Current version: 8.3
Release date: September 16, 2024

SoftRAID Mac Changelog

Driver Changes (requires macOS 15.0 or macOS 13.2 or earlier)
• FIXED: possible file corruption issue with degraded RAID 4 and 5 volumes on NVMe blades
• IMPROVED: system stability when applications unexpectedly quit
• IMPROVED: system stability when Thunderbolt cables are inadvertently disconnected
• IMPROVED: compatibility with HDDs with 4Kn sectors
• IMPROVED: reduces CPU utilization when writing to RAID 4 and 5 volumes to as little as 25% that used by earlier versions of SoftRAID

Application Changes
• ADDED: command line interface to the SoftRAID Tool for adding and removing disks from SoftRAID volumes

• IMPROVED: user experience for premium subscriptions which auto-renew
• IMPROVED: failure prediction for NVMe blades
• IMPROVED: Numerous bug fixes and improvements
• REMOVED: license expiration warnings if subscription will renew automatically

• ADDED: support for macOS 15 (Sequoia)
• ADDED: notifications via dialog and email for all NVMe Critical Warnings.
• CHANGED: the SoftRAID log file is no longer deleted when “Uninstall all SoftRAID components” is selected from the Utilities menu in the SoftRAID application. This improves the ability of OWC Customer Support to diagnose problems.
• CHANGED: the SoftRAID Monitor now displays a warning dialog if the user selects “Launch SoftRAID” and there is no SoftRAID application available.
• CHANGED: removed the default for the volume Safeguard from the SoftRAID application preferences. When creating a new volume, the volume Safeguard defaults to the value set the last time a volume was created.
• CHANGED: fixes several bugs which caused the time remaining in Premium Trial to be displayed incorrectly.• CHANGED: improves translations of menu and dialogs for non-English languages.

• NEW: Uses as little as 25% of the CPU resources as SoftRAID version 7 when writing to RAID 5
volumes.
• NEW: Faster write performance on RAID 5 volumes with NVMe blades on PCIe cards in the 2023
Mac Pro.
• ADDED: SMART support for NVMe blades.
• ADDED: failure prediction, using SMART, for NVMe blades.
• ADDED: background email notification when warnings or errors are detected with SoftRAID disks
or volumes.
• ADDED: support for Standard and Premium licenses.
• CHANGED: free trial period to 30 days.
• ADDED: the ability to detect older versions of SoftRAID (or SoftRAID folders) in the Applications
folder and asks the user if these should be moved to the trash.
• FIXED: a bug that causes the SoftRAID application to display a blank window.
• CHANGED: the process of uninstalling SoftRAID using the SoftRAID application. If the user is
running a version of macOS which ships with the SoftRAID driver pre-installed at /System/
Library/Extensions/SoftRAID.kext, the application no longer restarts the Mac after the
uninstall operation finishes.

• FIXED: a problem on 2019 Mac Pros with internal SATA disks
• IMPROVED: detects utilities which interfere with SoftRAID
• IMPROVED: automatically updates the Update & Support Plan expiration date

• IMPROVED: compatibility with recent versions of macOS by adding support for macOS 14 (removes support for macOS 10.12 and 10.13)
• IMPROVED: mechanism which restores SoftRAID functionality after running Clean My Mac
• IMPROVED: volume reliability by preventing users from creating SoftRAID volumes with exFAT file system
• IMPROVED: SoftRAID online help
• IMPROVED: handling of errors when Full Disk Access is not enabled for SoftRAID
• IMPROVED: updating expiration date after renewing an Upgrade & Support Plan
• IMPROVED: log files collected in a SoftRAID Tech Support Report
• FIXED: issue which can cause internal part of the SoftRAID application to stop working
• FIXED: issue which causes a blank window in the SoftRAID application
• FIXED: issues with incorrect volume free space displayed in the SoftRAID application
• FIXED: issues with resizing volumes
• FIXED: issues converting volumes between SoftRAID and AppleRAID format
• FIXED: issues converting nonRAID volumes between SoftRAID and Apple Disk Utility format
• FIXED: help buttons which did display the correct online help page

• IMPROVED: Greatly simplifies installing the SoftRAID driver (requires macOS 13.3) – no more security setting changes
• IMPROVED: compatibility with Apple’s Disk Utility application
• IMPROVED: handling of the Upgrade & Support Plan expiration date
• IMPROVED: SoftRAID driver now loads when booted from external volumes
• IMPROVED: supports Safe Boot (SoftRAID 7.5 and macOS 13.3)
• IMPROVED: supports Time Machine recovery from SoftRAID volumes in recovery mode
• FIXED: issues with SoftRAID serial numbers on Mac Studio computers
• FIXED: kernel panics which can occur when a Mac enters or leaves sleep
• FIXED: strings displayed in German and Traditional Chinese
• FIXED: a bug which keeps the SoftRAID Monitor from appearing in the menu bar

