Have been using SoftRAID Version 5(.x) since around 2014 with external (Thunderbolt) OWC RAID arrays. Perhaps the best thing I can say is that since then, except for replacing drives from time to time as needed, I’ve barely thought about SoftRAID, everything has just worked.
But what prompted me to post this review tonight was how quick/helpful/friendly tech support was late today (Friday) helping with recovering a volume. My initial email was answered within a few minutes and after maybe 5-6 back and forths (mostly waiting for me as I was also working on something else), everything was wrapped up about 2 hours later.
I was a little surprised at the quick response, but realized then I had used support once before for some type of recovery situation (and questions) and had a similar experience. While I’m sure there are plenty of issues that just don’t lend themselves to quick/same-day resolution like this, my (admittedly limited) experience with the tech support folks has been great, nice folks.
OWC Radio – Tim Standing talks SoftRAID
SoftRAIDTim Standing, who leads Mac software development at OWC, talks with host Cirina Catania about the latest SoftRAID version 6, which is now available for Windows as well as Mac. They discuss the ability to predict disc failure, the importance of certifying your discs, monitoring for health reports…and, of course, pizza recipes! It’s informative and yummy.
MacOS Beta No Longer Required When Using SoftRAID On M1 Macs
M1 (Apple Silicon), SoftRAIDWhat Apple broke in macOS Big Sur 11.2
With the release of macOS 11.2, Apple introduced a bug in the kernel which prevented the SoftRAID driver when running on M1 Macs. While Apple had this fixed in a beta release of macOS about a month later, most users don’t want to run a beta version of an operating system on their Mac.
The fix is in
The good news is that Apple has released the official version of macOS 11.3 to all Mac users. This version restores the ability to load the SoftRAID driver on M1 Macs. This bug was on M1 Macs only so the SoftRAID driver has been able to run on Intel Macs on all versions of macOS 11.2.
Why you might still have problems loading drivers with macOS 11.3
There are still occasional situations where the SoftRAID driver doesn’t load on macOS 11.3 but this occurs on both Intel and M1 Macs. When this occurs, all third-party drivers are blocked from loading, not just the SoftRAID driver.
Our Customer Support staff has determined that this happens when users have older drivers installed on their Mac. These drivers, often for older printers, are often unsigned and may even date back to 2007. These out-of-date drivers get copied over to your new M1 or Intel Mac when you use Apple’s Migration Assistant application. They can also exist if you updated your existing startup to macOS 11 rather than performing a clean install on a new startup volume.
Prior to macOS Big Sur 11, the operating system would just skip insecure drivers and go ahead and load the rest normally. New with macOS 11, the kernel will encounter one of these insecure drivers and then just refuse to load all third-party drivers. I’m still not sure whether this new behavior is a bug or a feature.
So, now it is up to the user to delete these out-of-date drivers manually before their system will work correctly.
Performing a factory reset on your M1 Mac to regain access to your SoftRAID volumes
Critical Updates, SoftRAID