SoftRAID for Mac
Release date: February 14, 2022
6.2.1 - February 14, 2022
New features in 6.2
– SoftRAID 6.2.1 is compatible with macOS Monterey 12.2.
– IMPROVED: support for exFAT volumes.
– IMPROVED: the driver to mark all SoftRAID volumes as removable in the IORegistry. This prevents a kernel panic when a SoftRAID Time Machine backup volume is disconnected.
– PREVENTS: a hang when erasing SoftRAID disks with Apple’s Disk Utility application.
– PREVENTS: a kernel panic when connecting SoftRAID disks to the USB-A port on M1 Macs.
– FIXED: an occasional kernel panic during prolonged i/o to a SoftRAID volume composed of NVMe blades.
– FIXED: a bug in the SoftRAID driver which causes the “Volume locked” dialog to mistakenly be displayed when a Mac comes out of sleep. Note: Users still receiving this error message in 6.2.1 have a hardware issue where disks are renumbered during sleep.
– FIXED: a problem in the SoftRAID driver which prevents validating nonRAID, RAID 0, 1 and 1+0 volumes.
6.2 - October 25, 2021
New features in 6.2
– Adds support for macOS 12 Monterey
– Improves compatibility with SoftRAID for Windows
6.1 - October 4, 2021
New features in 6.1
• Adds support for APFS SoftRAID volumes.
• Improves support for TRIM commands to better support volumes transferring data at over 10GB/s.
•Works around several driver loading bugs found in macOS 11.
Items fixed in 6.0.5
• Fixes a kernel panic bug which would occasionally affect SoftRAID volumes.
• Supports using SoftRAID volumes for Time Machine in macOS 11 and later.
6.0.5 - May 24, 2021
New feaures in 6.0.5
• Adds support for reading and writing NTFS volumes (requires Paragon NTFS for Mac).
• Adds support for exFAT volumes
• Adds code in SoftRAID to detect if the Mac was started in Safe Boot mode. If the Mac is in
Safe Boot, an error dialog is displayed and the application quits.
Items fixed in 6.0.5
• Adds support for NTFS volumes created with SoftRAID for Windows. These volumes can
now be used read/write when Paragon Software NTFS for Mac is installed.
6.0.4 - May 11, 2021
New features in 6.0.4
• Adds support for Lite licenses. When using a Lite license, users can create and manage stripe (RAID 0) and mirror (RAID 1) volumes only.
Items fixed in 6.0.4
• Fixes a several user interfaces bugs in the SoftRAID application and SoftRAID Monitor which affect activating and deactivating licenses
• Improves translations for all non-English languages.
6.0.3 - April 12, 2021
Items fixed in 6.0.3
Updates bugs Finder window background in the SoftRAID 6.0.3 .dmg file.
6.0.1 - March 31, 2021
New features in 6.0.1
• Adds support for macOS 11 (Big Sur) and Macs with Apple silicon.
• SoftRAID now ships as a single application. Features are enabled based on the license you have purchased. Click here for more info.
• Changes minimum required system version to macOS 10.12. This was done to accommodate Apple’s code notarization mechanism.
• Disk tiles in the SoftRAID application are now grouped by enclosure, all the disks in a given enclosure are displayed next to each other.
• Adds support for Dark Mode.
• Adds a new serial number mechanism which allows users to activate and deactivate their SoftRAID license easily.
• Changes the way the SoftRAID driver handles calls to flush the cache on HDDs and SSDs. This call is now completed in parallel, all disks for a volume complete the call at the same time. Previous builds issued this call, one at a time, to each disk drive in turn. This change dramatically reduces the time required to shutdown or restart a Mac with many SoftRAID HDDs.
• Optimizes the performance of RAID 1 and RAID 1+0 volumes using a combination of SSDs and HDDs. The SoftRAID driver will now automatically select an SSD to be the primary disk in RAID 1 and RAID 1+0 volumes if the volume contains both HDDs and SSDs. This ensures optimum performance in RAID 1+0 volumes when each mirror pair is made up of 1 HDD and 1 SSD.
• Changes the creation of RAID 1+0 volumes when using the SoftRAID Tool command line interface. The new code ensures that when SSDs are present, they are used preferentially for primary disks in mirror pairs.
Items fixed in 6.0.1
Fixes a bug in the SoftRAID driver that causes a kernel panic when a user unmounts a SoftRAID volume and then unplugs it. This bug affects RAID 1, 4, 5, and 1+0 volumes.
• Fixes a bug in the SoftRAID driver that causes a kernel panic when the last disk in a volume is zeroed or re-initialized. This bug affects RAID 1, 4, 5, and 1+0 volumes.
• This version of the driver includes a work-around for a bug in macOS which causes a kernel panic when Disk Utility erases a SoftRAID formatted disk. This bug was introduced in macOS 10.12. The work-around prevents this kernel panic from occurring in all versions of macOS.
• Fixes a hang that often occurs when SoftRAID initiates a restart.
• Fixes a bug that causes multiple beta version or evaluation mode expiration warning dialogs to appear one after the other. This can happen if a Mac is left on for multiple days and is running in evaluation mode or running a beta version of SoftRAID.
