SoftRAID Forum - Recent Topics

Apple Partition AND SoftRAID Partition?

smayer97 — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 06:17:28 +0000

Knowing that macOS can no longer boot from a SoftRAID partition since v6.x, is it possible to have both an Apple partition AND a SoftRAID partition on the boot drive, or can only one driver deal with the entire physical drive?

I ask because I want to know if there is any way to still take advantage of SoftRAID monitoring, either on the boot drive, or on another partition on the same drive.

If this is not possible, does this mean that SoftRAID cannot be used in any way to manage the boot drive?

Also, if this is not possible, was this ever possible with previous versions, e.g. v5.x or earlier? (I was introduced to SoftRAID as far back as v2.)

SoftRAID RAID 0 volume not mounted

laramie.goode — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 15:32:08 +0000

Hello,

I have a Fortis 5C 5-Bay USB-C External Drive configured in a RAID 0 with data that will not mount. I can see the physical disks listed, and the volume shows all 5 disks as connected but simply states the volume is not mounted. Does anyone know how to get the volume re-mounted without loss of data?

Thank-You

3217

New Mercury Elite Pro Quad - Slow Performance?

rslygh — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 15:05:35 +0000

I've had a new Mercury Elite Pro Quad running for a few days. I purchased it without drives and installed 4x 24TB IronWolf Pros for it, set up in RAID0. It's connected via USB-C to a USB3.1 PCIE card, on a physical server running Windows Server 2025. It has been running very slow compared to what I expected: 40-45MB/s read and write. In comparison, I have a 5 year old, 12TB G-RAID 2 disk enclosure connected to the same PCI card, and it tested just over 450MB/s for both read and write. Both drives are set to performance, not the default quick-removal option.

After creating the RAID with SoftRAID, I did reformat the drive from within Windows from NTFS to ReFS. It's meant to be used as a local repository for Veeam, which is why I want to use ReFS. I'm now in the process of clearing the drive so I can recreate the RAID, leaving it NTFS format to test again in case ReFS is the problem. However, has anyone had similar problems, or have any suggestions? Or has anyone else used ReFS with SoftRAID without issue? I did reach out to support earlier this morning, but thought I'd try the forum too in case anyone else has had a similar experience. Thanks

ThunderBay 8 (OWCTB83TKY, 2020) — Permanent Orange Light After SoftRAID 8 Premium First Activation — Complete Diagnostics Included

Rahul869 — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 09:15:45 +0000

Hello SoftRAID Community and OWC Engineers,

I am posting this with full diagnostic detail in hopes of
finding a resolution before resorting to hardware replacement.
I have done extensive troubleshooting and believe this is a
software/firmware-recoverable issue.

─────────────────────────────────────
UNIT AND SYSTEM DETAILS
─────────────────────────────────────
Enclosure: OWC ThunderBay 8
Drives installed: 8 × 12TB new drives (Thunderbay 8 filled)
Host Mac: 2019 MacBook Pro
macOS: 26.3 (Tahoe)
SoftRAID: Version 8 Premium — newly activated subscription
─────────────────────────────────────
WHAT HAPPENED — THE EXACT SEQUENCE
─────────────────────────────────────
1. Installed SoftRAID 8 Premium fresh on 2019 MBP
2. Connected ThunderBay 8 via Thunderbolt 3 cable
3. Restarted Mac with ThunderBay powered on and connected
4. SoftRAID and Disk Utility BOTH detected all 8 drives
successfully — unit appeared completely normal
5. All 8 drives visible, healthy, SMART status green
6. Approximately 2 minutes later — all drives vanished
from SoftRAID and Disk Utility simultaneously
7. Front panel light shifted to solid permanent ORANGE
8. Unit has remained orange ever since — no recovery

─────────────────────────────────────
TROUBLESHOOTING ALREADY PERFORMED
─────────────────────────────────────
✅ Tried 3 different Thunderbolt 3 cables — no change
✅ Tried all Thunderbolt ports on 3 different Macs:
- 2019 MacBook Pro (macOS 26.3)
- 2017 MacBook Pro (maxed out)
- M5 Max MacBook Pro (just received)
All results: solid orange, no detection
✅ Restarted all computers with unit already connected
and powered on — no change
✅ Checked System Settings > Privacy & Security for
blocked OWC system software — nothing blocked
✅ Checked System Settings > Login Items & Extensions
> OWC — toggled off and on, restarted — no change
✅ Unit powers on (fan running, green internal light)
— power supply appears functional
✅ Orange light is solid, not flashing — steady state

─────────────────────────────────────
MY ANALYSIS OF WHAT HAPPENED
─────────────────────────────────────
I believe the following sequence caused the failure:

When SoftRAID 8 Premium activated its driver for the
first time, it simultaneously initialised and polled
all 8 drives — causing a sudden peak power draw inside
the enclosure. The ThunderBay 8 (manufactured 2020,
approximately 6-7 years old) may have had a weakened
PCIe/Thunderbolt controller board. The peak load from
simultaneous 8-drive initialisation pushed it into a
fault state from which it has not recovered.

