Running SoftRaid on Apple Silicon (M1) Macs including 2020 Mac Mini with M1

Here is hoping that Mac OS 11.1 allows soft raid to run!

I know the feeling, but it will!

Apple is moving all extensions to user space, which should make loading drivers more consistent.

@kaijujoe66 In the SoftRaid menu, there is an option to Sign Up for Softraid News, which will then open the webpage to sign up.

any update when will Big Sur compatibility be out?

We will be in beta for quite a while. There will be frequent new beta releases. The current 6.0 beta driver is fully Big Sur compatible, however, it is the app that needs the work.

M1 will come any day now, we are waiting for a reply from Apple engineering on a technical issue we are having installing the driver into (shipping) M1 computers.

Apple has a product feedback page and I posted to following at this link.  Maybe if we all do this it will help Apple prioritize a fix.

https://www.apple.com/feedback/

"I rely heavily on OWC SoftRAID Raid software for a photography and video workflow.  For years apple has built in a basic softraid driver in Mac OS.  Softraid software works on Intel Macs in Big Sur.

SoftRaid does not work on M1 Macs and the built in basic driver is not loading, making my workflow impossible because I cannot access the photo and video data that is used in my workflow.

According to softraid they are working with apple engineers to address this in an upcoming Mac OS update.  

Please prioritize this change because without it, I cannot use my M1 Mac mini as intended.  Thanks."

Cannot hurt. We do have an engineer assigned, so it may not be that useful, but Apple getting feedback is always good.

Hi there, so it seems the new Beta b43 still does not support the M1 chips, correct? Any update when a version will support it? Thanks a lot.

We are nearly there, we decided to release this beta rather than hold things up.

there is one issue holding up release of the M1 drive, we hope to resolve it in a few days. This turned out to require more significant changes than we expected.

Can we get some timeline clarity on RAID support on M1 Macs please?  Your November 27 blog post regarding M1 support states that you do not have a certified driver for M1 Macs and that it needs to go through the normal certification process ( https://eshop.macsales.com/blog/68501-softraid-big-sur-m1-macs/).  In that same post, you state that driver certification requires "running four Macs for five days on each of the RAID levels we support."  Since you ordered a single M1 Mac mini, does this mean that it will take upwards of a month (or more) to release a functioning driver for RAID support on M1 Macs?  Some of us have mission critical data processes and have had M1 Macs sitting unused for weeks now waiting for RAID support.  If it's going to be another month we may need to look for a different hardware solution.

We have a working driver for the M1 in house. There is one more issue we need to resolve before we can release it to the public. Sorry for the delay, but user data relies on SoftRAID's driver being 100% solid. So we are extra cautious on this.

It is on a day by day basis. It will not be a month.

Thank you for the response.  This may be acceptable for some.  Good luck.  I will be moving to hardware based solutions immediately.

No problem.

Note, however that the entire RAID industry has migrated to software RAID, from the highest end storage (Amazon, google), all the way down to the desktop.NAS boxes are probably the biggest selling hardware RAID configurations and it is likely in a few more years, most of them will have migrated to software RAID also.

Hardware RAID is not as flexible as software RAID. No more matching firmware versions on drives, or identical drive models, etc.

the problem we have short term, is Apple management does not seem to consider RAID important technology for end users. That will eventually change, I believe.

I just recieved my m1 mac mini today.  and i have 5 Mercury Quad enclosures and 3 of are setup as RAIDs.   I'm only able to see the drives in the 2 enclosures that aren't setup as RAIDs.

Within 1 of those RAIDS are all of my photos.  I'm glad that is a hobby and not mission critical like with others.   But it is annoying nonetheless.

We should have this very soon. We want to be 100% sure that what you get is reliable.