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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
This topic was modified 1 week ago by Rahul869
Posted : 16/04/2026 4:15 am
You misinterpreted what happened. There is no driver install when you "activate" premium, all that happens is more features are enabled.
When you launch the SoftRAID application, it queries each disk for basic information, and does a SMART query on each drive. This does not involve any heavy use of the power supply.
Our power supplies are equipped to handle all drives powering up at once, unlike most NAS enclosures, which power drives up one at a time to be able to use a lower wattage power supply.
If the PCI board does "hang", or drives hang, just power off the enclosure and wait 30 seconds. That will eliminate any transient conditions.
We do not have any firmware flashers for our enclosures, they are "Passive" devices that do not control the disks. There has not been a requirement to update the firmware.
A solid orange light is generally a connection issue. Check your cabling, try different ports and a different cable.
Its possible the enclosure has failed, in which case, you can move your drives to a new enclosure. Its a simple swap out, you can keep the same trays, even.
Sorry for the inconvenience, its likely your volume will simply mount when you get this fixed.
Posted : 18/04/2026 10:13 am
