FAQ
Canister requires macOS 10.11 or newer.
Version 20.1 is available for download here and receives continued support until Dec 31th 2020.
If you're using a Thunderbolt LTO drive like an mTape, macOS doesn't always register the LTO drive inside your device mTape properly. Check your System Information: there should be an entry on the Thunderbolt page, but also an Ultrium entry on the SCSI or SAS page. If the latter is missing, power cycle the Thunderbolt device and the LTO drive. Sometimes a full Mac reboot is needed.
Big Sur doesn't ship with an ATTO driver, which is required for an mTape. You can download it directly here:
​https://downloads.hedge.video/canister/hba/ATTO.dmg​
Most of the industry has moved to using XXH (or xxHash64BE, to be exact) but some legacy flows require MD5. Canister used XXH by default. Switching Canister to use MD5 instead will have a serious speed impact on transfers, and no benefits. Only do so when you require MD5 for an existing workflow.
To switch to MD5, open Terminal, paste the following command and hit Return:
defaults write nl.syncfactory.Canister.Mac SFLDefaultsChecksumType -string md5
To switch back, using the following command:
defaults write nl.syncfactory.Canister.Mac SFLDefaultsChecksumType -string xxhash64
Canister uses LTFS. The difference between TAR and LTFS is that LTFS is a file system. That means your OS already has the tools included to work with LTFS, which means no vendor lock-in for you. With TAR, you're always relying on a vendor's app to work. With LTFS, that will never happen.
This is currently unsupported because LTFS introduces fragmentation when transferring multiple folders. Mechanisms to prevent this and allow transfers from folders on the same volume are in active development.
You can safely skip verification by clicking the [X] next to a transfer when the copy part finishes.
A setting to disable verification is coming in a future release.