• Fixes a bug which occasionally causes volume corruption when creating or deleting volumes. This can occur when creating or deleting volumes on one OWC Accelsior 4M2 when a second OWC Accelsior 4M2 is installed in the same Mac.
• Fixes a crash that occurs when creating RAID 1+0 volumes when running with Simplified Chinese as the chosen language.
• Fixes several bugs that causes jumbled text in SoftRAID log files.
• Fixes the bug that causes the SoftRAID Monitor to crash as soon as it is launched.
• Fixes a bug that causes incorrect logging of SSDs which are predicted to fail. The log entry now just lists the uncorrectable error count as the reason the disk is predicted to fail.
• Fixes a bug that causes the SoftRAID application to gradually use more and more memory. This occurs when the SoftRAID application is left running for many hours.
• Adds additional information to the SoftRAID.log file to indicate if incorrect blocks are updated when a volume is being validated.
• Fixes a bug that causes volumes made with 4Kn disks (disks with 4 KB sector sizes) to act as if they have 512 byte sectors.
• Fixes a bug in the SoftRAID application that limits the size of reads and writes to NVMe SSDs to 128 KB.
• Makes SoftRAID for Mac able to recognize disks initialized by SoftRAID for Windows. Older versions of the SoftRAID application and SoftRAID Tool were unable to recognize disks initialized by SoftRAID for Windows as being SoftRAID disks.
• Fixes a bug that causes newly created volumes to have incorrect permissions. This bug also affects volumes which have just been erased.
• Fixes a bug that causes volumes to have incorrect permissions after converting between SoftRAID and AppleRAID formats.
• Fixes a bug that prevents converting SoftRAID RAID 4 volumes to other volume types.
• Fixes a bug that prevented buttons in the SoftRAID Monitor update available window from working.
• Fixes a bug that prevents converting mirrors or stripes to AppleRAID.
• Fixes a bug that makes a volume change back to Optimized for Workstation after it is erased.
• Fixes a bug that allows Read-Only-Secondary volumes to be erased.
• Fixes a bug that prevents the SoftRAID application from being able to create RAID 1+0 volumes.
• Fixes a bug that prevents the SoftRAID application from being able to split mirrors.
• Fixes a bug in the SoftRAID application which causes some Apple internal SSDs to indicate that they are worn out.
• Fixes many bugs in SoftRAID Monitor which prevent notification of failed or failing disks when they are inserted.
SoftRAID for Windows
Release date: June 27, 2022
3.0.11.21 - June 27, 2022
Added: Translations for Simplified Chinese
Added: Translations for Traditional Chinese
3.0.10.25 - April 18, 2022
Fixed: Unable to create a RAID 5 volume with disks that were previously used in a RAID 1 volume
Fixed: Potential corruption of RAID 5 volumes with certain IO patterns
Fixed: Potential system crash when using RAID 5 volumes under heavy IO
Added: Ability to replace disks in RAID 5 volumes
3.0.8.8 - Jan. 27, 2022
• Added: Added support for Accelsior 8M2 when using a SoftRAID XT license.
* Fixed: When creating a RAID 5 volume, selecting 64 KB stripe unit size sometimes creates a 16 KB stripe unit size.
* Fixed: Splash screen resized for better appearance on low-resolution displays.
3.0 - Dec. 15, 2021
• Added: RAID 5
• Added: Ability to delete unsupported volumes (such as RAID 4 and RAID 1+0)
• Added: Support for additional OWC storage products
2.2 - Dec. 10, 2021
• XT support for OWC U.2 Workflow Solution
2.1.1.3 - July 22, 2021
FIXED: System crash possible when connecting Mac RAID5 volumes to Windows
FIXED: Mercury Elite Pro Quad sometimes not recognized as an OWC device when using a SoftRAID XT license
2.1 - May 12, 2021
FIXED: a crash when deleting a RAID volume after cancelling a rebuild
ADDED: support for additional OWC devices when using a SoftRAID XT license
IMPROVED: license performance and visible feedback
2.0.6 - April 1, 2021
ADDED: Cross compatibility with SoftRAID 6 for Mac.
1.0.8 - March 9, 2021
ADDED: Support for SoftRAID serial numbers from full Mac version
1.0.7 - August 7, 2020
ADDED: TRIM now supported in HFS+
FIXED: NTFS TRIM commands not fully supported
FIXED: Notification icon doesn’t reset to “OK” state after disconnecting a problem disk
FIXED: Virtual RAID disk is listed as a “Fibre” bus
FIXED: Various small cosmetic and functional issues
FIXED: Disk health warnings aren’t updated properly after activation
FIXED: Application crash when trying to activate with a full SoftRAID serial number
1.0 - July 9, 2020
Initial release
Previous Versions
SoftRAID for Mac
Release date: July 6, 2020
5.8.4 - July 6, 2020
Added: Feature which warns the user if Secure Boot is enabled. This warning appears when the SoftRAID application is first launched, Secure Boot is enable and a SoftRAID disk is attached.
Added: Ability to sign up for the SoftRAID News email list.