• ADDED: the mount/unmount menu item in the SoftRAID application so that it functions even if the free trial period has expired.
• ADDED: the “Welcome to SoftRAID” splash screen so it contains information about upgrading from previous SoftRAID versions. This page includes a “Click here for your upgrade options” link which opens a web page with information about upgrading to SoftRAID version 7.
• IMPROVED: the user experience when upgrading to SoftRAID version 7. Allows users to return to SoftRAID version 6, after running version 7, without having to re-enter their version 6 serial number.
• FIXED: a bug in the SoftRAID application which could cause occasional hangs with RAID 0 and RAID 1+0 volumes.
• IMPROVED: protection from malware in the SoftRAID driver.
• FIXED: a kernel panic which occurred when using encrypted APFS volumes.

• ADDED: windows to the SoftRAID application with instructions for finishing the driver installation process when running macOS 11 or later.
• ADDED: Incorporates many security improvements in the SoftRAID driver.
• FIXED: a bug in the SoftRAID application which prevents it from running on macOS 13, Ventura.
• FIXED: a bug in the SoftRAID application which causes an occasional hang when the application is first launched.
• FIXED: a bug in the SoftRAID driver which causes an occasional hang with RAID 0 volumes. When this occurs, all i/o requests to the volume stop but the cursor is still moveable on the screen.
• FIXED: a bug which prevented disks from being added to SoftRAID volumes. This was introduced in SoftRAID version 6.1 (SR-471).
• FIXED: a bug which causes the “Uninstall All SoftRAID Components” menu item in the SoftRAID application to fail if the SMART over USB drivers are not installed.
• FIXED: a bug which prevents a warning dialog from appearing when the user restarts their Mac and a beta version has already expired or a Free Trial period is already over.
• FIXED: a bug which caused the SoftRAID to discard an activated serial number if the user runs a beta version of software and then subsequently runs a release version.
• FIXED: a bug which caused offline activation of a serial number to fail if it has already been activated online on the same Mac. This occurs if the user doesn’t deactivate the serial number between the two activation attempts.
• FIXED: a bug in the SoftRAID driver which occasionally causes very slow performance on some RAID volumes. This bug caused read and write speeds to be limited to 200 MB/sec.

• FIXED: an issue which could lead to volumes being erased if a user selected Erase Volume and then cancelled the operation with -Period.
• FIXED: problem when uninstalling SoftRAID.
• FIXED: an issue which causes the updates available window to display incorrectly.
• FIXED: an issue which prevents the SoftRAID driver from being installed if the startup volume is case-sensitive.
• FIXED: UI issues in the SoftRAID application.
ADDED: clickable link to the SoftRAID support forum in the SoftRAID application about box.
• IMPROVED: an issue in Time Machine which causes a kernel panic if you unmount a TimeMachine SoftRAID volume and then disconnect it.
• IMPROVED: activation/deactivation process, making it easier for users to use the same serial number on several computers.

• NEW: 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.

• ADDED: support for macOS 12 Monterey
• IMPROVED: compatibility with SoftRAID for Windows

• ADDED: support for APFS SoftRAID volumes.
IMPROVED: support for TRIM commands to better support volumes transferring data at over 10GB/s.
• IMPROVED: works around several driver loading bugs found in macOS 11.
• FIXED: a kernel panic bug which would occasionally affect SoftRAID volumes.
• FIXED: Supports using SoftRAID volumes for Time Machine in macOS 11 and later.

• ADDED: support for reading and writing NTFS volumes (requires Paragon NTFS for Mac).
• ADDED: support for exFAT volumes
• ADDED: 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.
• ADDED: 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.

• ADDED: support for Lite licenses. When using a Lite license, users can create and manage stripe (RAID 0) and mirror (RAID 1) volumes only.
• FIXED: a several user interfaces bugs in the SoftRAID application and SoftRAID Monitor which affect activating and deactivating licenses
• IMPROVED: translations for all non-English languages.

