's shown is:

  • SR3.4.4
  • SR3.2.1
  • SR3.0.2
  • SR2.44
  • SR2.4 (V5.04.0000.56)

What I have installed is V5.04.0000.64.  So I have a version that's not on the list but is more recent than the oldest thing on the list. One would assume that SR3.4.4, being the latest, is what I want. But how do all those SR numbers relate to the V5 numbers?

Writing the wrong firmware can brick any device, so I'm reticent to jump from V5.04.0000.64 to SR3.4.4 without confirmation that that is a good, safe idea.

EDIT: I downloaded the firmware with SR3.4.4 selected. The file I got is "R SI 504000064.img". I think it's safe to assume that that is V5.04.0000.64, the same as I have installed. So the 2s are actually up to date as well. (Darn, for a brief moment there I thought I'd fallen way behind and all would be fixed by a quick update, but 'twas not to be.)

Larry Yaeger posted this 3 weeks ago

Had a bit of a scare when after the clean install + Migration Assistant process and fresh bootup the R12 refused to show up. This despite checking and seeing the pro DEXT was supposedly still there and enabled. But I did a reinstall and reenable of the driver and the drive popped right up.

For some reason when the Mac first rebooted I got an alert saying ["Promise Utility.app" is damaged and can't be opened. You should move it to the Trash. / Move to Trash / Cancel]. Which seems weird because it had been working just fine (for the 2s and 3s). I think I'll retrieve it from the trash and compare it to a newly installed app.

R P posted this 3 weeks ago

Hi Larry,

EDIT: I downloaded the firmware with SR3.4.4 selected. The file I got is "R SI 504000064.img". I think it's safe to assume that that is V5.04.0000.64, the same as I have installed. So the 2s are actually up to date as well. (Darn, for a brief moment there I thought I'd fallen way behind and all would be fixed by a quick update, but 'twas not to be.)

5.04.0000.64 is the latest firmware update for the Pegasus 2 and if it is installed you should have no issues when connected to an Apple Silicon Mac.

There are 2 numbers here:

  • SR = Service Release
  • Version = Firmware Version

Note, these do not track. There may be several version updates between released versions. I have asked that the downloads page list both but nothing was changed. But it remains that the top download option will be the latest version.

It is rare, but in some cases after a macOS update the driver will not work right. It is not clear why but deleting and reinstalling the driver will fix that issue. I don't think the cause is the driver files being corrupted.

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