Functionality Issues - SoftRAID Forum

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 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?

RAID 0 to RAID 1+0 Data Loss?

mochidust — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 23:13:09 +0000

I have a 2-drive RAID 0 volume with data on it in SoftRAID 8.6.1 on macOS Tahoe (26.4). I want to convert it to RAID 1+0 by adding 2 new initialized drives using the Convert feature. Will my existing data on the RAID 0 be preserved during this conversion?

Thunderblade X12 mounting issue

kashmirlse — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 19:12:49 +0000

I just bought the Thunderblade X12 48tb and reformatted for Windows 10 as a raid 5. When it mounts, it shows everything and not just the raid. When I unmount the raid (on very bottom in picture), it is apparently not truly unmounted. I have to unmount every single item shown here. If I don't do that and restart the computer, the raid won't mount in explorer until I unmount everything, restart the computer again and the Thunderblade. Any idea why I can't just unmount the raid once without having to unmount the individual items too?

Also a side note -- my Thunderblade has always shown a solid blue LED, but I've seen others say it could be solid white or blinking to indicate a specific function. I've never seen this happen. Any idea why? Or is that for other models?

3194

Delay when double-clicking on files or folders

SRE — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 19:44:52 +0000

I am using soft raid version 8.6.1 with a 1TB (two drives) striped OWC thunderbolt enclosure. Safeguard enabled. Mac OS 26.3 Mac Studio M1

From time to time access gets very slow, if I double-click on a file or folder it hesitates to open, maybe 1-2 seconds. Other times it opens instantly. Even just trying to scroll through a list of folders it stutters. I have run validate on it but that does not change things at all. I have a few hundred GB of space still left on it. Any ideas what to look at for a solution?