Creating Volumes - SoftRAID Forum

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.)

All questions about RAID 1+0

smayer97 — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 23:00:26 +0000

Since there is no dedicated section for RAID 1+0 (vs Stripe only or Mirror only sections), I was inspired by some discussion from this thread to create a thread for all questions and info regarding RAID 1+0:

https://forums.softraid.com/softraid-8-functionality-issues/raid-0-to-raid-10-data-loss

By definition, a RAID 1+0 (aka RAID 10), is a stripe of mirrored drives, as illustrated in a diagram here:

https://www.thegeekstuff.com/2011/10/raid10-vs-raid01/

The intention of this thread is to capture information, not issues or problems.

Creating a Softraid mirror with primary disk using partition on internal SSD, secondary disk using partition on external SSD?

calbear88 — Sun, 03 Nov 2024 21:20:15 +0000

Hello, I have a 2020 intel iMac with a 2TB internal factory SSD. On the internal SSD, I have a boot partition with the OS and applications, and also a partition for data storage.

I purchased an external USB4 NVME enclosure (owc express 1m2) along with a m2 2TB SSD. I was thinking of partitioning 1TB of this drive to use as a Time Machine backup disk. I would use the remaining 1TB on the external SSD to create a SoftRaid mirror (Raid 1) of the data partition of the internal SSD.

Just wanted to double check if this setup is possible?

Thanks

Create Raid 1+0 missing from list

Carter_ITDept — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 13:06:59 +0000

I downloaded the trial version of the SoftRAID application version 8.0.0.67. I'm trying to create a RAID 1+0 with 4 NVMe drives and the option for RAID 1+0 is missing from the list. How do I create this volume when it is not an option?

Creating raid 5 volume

tsquire99 — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 01:48:14 +0000

I understand that using as many drives as possible when you first create a raid 5 when you first create it is preferable. Since adding drives after creation is not possible. Question is, can you add unequal size drives to the array and it will only use the as much as the smallest drive on all the drives. So, if I use 12,12,12,10 it will use 10 on all and save 6 from the others till I can get another 12 installed. Then when I get a 12 it will reclaim all the space. Does this sound accurate? Sorry for the typing and grammar. Did on a phone. What a pain.

Creating RAID 4 Volumes on new Express 4M2 which will be moved to another computer.

freshh20 — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 18:36:28 +0000

I have one Express 4M2 on this computer Raid 0. New Express will be RAID 4 and upgraded to Pro. This new Express will be moved to another location on a different computer. How would I create the RAID 4 on this computer before moving it? This computer has standard SoftRAID installed. Can I have 2 softRAIDS one pro and one Standard on the same computer. To achieve this?

NVME and SSD Raid

mjumpman23 — Sat, 21 Oct 2023 16:18:40 +0000

If I have 3 NVME Drives that total 8TB(4,2,2) and a 16TB HDD, is there a way use a raid to still get fast speeds for Video editing and use the 16TB at the failsafe drive?

Best way to transfer data to new hard drive

calbear88 — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 17:22:47 +0000

Hello, I have a OWC Thunderbay 4 bay enclosure that has four hard drives which are setup as two mirrored pairs wtih SoftRaid. I am planning on upgrading a two of the hard drives to new ones with a larger capacity. There isn't enough free space to copy the data off the hard drives. Just wondering, could I remove one old hard drive from the enclosure, replace it with a new hard drive, then copy the data to the new hard drive, then remove the remaining old hard drive, then put in the second new hard drive, then link the two as a mirrored RAID? I wasn't sure if Softraid supports taking an existing hard drive with data, and adding a mirror to it while preserving the data.

Thanks so much

Error 128 when creating RAID4 on SoftRAID Pro 7.6 (CFBundleExecutable property, executable can't be found)

BurningMan — Sat, 16 Sep 2023 01:46:24 +0000

I have 2x ThunderBays 4 Mini with 4 8TB Samsung SSD 870 QVO each.

Both ThunderBays are connected to each other directly, and one of them is connected to a MacOS Ventura 13.5. All cables are the ThunderBolt cables supplied by OWC.

I upgraded to SoftRAID Pro 7.6 in order to be able to create a volume across the two enclosures, yet it fails with

SoftRAID Application: The volume create command for volume x failed with an error (error number = 128).

SoftRAID Driver: The SoftRAID volume "x" is missing more than one disk.  It does not have enough of its disks to mount.

I suspect the issue is the 7.5 driver, which does not load correctly due to validation failure:

SoftRAID:

  Version:	7.5
  Last Modified:	11.07.23, 10:56
  Bundle ID:	com.apple.driver.SoftRAID
  Notarised:	Unknown
  Loaded:	No
  Get Info String:	SoftRAID version 7.5, Copyright © 2002-23 Other World Computing, Inc. All rights reserved.
  Obtained from:	Not Signed
  Location:	/System/Library/Extensions/SoftRAID.kext
  Kext Version:	7.5
  Loadable:	No
  Validity Errors:
  Validation Failures:
  Kext has a CFBundleExecutable property but the executable can't be found:	SoftRAID
  Signature Validation Errors:	Not Signed
  Dependencies:	Incomplete
  Signed by:	Not Signed

"Uninstall All SoftRAID components" and restarting will not remove the SoftRAID.kext. Reinstalling will ask for password to install helper tool but will not ask for further permissions regarding the driver.

SoftRAID 7.6 is enabled in "Full Disk Access" in macOS "Privacy & Security" settings.

How can I remove/reinstall the driver correctly or force validation of the kext?

Expanding RAID5 by adding 2nd ThunderBay 4 Mini

BurningMan — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 10:47:27 +0000

I currently have a OWC ThunderBay 4 Mini with 4x8TB SSD (32TB) in RAID5.

I'd like to expand the RAID5 to 64TB while using as little desk space (and money) as possible, which led me to the idea of just doubling the setup and daisy chaining it.

I have the following questions:

A. Unless all individual drives are replaced with higher capacity (too expensive), there is no option to expand the capacity of an existing RAID5 drive using SoftRaid?

B. Assuming A is true, is there a better option than to delete the current RAID5, create a new one spanning all 8 drives across the daisy chained two ThunderBay enclosures, and copy the files back from another backup?

C. The current setup is performing at ~500MB/s write and ~800MB/s reads. Can I expect a performance gain using two daisy chained ThunderBay enclosures?

Thanks in advance for your help.