Do I need to update SoftRAID before updating macOS?

Best Practice Before Any macOS Upgrade

Before upgrading macOS, unmount all external SoftRAID volumes and power off your enclosures. This is the single most important step you can take to ensure a smooth upgrade. Upgrading macOS with volumes mounted can interrupt the process and in rare cases cause directory damage.

To unmount a volume, drag it to the Trash in the Finder (the icon changes to an Eject symbol), or right-click it and select Eject. Wait for the volume to disappear from your Desktop, then power off your enclosures before proceeding with the macOS upgrade.

After the macOS Upgrade

Once macOS has finished installing, power up your enclosures and launch SoftRAID 8.6.1. SoftRAID 8.6.1 works well with all current macOS versions — no separate driver steps are needed. The correct driver is bundled into macOS automatically.

If you are still running macOS Ventura 13.2 or earlier: After launching SoftRAID you will need to allow third-party developers in System Settings and follow the prompts from SoftRAID to complete the driver installation.

Running an Older Version of macOS?

SoftRAID works with older macOS versions as well. If you are not yet on Monterey, use the appropriate version for your system:

If Something Goes Wrong After a macOS Upgrade

macOS automatically creates a local snapshot before every system update on Apple Silicon Macs. If a macOS upgrade causes problems, you can use this snapshot to roll back to your previous macOS version without affecting any data on your external drives. See: How to use snapshots on Apple Silicon computers.