• IMPROVED: bugs Finder window background in the SoftRAID 6.0.3 .dmg file

• ADDED: support for macOS 11 (Big Sur) and Macs with Apple silicon.
• IMPROVED: SoftRAID now ships as a single application. Features are enabled based on the license you have purchased. Click here for more info.
• IMPROVED: minimum required system version to macOS 10.12. This was done to accommodate Apple’s code notarization mechanism.
• IMPROVED: Disk tiles in the SoftRAID application are now grouped by enclosure, all the disks in a given enclosure are displayed next to each other.
• ADDED: support for Dark Mode.
• ADDED: a new serial number mechanism which allows users to activate and deactivate their SoftRAID license easily.
• IMPROVED: 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.
• IMPROVED: 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.
• IMPROVED: 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.
FIXED: 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.
• FIXED: 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.
• FIXED: 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.
• FIXED: a hang that often occurs when SoftRAID initiates a restart.
• FIXED: 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.
• FIXED: 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.
• FIXED: a crash that occurs when creating RAID 1+0 volumes when running with Simplified Chinese as the chosen language.
• FIXED: several bugs that causes jumbled text in SoftRAID log files.
• FIXED: the bug that causes the SoftRAID Monitor to crash as soon as it is launched.
• FIXED: 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.
• FIXED: 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.
ADDED: additional information to the SoftRAID.log file to indicate if incorrect blocks are updated when a volume is being validated.
• FIXED: a bug that causes volumes made with 4Kn disks (disks with 4 KB sector sizes) to act as if they have 512 byte sectors.
• FIXED: a bug in the SoftRAID application that limits the size of reads and writes to NVMe SSDs to 128 KB.
• IMPROVED: 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.
• FIXED: a bug that causes newly created volumes to have incorrect permissions. This bug also affects volumes which have just been erased.
• FIXED: a bug that causes volumes to have incorrect permissions after converting between SoftRAID and AppleRAID formats.
• FIXED: a bug that prevents converting SoftRAID RAID 4 volumes to other volume types.
• FIXED: a bug that prevented buttons in the SoftRAID Monitor update available window from working.
• FIXED: a bug that prevents converting mirrors or stripes to AppleRAID.
• FIXED: a bug that makes a volume change back to Optimized for Workstation after it is erased.
• FIXED: a bug that allows Read-Only-Secondary volumes to be erased.
• FIXED: a bug that prevents the SoftRAID application from being able to create RAID 1+0 volumes.
• FIXED: a bug that prevents the SoftRAID application from being able to split mirrors.
• FIXED: a bug in the SoftRAID application which causes some Apple internal SSDs to indicate that they are worn out.
• FIXED: many bugs in SoftRAID Monitor which prevent notification of failed or failing disks when they are inserted.

Current version: 8.3.1.3
Release date: November 4, 2024

SoftRAID Windows Changelog

• FIXED: Windows may slow or freeze when copying or deleting large numbers of files on APFS volumes

• FIXED: Issue when deleting multi-stream APFS files
• FIXED: RAID 4/5 issue when rebuilding volumes
• FIXED: Problems deleting files on APFS volumes when files are part of a snapshot
• FIXED: Possible system crash when disconnecting RAID volume members
• IMPROVED: stability and performance issues

• ADDED: “Check for updates” added to application menu
• REMOVED: license expiration warnings if subscription will renew automatically
• ADDED: “Check for updates” added to application menu
• FIXED: Out-of-sync RAID 1+0 volumes sometimes don’t automatically rebuild
• FIXED: Potential data corruption when rebuilding RAID 1+0 volumes with 2 missing members
• FIXED: RAID 4/RAID 5 volumes that are missing a disk don’t mount after computer restarts
• FIXED: SoftRAID installs on computers with ARM process, resulting in crash on restart
• FIXED: an issue that could cause corruption when copying very large sets of data to APFS

• ADDED: RAID 1+0 (NTFS, APFS, HFS+)
• ADDED: email notifications
• IMPROVED: disk health detection for NVMe drives
• FIXED: an issue that could cause corruption when copying very large sets of data to APFS

• ADDED: RAID 4
• ADDED: APFS support for all supported RAID levels
• NEW: RAID 5 options for increased performance
• NEW: Built-in diagnostics report for more efficient support
• NEW: Simplified licensing, including new free Standard tier
• NEW: Extended free trial to 30 days
• FIXED: read-only setting not being remembered after disks disconnected
• FIXED: RAID 5 conflicts with Windows Backup, Microsoft Word and Dropbox
• FIXED: Misc. improvements and fixes

• ADDED: Support for Windows Server 2022 and Windows Server 2019

• ADDED: Support for SoftRAID 7 licenses.

• ADDED: Translations for Simplified Chinese
• ADDED: Translations for Traditional Chinese

• 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

• 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.

• ADDED: RAID 5 support
• ADDED: Ability to delete unsupported volumes (such as RAID 4 and RAID 1+0)
• ADDED: Support for additional OWC storage products

• ADDED: XT support for OWC U.2 Workflow Solution

• 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

• 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

• ADDED: Cross compatibility with SoftRAID 6 for Mac.

• ADDED: Support for SoftRAID serial numbers from full Mac version

• 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

• Initial release