Help Identifying Failed Drive in ThunderBay 4 RAID 5 Setup – SoftRAID 8.5, License Not Renewed

Hi SoftRAID Support,

Following up on my original post about the degraded RAID 5 volume in one of my OWC ThunderBay 4 enclosures (running SoftRAID 8.5 on macOS Sequoia 15.5 with an M1 Mac Studio Ultra). I forgot to mention that OWC previously advised that ejections are often issues on the Apple side (related to Thunderbolt signal continuity), and that SoftRAID is just the messenger. They suggested it's not typically a single drive issue but could involve power-off at hibernate or slow wake-ups, and recommended increasing the RAID drive timeout to 2 minutes as a workaround.

To troubleshoot the latest incident, I shut down my Mac and physically isolated the suspected failed drive (based on my best guess from the enclosure's blinking LEDs) in preparation for a warranty replacement. However, upon restarting the Mac, SoftRAID initially crashed on launch. After force-quitting and relaunching the app, it suddenly recognized the "missing" drive that wasn't appearing before, and it automatically started rebuilding the array.

This is the third or fourth time this has happened in recent months, as I've detailed in my previous forum posts (linked below for reference). After each rebuild, all drives pass verification and certification tests with no errors, and they appear to be functioning normally. This suggests the issue might not be with the hardware itself but rather with SoftRAID's reliability—perhaps related to detection, sleep/wake cycles, or compatibility with macOS Sequoia, as I've experienced similar ejection problems in the past after Apple Silicon transitions.

In an attempt to mitigate this, I've since changed my backup routine and started fully shutting down my computer at night instead of letting it sleep. However, this hasn't resolved the problem at all. Now, when I start up the computer in the morning, I often get a notification that one disk was ejected, followed by an automatic rebuild process. What's going on here? The issue persists even without sleep mode involved—it's happening specifically after restarts or power-ons. This makes me question if there's a deeper problem with SoftRAID's initialization, Thunderbolt detection, or macOS integration during boot.

Given that the drives test fine post-rebuild, can you please suggest a permanent solution or workaround? For example:

• Is there a known bug in SoftRAID 8.5 with macOS 15.5 causing false positives for failed drives, ejections on startup, or issues after restarts?
• Beyond the RAID drive timeout setting you mentioned previously, should I adjust other specific settings (e.g., power management or driver options) to prevent this?
• If this persists, would upgrading my SoftRAID license help, or is there a free patch/fix available?

I've attached a new screenshot of the SoftRAID interface during the latest rebuild (including the ejection notification), along with a system support file for your review. Thanks for your assistance—I'm trying to avoid unnecessary hardware replacements and data risks, but these recurring issues are becoming a major hassle.

I now run a disk report for each drive via Disk Utility and, same as SoftRAID, it comes back that the drives are perfectly fine. You really need to address the issues with your software or hardware, whatever is causing this issue. Again, it cannot be blamed on sleep mode as I now shut down at night and the disconnections happen usually after start up in the morning 3rd time now.

Attached is the tech report Log and Raid appears as fine again, this happened now 3 times in the past week 

happens after every restart now

very, very frustrating

@steve223 

THe 12TB (4th drive) is missing. this is a hardware issue. Either that drive is faulty (disappearing), or that slot is faulty.
Give the disks SoftRAID disk labels. See if the same drive always disappears. Then move it to another slot and see if it is the drive or slot.
Then we know what has to be replaced.

Note: If the drive always shows up, but between 1 minute and 2 minutes after startup/connecting, you can set the disk "time out" in RAID preferences to 2 minutes. This will stop the volume from mounting, until 2 minutes, or when the 4th disk shows up.

Does the drive eventually always show up? Or does it require a disconnect/reconnect?

@steve223 

To try to address these:
When a disk is not showing in SoftRAID, it means macOS is not seeing it, Disk Utility (nor will "diskutil list in terminal) will not see the drive either, its simply not powering up (yet)
Disk disappearing when all the drives in an enclosure is a thunderbolt issue.
Disk disappearing, when only one disk in an enclosure, is a hardware (drive or enclosure) issue.

In both cases, SoftRAID is the messenger, telling you there is a problem.

SoftRAID cannot show you what is "missing", it cannot tell you the identifier for a disk that is not there. Only what is there.

When the disk is missing, expand each remaining disk tile and note the Serial number or SoftRAID ID of each disk. then when the 4th shows up, you can easily tell.

Blink disk light is a pretty solid off on. It should not be hard to tell if you let it go for a bit, it also vibrates the enclosure, you may be able to tell from that.

Anyway once you identify the disk that is the one that goes missing, it will be easy to tell next time, as it will not be in the drive list.

Then move it to the other end of the enclosure. When it happens again, is it the same disk, or a different one?

(I just noticed a bug in logging rebuild completed, I am adding it to our bug list)

Yes, Standard allows you to replace a drive, its one feature that works in Standard.

@softraid-support Well, every morning, the same now. I get the warning that one disk is missing, then soft RAID rebuilds, and then everything appears to be fine. Obviously, not how it should Work. No change in Thunderbolt cables, connections, whatever. No issues with the promise rate or the multiple NVMEs connected via Thunderbolt. Anyway, I ordered a QNAP NAS and will connect via 10Gbe Ethernet as I'm over all the issues with SoftRaid and OWC I also called Apple, and Apple says it's an issue with OWC, especially as it only happens with one device So now we're at the same stage we were before, where OWC blames Apple, Apple blames OWC, and I'm the customer in the middle without a working product.

However, I will need for the drive to last until I have my QNAP set up and transferred everything. You mentioned something about changing the drive timeout. How can I try that? Please, and can I do that with the standard version of SoftRaid?

@steve223 
no you cannot do it with the Standard (free) version.
I don't think the drive is going to suddenly fail

Changing the settings are not available either, its in RAID settings in SoftRAID. The idea with Standard is to give you a basic functionality after all warranty / support expires.

All your enclosures are > three years old?

Thanks for the clarification on the Standard version limitations. I understand that's the intent—to provide basic functionality after warranty and support expire—but it's frustrating in this case.

To answer your question: Yes, all my enclosures are over three years old (the ThunderBay 4 units are from around 2021 or so, if memory serves).

That said, I only need my units to work. I'm not asking for anything special, just for my units to work reliably. And at present, they don't seem to—I'm dealing with constant ejections and rebuilds after every restart, which makes them impractical for daily use. There seems to be a workaround (like adjusting the RAID timeout in the settings), but that's not available in the basic functionality of the Standard version.

You know my standpoint: I hate being held hostage for a hardware purchase I've made. With every other provider—be it any of the NAS providers, Promise, Synology, Ugreen, Terramaster or QNAP—you don't need to pay ongoing fees for software maintenance just to use your hardware. Again, I'm on my way out from OWC and transitioning to NAS setups, but it would be nice to see whether that timeout change solves the problem, because at present, your hardware is not working as it should.

I've been using Apple Macs for over 30 years, and I've had many different RAIDs over those years—never have I had so many problems as with the OWC stuff. If there's any way to make a temporary exception for Pro access to test this, I'd appreciate it; otherwise, I'll have to move on sooner rather than later.

Thanks for your time.

@steve223 

My suggestion still is create a second system install and you can run SoftRAID in trial mode, which is full functioning.