Free upgrade options for customers, who bought an own product less than 6 month ago

Did you try the check for upgrades options?

https://software.owcdigital.com/softraid-upgrades/

@softraid-support I'm in a very similar boat where I've recently purchased a Thunderbay Flex 8. Checking the license upgrade and attempting to use the included license, neither have provided me with an option to retrieve a redeemable license for SoftRaid 6.

@thecodingart

Did you go to the upgrades link above:

https://software.owcdigital.com/softraid-upgrades/

If you bought this revently, you should be given the option for a no charge upgrade to 6.

I've been using the betas since BigSur was released with my Thunderbay and now that 6.0.1 if finally officially released, that link above is telling me I have to pay $99 in order to keep using my Thunderbay? Please tell me this is a mistake.

@bldraid

If your enclosure is more than about 8-9 months old, yes this is a paid upgrade.

$99 to keep using my Thunderbay just because I upgraded to BigSur??

@bldraid

There is a lot of Software that requires an update when a major new upgrade is released.

Snow Leopard was shipping when SoftRAID 5 was released. We managed to keep SoftRAID 5 up to date and supported, through all those macOS upgrades. I don''t know what the future holds, but that was a darn good run. 10 major macOS releases.

@softraid-support I bought my Thunderbay when Yosemite was released. I’m sorry, but I don’t agree that $99 is a reasonable price to keep the enclosure working with the same iMac it always has. There used to be a “light” version that just supported the enclosure alone, what happened to that?

We discontinued all the Lite versions, for many reasons. Managing 4 versions, including 6 languages became very complicated.

Users who only use RAID 1 or RAID 0 have the additional option of using Apple's RAID drivers.

Your enclosure works just fine. SoftRAID extends the functionality of your enclosure. But it is not required to use it.

I purchased my OWC ThunderBay 8 Thunderbolt 3 RAID Storage Enclosure. Featuring SoftRAID Pro less than 2 months ago.  Notice that "SoftRAID Pro" was cited as INCLUDED on my invoice.  The license key did NOT activate PRO version, just XT.

According to the SoftRAID web site I need to upgrade to Pro to use multiple OWC enclosures per volume ( I use both 2 & 3 enclosure RAID 5 volumes).  The Macsales web site does NOT cite this volume per single enclosure imitation of SoftRAID 6.  SoftRAID 5 did NOT have this limitation or the new stated limitation is ambiguous.  The $199 upgrade to Pro for this feature is NOT reasonable, especially given the misrepresentation of the license version at the time of purchase.  Since the XT upgrade cost is the same as the additional cost of an OWC enclosure with SoftRAID XT, what is the benefit for a loyal customer, especially those employing multiple OWC enclosures (I own 10) given the new volume in a single enclosure limitation of SoftRAID 6 XT.  I have multiple multi-enclosure volumes running on SoftRAID 5 XT.

My customer experience has been horrible this year.  The pandemic is not to blame!

@softraid-support I did. After trying it again later that day, it seemed to work. Not sure what happened there as I copied/posted the same code. I did send a customer service email¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

I bought the Lite version in early April last year for $49.99

OWC is now asking $199.99 to continue to use it (this is the upgrade price after serial is entered) - that seems unfair to me.

Do I need to find a way of reverting to the previous version and if so how long will that work for?

@tylocco

As long as you are not on Big Sur, SoftRAID 5 will never expire.

You also have the options of going to "Apple RAID". SoftRAID can convert your volume to Apple format

We discontinued SoftRAID lite versions, sorry.

@mbt_utp

I understand your issue, and as you have multiple enclosures the upgrade to pro should consider that. We certainly work with customers.

Contact me off list with how many licenses you have and how many Pro seats you need (10 enclosures, if all came with XT, means you have 10 XT licenses, for example), and we can work out an arrangement.
Send your information to support at softraid.com