SoftRaid 5 to 6 & Mercury Helios 3S

Yes if you buy 5.x now, you will get 6.x upgrade at no charge.

Which exact model do you have ? Point me to the product page, so my answer is definitive!

@softraid-support

https://www.owcdigital.com/products/mercury-helios-3s#tech-specs

with https://www.owcdigital.com/products/u2-shuttle#tech-specs

Thank you for your answers! And one more question:

Now I have OS X 10.15.7 with SoftRaid6 software that control raid4 box, tomorrow I want to make "fresh" installation/upgrade to os x big sur.

Should I be worried about any issues? Or I can simply install OS X 11, then re-install SoftRaid6 and my RAID4 will be auto-mounted without any additional configurations needed?

Exactly, no issues.

@softraid-support

Unfortunately, here issues.

I just updated to OS X 11.2.3 , installed same version v6.0.1b53 and then...

I see all my disks, I see my RAID4, but it is "unmounted". When I click "mount", software tries to mount "mounting" but after - nothing happens and "unmounted"

Any help?

@test4test

The way to tell whether the issue is a volume issue or a driver issue, look at the volumes tile, for Disk Identifier. Does it have one (like disk5), or not ( - )

If there is a disk identifier, the volume is being published and a failure to mount is a directory issue. If there is a - then the driver is not actually loading.

Are you getting the "Allow" OWC option in System Preferences/Security?

@softraid-support

Yes, I did everything without success.

But!, It suddenly starts working only after I install Paragon NTFS and Paragon extFS for Mac on my fresh Big Sur.

[before update to Big Sur, I had Paragon NTFS+extFS products installed in my system, so I made RAID4 creation with SoftRaid with Paragon installed when I had 10.15]

I looked at some forum topics. Looks like you have minor issues with Paragon products. Take a look.

Thank you for your attention and very quick answering!

Yours Sincerely

@test4test

I think the actual issue is Big Sur has an issue with older extensions. When it encounters one, it stops building the extensions cache. So the SoftRAID driver never gets loaded. It took a while to figure this out. One of the main culprits I have seen are HP Printer drivers, maybe because there are so many installed in system folders.

There is one possible paragon issue, I have not reproduced it yet, if I can, I opened an account on their forums, and can report it.

@softraid-support

Maybe, Let me help you?!:

At this[attached] screenshot you can see that SOFTRAIDv6 shows my RAID and OSX system drives as unmounted.

But they are actually mounted and both work well

@test4test

SoftRAID Applicaiton does not yet know how to identify/manage APFS volumes. That will come in the future.

@softraid-support

However, I had the possibility to create APFS volume via v6 interface. And everything worked well with APFS both with 10.15 and with 11 , but then:

Update:

yesterday, I calibrated the battery and reseted SMC, after - APFS RAID4 can not be mounted at all

Any ideas? Or I should wait till stable v6 to access my data?

@test4test

APFS should work, it has many more fail-safes than HFS. This is not a "driver" problem, we have not touched the actual driver in months. The release driver will be the same as this current beta.

Is there a "disk Identifier" on the volume? if it has a - then it means the driver is not loading, which to me is the most likely cause of this. I can guess resetting things like SMC could undo any approved driver permissions in macOS.

If there is a "disk Identifier", like disk6, then the volume has been published to macOS and should mount. The problem with APFS is there are no repair tools yet.

@softraid-support

For now I have:

mountpoint: - disk Identifier: disk6

Looks like everything is good but I still can not mount RAID4

May you take a look at the screenshot at the attachment?

@softraid-support

Before I also tried to install 10.15 back without success. Now I have only 11.2.3 - these 2 screenshots

Ok, now I restored my data via DiskDrill.app and recreate RAID4. Too many bugs in Softraid v6 - now know it.

In SOFTRAID app RAID4 is still unmounted, in finder as well as diskutil - mounted.

"we have not touched the actual driver in months" - maybe 1st support engineer was right:

"SoftRAID Applicaiton does not yet know how to identify/manage APFS volumes. That will come in the future."

Plus, it is important to mention that at some point I saw "disk mounted" in Softraid v6, but after several seconds it become "unmounted"