Added: Work-around for a kernel panic bug which was introduced in macOS 10.15. This bug causes a kernel panic when an HFS+ volume is created on a 4Kn HDD (a disk with 4 KB sectors) which is housed in a USB 3 or USB 3.1 enclosure.
Added: Support for OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual U2 enclosures to SoftRAID XT and SoftRAID Lite XT.
Added: Feature when creating (or rebuilding) RAID 1+0 volumes, ensures that SSDs are always the primary disks, if the volume contains an equal number of SSDs and HHDs.
Fixed: A bug which could prevent the Mac from restarting after uninstalling SoftRAID.
Fixed: A bug which caused the SoftRAID application to be relaunched after a restart when the user had just uninstalled SoftRAID.
5.8.3 - ####
Added: Support for Traditional Chinese to the SoftRAID application and SoftRAID Monitor.
Fixed: A bug in the SoftRAID application which limits the size of reads and writes to NVMe SSDs to 128 KB.
Fixed: A bug which prevented a newly installed version of the SoftRAID driver from being loaded. This bug only occurs on macOS 10.15.
5.8.2 - ####
Fixed: A bug which occasionally causes volume corruption when creating or deleting volumes. This could occur when creating or deleting volumes on one OWC Accelsior 4M2 when a second OWC Accelsior 4M2 is installed in the same Mac.
Fixed: A crash which occurs when the SoftRAID application is first launched.
Fixed: A bug which prevents the Uninstall SoftRAID function in the SoftRAID application from working when running macOS 10.15.
Fixed: A bug which causes some volumes to not appear in the SoftRAID application when running macOS 10.15.
Fixed: A bug which caused a newly installed version of the SoftRAID driver to not be loaded by Mac OS. This could occur when running macOS 10.15.
Fixed: A bug in the SoftRAID application which causes newly created volumes to have incorrect creation dates.
5.8.1 - ##
Fixed: Removed test to see if the user is running macOS 10.15 with SIP enabled. You can now run the SoftRAID application on macOS 10.15 with SIP enabled as the bug which caused SIP to be incompatible with SoftRAID is fixed in the first supplemental update to macOS 10.15.
5.8. - ###
Added: Compatibility for macOS 10.15, Catalina.
Added: Support for upcoming OWC multi-drive enclosures to SoftRAID XT and SoftRAID LiteXT.
Fixed: A memory leak bug in the SoftRAID application.
Removed: SoftRAID Easy Setup application from the SoftRAID disk images.
5.7.5 - ##
Added: Support for localized update and upgrade feature lists in the Update Available window. This window is displayed in both the SoftRAID application and SoftRAID Monitor when a new version of SoftRAID is available
5.7.4 - ##
Added: Support for Akitio Thunder2 Quad and Thunder2 Quad mini to SoftRAID Lite XT.
5.7.3 - ##
Added: Support for Akitio Thunder3 Quad X and Thunder3 Quad mini to SoftRAID Lite XT.
Fixed: A bug in the SoftRAID application which can causes the “Zero Sectors” feature to fail. This would occur on NVMe blades which had 4 KB sectors and a maximum transfer size of 128 KB.
Fixed: A bug in the SoftRAID application which causes the “15 minutes” option to display twice when certifying disks.
Fixed: A bug in the SoftRAID application and SoftRAID Monitor which prevents SSDs with uncorrectable errors from being marked as predicted to fail.
Changed: SoftRAID Tool fatal errors reporting. These are now written to the SoftRAID.log rather than the system.log file.
5.7.2 - ##
Added: The ability to display OWC product registration page when a new ThunderBay 6 is attached to the Mac.
Added: Ability to work around problems in Mac OS which can cause applications to be quarantined by the Finder indefinitely.
Fixed: A bug in the SoftRAID Lite application which caused clipping in the more info text of the collect system info opt-in dialog. This was only visible when SoftRAID Lite was run with some non-English languages.
Fixed: A bug in the SoftRAID Lite XT application which prevented it from working with disks in OWC Mercury Elite Pro Quad enclosures.
Fixed: A bug in the SoftRAID Lite application which caused newly created or erased volumes to be write protected when running Mac OS 10.14.
Fixed: A bug in the SoftRAID Lite application which prevented the “no errors” string from being. displayed if a disk had not been initialized to SoftRAID format.
Fixed: A bug in the SoftRAID application and SoftRAID Monitor which caused some SSDs to be incorrectly marked as predicted to fail.
5.7 - ##
Changed: The way that SMART statistics are collected in SoftRAID Monitor. The new code checks SMART every time a disk is inserted rather than waiting for the next scheduled time for checking SMART.
Added: Protection from corrupted volumes caused by Mac OS kernel bugs.
Added: The ability to collect anonymous disk and system information and send it to the SoftRAID team. This will allow the SoftRAID team prioritize work on the features our customers use most. The user must opt-in to enable the collection of this data.
Added: The ability to collect anonymous SMART data from disks and send it to the SoftRAID. team. This will allow us to further improve our code which predicts disk failure. The user must opt-in to enable the collection of this data.
Fixed: A bug in the SoftRAID driver which could cause a kernel panic if a volume was unmounted and then unplugged. This would occur when running macOS 10.14 Mojave.