The drives themselves appear undamaged — the failure
was in the controller/data handshake layer, not the
storage layer.

─────────────────────────────────────
QUESTIONS FOR THE COMMUNITY AND OWC
─────────────────────────────────────
1. Is there a firmware reset or power cycle sequence
for the ThunderBay 8 that can recover the PCIe
controller from a fault state?

2. Is there a known issue with SoftRAID 8 Premium
simultaneously initialising 8 drives causing peak
load failure on older ThunderBay 8 units?

3. Can the Thunderbolt controller (Intel JHL7440)
be reflashed or reset via any OWC utility?

4. Is the internal PCIe controller board available
as a standalone replacement part?

5. Has anyone experienced solid orange light after
a SoftRAID upgrade and recovered without hardware
replacement?

─────────────────────────────────────
WHAT I HAVE NOT TRIED YET
─────────────────────────────────────
- Thunderbolt/USB4 device tree check on M5 Max
(doing this this month and will update this post)
- Removing all 8 drives and testing with empty
enclosure to isolate drive load vs controller fault
- Testing with only 1 drive installed to reduce
peak power draw during spin-up

─────────────────────────────────────
UPDATE IN PROGRESS
─────────────────────────────────────
I will update this post with the M5 Max Thunderbolt
device tree result and the empty enclosure test result
within the next few hours.

Any guidance from the SoftRAID engineering team or
the community would be deeply appreciated. I am a
filmmaker with critical project data dependent on
this unit being recoverable.

Thank you,
Rahul Jain

RAID not mounting

AllenRobbins — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:22:11 +0000

Mac Studio M2 ULTRA OS 15.7.1 (24G231)

All of a sudden my drive will not mount. Its a ThunderBay 4 mini - Thunderbolt 2 Chasis with 4 1TB Drives Striped RAID5

SoftRaid shows no errors. Tech Support file is attached.

Anyone have any ideas?

3214

3216

Migrating drives to new enclosure

greatnate — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 08:57:03 +0000

Unfortunately one of the fan bearings has failed on my 8 month old OWC Express 4M2. I wish they had used Noctua fans. I am being sent an advanced replacement, and want to migrate the SSDs to the new enclosure while maintaining the RAID 5 array. What is the process for this? My assumption is that I put the drives in the new enclosure in the same order and SoftRAID will recognise it, and take care of it from there perhaps needing to validate.

SoftRAID: Upgrading volume size over time?

AitoHikari — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 06:08:09 +0000

Hello, if I used a 4-bay drive with SoftRAID, with the setup 4 bays at 4TB each and upgraded one of those drives to 12TB (so 3x4TB, 1x12TB) to slowly expand the drive size over time, is this possible?

If it is, will this drive read as 12TB or will all remaining drives need to be upgraded to 12TB first for them to read correctly?

My plan is to use (currently that is) to use a TERRAMASTER D4-320 (4-bay enclosure) with SoftRAID connected to a Mac Mini M1 to use as a media drive for 1080p (and lower) movies and TV shows and using homesharing to the Apple TV (app) to Apple TV (product) for media viewing. And I wanted to start off with smaller drives and slowly upgrade each drive over time to larger ones.

SoftRAID Standard features

smayer97 — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 04:24:11 +0000

Is it possible to resize a volume with SoftRAID Standard?

Are there Release Notes for SoftRAID 8?

smayer97 — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 02:07:23 +0000

None are available with the downloaded software, unlike all previous versions. Is this available online somewhere instead?

SoftRAID and Virtual Machine running older macOS

smayer97 — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 16:01:31 +0000

I currently have a 2019 Intel iMac i9 running macOS 10.14 (Mojave). I want to upgrade the macOS. Max supported macOS is 15, so I can upgrade to any version in between (I have all the installer versions). I also need to run an VM (either VMWare Fusion or UTM) with an older macOS. I can choose anything from MacOS 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) to macOS 10.14 (Mojave) max. The VM can be installed on any Mac drive format (HFS+ or APFS) but will need to access at least one HFS+ volume.

I want to know how SoftRAID will interact with the VM that may need to access a SoftRAID volume but does not need to run SoftRAID software.

My choice as to what versions of macOS I upgrade to on the host and the VM will partly depend on how SoftRAID volumes behave within each environment.

Some questions around this (I am not sure all the right questions to ask):

1. Can the VM access a drive running using a newer driver in the host environment?

2. Do the host and the VM contain different driver versions?

Please provide insight as to how this all would/could work.