Beta Release of Tiger Store and Tiger Spaces Clients with Support for Apple Silicon Now Available 

 

Tiger-Bridge-5.0

 

We would like to announce that the public beta versions for Tiger Store and Tiger Spaces with preliminary support for Mac computers with Apple silicon (M1/M2 chips) are now available for download.  

Overall, the two software clients are functional without any major issues and can be deployed in your setup if you would like to give them a try.  

Note that there are some limitations compared to the regular Intel-based release builds as well as known issues still present that are being worked on with priority by our software development team. For the time being, this includes the following: 

Tiger Store Beta Client Software for Apple Silicon

  •  Dynamic disks are currently not supported , including no support for software stripes.

    • The Tiger Store M1/M2 beta client supports LAN as well as SAN connectivity with the exception of dynamic disks. If you have a software stripe that is made of dynamic disks, the Apple M1 client will crash on boot.

  • The current Tiger Store M1/M2 beta client is compatible with the current latest server-side Tiger Store release (version 2.9.2.93) 

    • In case the server machine is already running the latest Tiger Store version, no server-side upgrade is required. With the future official release of M1/M2 support, the client software will be a part of a new Tiger Store release for both the server and the client machines available for installations with active software and support subscription. This will be available after resolving any remaining issues during the beta and will contain several other server-side fixes and improvements besides the extended client platforms support.

  • This is a Tiger Store client utilizing our proprietary kernel extensions for mounting (no SMB network shares as a workaround)

    • This includes support for AvidFS, High Availability (HA), and Smart Storage Pooling. 

  • The following is also a known issue with the Tiger Store M1/M2 beta client for LAN connected workstations:

    • Upon a reboot, the machine can experience a non-fatal kernel panic. This issue taking place during the shutdown sequence is still being investigated, but it should not impact the functionality of the beta client software. After a reboot, it will reconnect as usual. This problem is most notably observed when Smart Storage Pooling is enabled for Tiger Store-managed volumes. 

  • The volume icon on your desktop for Tiger Store managed volumes may be flashing (changing to folder icon and then back to volume icon) when the volume is used.

    • This is something we are also aware of and working on. 

  • The Tiger Store software beta client for Intel-based Macs has support up to macOS Ventura.
  • The Tiger Store software beta client for Apple silicon offers support for macOS Big Sur, macOS Monterey and macOS Ventura.

    • Important: Please note that the Tiger Store client build for Intel workstations can also be installed on computers with Apple silicon. However, although the installation will succeed, the software will not work due to the different platform, so make sure you use the correct installer for each platform. 

 

Tiger Spaces M1/M2 beta client software 

  • The Tiger Spaces M1/M2 beta client is compatible with:

    • – The current official Tiger Spaces release (version 4.6.0.176);
    – The earlier Tiger Spaces server-side beta version 4.7.0.189 (which included a temporary workaround M1/M2 support for NAS only Tiger Spaces installations via SMB)
    – The current Tiger Spaces server-side beta version Tiger Spaces 4.7.0.222.

  • The Tiger Spaces M1/M2 beta client now works with Tiger Store client workstations (for shared NTFS volumes managed by Tiger Store that are enabled for Tiger Spaces) as well as external NAS devices that are only managed by Tiger Spaces.  

    • The mounts for the latter are now handled the regular way as for Intel-based workstations via the Tiger Spaces proprietary NAS to local driver.  Standard SMB access is no longer used as a workaround and thus the earlier Tiger Spaces SMB-based beta is no longer developed and is now obsolete.

  • The Tiger Spaces client for Apple silicon Mac computers supports AvidFS for both volumes managed by Tiger Store and for third-party NAS devices managed by Tiger Spaces.

  • The Tiger Spaces M1/M2 beta client supports High Availability (HA) for storage managed by Tiger Store.
  • For the time being, there are no known issues specific to the Tiger Spaces M1/M2 beta client, but the latter is still undergoing the necessary QA cycles. 
  • The Tiger Spaces software beta client (for Intel chips) has support from Mac OS X El Capitan up to macOS Ventura. 
  • Dropped support for OS X Mavericks and OS X Yosemite (for Intel chips) 
  • The Tiger Spaces software beta client for Apple silicon has support for macOS Big Sur, macOS Monterey and macOS Ventura. 

Important: The Tiger Spaces software beta client has a single build, which is universal across platforms. 

 

Availability

Click here to download the two M1/M2 beta software clients.

The beta software clients for Tiger Store and Tiger Spaces can be deployed directly on the M1/M2 client machines with no server-side changes required as long as the Tiger Store server within the setup is version 2.9.2.93, and the server-side Tiger Spaces version is at least 4.6.0.175. Updating the server to the Tiger Spaces server-side beta build (v. 4.7.0.222) is not required for the time being. 

Important: Due to the updated Apple’s security policy requirements, for any M1/M2 based workstations it is strictly required to first enable user management of kernel extensions from identified developers (such as our software clients, or any other developer utilizing kernel extensions) in the Recovery environment. 

There are multiple resources online on how to achieve the above. Here is a video tutorial on how to do so by a third-party content creator, which you may find useful.  

As long as this macOS security requirement is enabled beforehand, out installation process is carried out as usual, with the exception of workstations on which the early SMB-based Tiger Spaces beta client may be present. In this scenario, the latter must be cleanly uninstalled first, followed by a reboot. 

 

Send Us Your Feedback

If you would like to adopt the Tiger Store and Tiger Spaces beta software clients with preliminary M1/M2 support in your setup, please keep in mind the aforementioned features, known issues and current limitations.  

Do reach out to us with any software-specific issues you may experience. Your feedback helps us continuously improve our products.