How can I make sure my RAID 4 or RAID 5 volume is working correctly?

You can verify your RAID 4 or RAID 5 volume is working correctly by using SoftRAID’s Validate function.

Important: If you are running RAID 4 or RAID 5 with SSDs or NVMe drives, validating your volume is essential. On macOS Sonoma (14.x) and earlier, a TRIM-related issue can cause incorrect parity data to be written when an SSD or NVMe drive fails or is replaced — meaning a subsequent disk failure could cause data corruption rather than a successful rebuild. This issue was resolved in macOS Sequoia (15.0), but you must validate your volumes after upgrading to Sequoia to correct any parity data that may have been affected beforehand. Users remaining on Sonoma or earlier should disable TRIM and validate regularly. See our FAQ: Important Steps to Protect Your RAID 4/5 Volumes With SSDs for the required steps based on your macOS version.

What does validation do?

The SoftRAID driver always calculates and writes correct parity information when data is written to your volume. Validation gives you a way to independently confirm that all parity data stored on your disks is accurate.

When you validate a RAID 4 or RAID 5 volume, SoftRAID reads every set of data blocks across all disks and recalculates their parity. It then compares the result against the parity of information already stored on the volume. If any mismatch is found, SoftRAID corrects the parity data on the disk automatically.

The volume tile displays a count of Blocks Updated — the number of blocks where parity was found to be incorrect and was corrected. On a healthy volume, this number should be zero or very close to zero.

Validation runs in the background. You can continue using your volume normally while it runs.

How to validate a volume

• Select the volume tile in SoftRAID
• Go to Volume menu → Validate

Speeding up validation

Validation can take some time depending on volume size. To complete it faster, set the volume optimization to Workstation or Server before starting:

• Select the volume tile
• Volume menu → Optimize for → select Workstation or Server

You can change the optimization setting at any time, including while validation is already in progress — the change takes effect immediately.

When should you validate?

• If you are running SSDs or NVMe drives on macOS Sonoma (14.x) or earlier — disable TRIM and validate your volumes. This is an ongoing concern on these macOS versions; see our FAQ: Important Steps to Protect Your RAID 4/5 Volumes With SSDs for full details
• After upgrading to macOS Sequoia (15.0) or later — validate your RAID 4 or 5 SSD/NVMe volumes once after upgrading. Sequoia resolved the underlying issue, but a one-time validation corrects any parity that may have been affected before the upgrade. After that, your volumes are fully protected.
• After a system crash, kernel panic, or unexpected shutdown — to confirm parity data was not affected
• After replacing a disk and completing a rebuild — to confirm the volume is fully consistent
• Periodically as a health check — especially in mission-critical environments

A note on SSDs and NVMe drives

On macOS Sonoma (14.x) and earlier, a TRIM-related issue can cause incorrect parity data to be written when an SSD or NVMe drive fails or is replaced. This issue was resolved in macOS Sequoia (15.0). If you are still on Sonoma or earlier, disable TRIM and validate your volumes — and revalidate periodically, as the risk is ongoing until you upgrade. If you have already upgraded to Sequoia, validate once to correct any previously affected parity data, and your volumes will be fully protected going forward. See our FAQ: “Important Steps to Protect Your RAID 4/5 Volumes With SSDs” for the steps required based on your macOS version.