Solving Problems - SoftRAID Forum

Thunderbay 4 mini - io errors across multiple drives

vnvnvn — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 22:02:28 +0000

I am seeking assistance with an issue involving my Thunderbay 4 mini populated with Samsung SSDs in a stripe configuration. This setup has been running reliably for about five years.

At boot-up, SoftRAID reported a read disk error. Upon rebooting, the error reappeared, but on a different disk. I cleared the I/O errors and ran First Aid on the entire volume in Disk Utility, which initially seemed to resolve the issue. However, when I attempted to copy a folder onto a different drive, the I/O errors returned. So far I tried swapping out the cable, and physically moving the disks around.

While I initially suspected a failing disk, the errors are appearing across multiple disks which has got me suspecting that its an issue with the enclosure. Please let me know the best next steps to troubleshoot this.

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Rebuilding Raid 5 after HD issue causes issues because SoftRaid Stops rebuilding

steve223 — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 23:47:33 +0000

I am currently rebuilding a RAID array on my Thunder Bay 4 unit because one of the hard drives appears to be faulty. I installed the replacement drive, followed the necessary steps, and the OWC software is now reconstructing the RAID. Since this is a 36-terabyte array, I appreciate that the process will take considerable time. However, the SoftRAID application displays wildly fluctuating estimates for the remaining time, jumping from 490 hours to 120 hours and varying constantly. Furthermore, it seems the rebuilding halts entirely at times. I left the application running in the background for several hours, but when I switched back to it, the time remaining had vanished, and there was no progress in the current offset or I/O requests, which was quite unexpected. Once the app was brought to the foreground for a short period, the process appeared to resume suddenly. I suspect it had paused for an extended duration. The computer has not entered sleep mode, as I am using Amphetamine to keep it active. At this rate, the reconstruction looks set to take several weeks.

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i/o errors, Degraded, Failed Notices After Rebuilding Using DiskWarrior

midihead7 — Tue, 20 May 2025 16:40:47 +0000

I am running Mac OS Sequoia 15.4.1 and SoftRAID 8.5 on a Thunderbay 4. I haven't had any issues show up from SoftRAID itself under normal operations. I have, however, recently noticed that when I run DiskWarrior 5.3.1 on my RAID 5 volume to rebuild the directory to improve efficiency, it successfully rebuilds the directory but then SoftRAID reports i/o errors, degraded, and failed notices. I can consistently reproduce this behavior. SoftRAID does not report these issues outside of running DiskWarrior on the volume. What would cause this behavior? I have attached screenshots and the report from SoftRAID (hopefully the images aren't broken).

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MacOS 15, On Volume Delete

monjoe — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 15:25:07 +0000

Hi

Using MacOS 15.1.1
SoftRaid 8.3

Fresh install of SoftRaid (used CLI to remove all the components, reboot, and reinstall the latest version again)

I can't delete a Volume (The volume is accessible and I can Erase/Access it without any issues), SoftRaid asks me for a password and as soon I insert the correct password, it displays SoftRAID Error

This is the corresponding SoftRaid Log for it:

2024.11.29 - 10:17:45 - SoftRAID Application: Deleting the volume "T4-CCC" (disk20).
2024.11.29 - 10:17:45 - SoftRAID Application: Tool terminating - status = 0, reason = NSTaskTerminationReasonExit

Another issue is the CLI SoftRaidTool times out even on display information on any SoftRaid volume:

$ sudo softraidtool disk disk18  info
Password:
SoftRAIDTool status: waiting for disk disk18 to respond (1 seconds remaining)
SoftRAIDTool error: disk disk18 did not respond

Note: disk18 is accessible and verified (there are no errors in SoftRaid for it and can be accessed in Finder as usual)

How can I fix these issues?

Thanks

SoftRAID Error : An internal part of the SoftRAID application has stopped functioning properly. Please quit SoftRAID and relaunch it.

sngraphics — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 15:55:34 +0000

Two issues posted here. Not sure if they are related.

Using: MacPro 2012, MacOSX 10.13.6, SoftRAID Lite 5.8.4

1st issue:

I am not sure why this is happening. It seems that it is not consistent seeing that SoftRAID has completed a Certify on both of these drives.

(I don't remember if it completed running on both drives simultaneously but for sure separately)

I included a screenshot below of the error message and the drives in progress.

Any info would be much appreciated.

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2nd issue:

I also pasted a copy of one of my latest crash reports because it kept happening when the one external drive in the screen shot (Seagate 2TB) was attahced and I put my computer to sleep.

When I would come in, in the morning my computer would have restarted and this crash report would be up.

The "Kernel Extensions in backtrace: com.owc.driver.SCSI-Device(1.1b16)" would be the first item in the report.

From what i could find out it is a SoftRAID piece. So not sure if there is any correlation.

After unplugging the Seagate 2TB there was no issue with waking from sleep.

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Softraid Driver Error.

FatPanda — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 07:50:15 +0000

I too got this error yesterday. I have mailed support and waiting a response, I have included the support file. As I understand it, this requires a engineer custom solution, so I will wait patiently and hope for a good reply. Can I please request an acknowledgment of receiving this request because the support email does not tell me any request has been received.

Thanks team.

2398

how to prepare for mac replacement : Intel to M2

pguyton — Sun, 07 Jan 2024 12:38:53 +0000

Soon I plan to replace my 2018 mac mini with a more modern mac (mini or studio). In doing so I will obviously be moving from intel to apple silicon.

Is there a best practice for this as far as Softraid goes? Should I do manual installs of all software or let the new mac update from the old mini and migrate everything? If the latter, will softraid be setup for M2 accordingly after the migration?

Thanks in advance.

SoftRAID Driver Error: one or more disks contain invalid data in SoftRAID status partition

SoftRAIDfan — Fri, 24 Nov 2023 22:42:58 +0000

I upgraded my SoftRAID to 7.6, rebooted Mac (Sonoma 14.1.1) and upon login, I am greeted with this error screen.

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After Launching SoftRAID, I see that the unmounted Volume has following status: "degraded and missing disk." Weirdly it also shows "no errors".

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Investigating further, one of my disks (no errors) is no longer connected to the Volume:

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The unfortunate part is, I have no backup of the Volume for the past few weeks, so I cannot just simply Delete Volume or Initialize to start over.

Is there a way to "reconnect" this disconnected disk without losing access to everything? Right now, the Volume doesn't even mount at all so I can't even copy whatever is left out. 😥

Help!!! 😪

RAID5 was a bit slow so I ran DiskWarrior, now all 4 disks i/o errors, degraded, failed

SteveK — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 00:07:39 +0000

I searched the forums and saw a post saying this might be related to a power draw issue but that was for SSDs, and this is a ThunderBay 4 with 4 HDDs.

I keep lots of video on a 4 HDD ThunderBay 4 running SoftRAID 7.5, RAID5. It's running on a late 2012 Mac mini that I use for Plex and Time Machine backups running Monterey via OpenCore Legacy Patcher. I've been running it this way for maybe 18 months without a hitch.

Recently that volume has been transferring video files slowly. No errors, SMART reports OK. Today I rebuilt that volume's directory after DiskWarrior reported it had an optimization index of 8 and needed a rebuild. After replacing the rebuilt directory I got SoftRAID popup after popup showing i/o errors, now showing degraded disks and failures.

I unmounted and am now shutting down the ThunderBay. Can someone give me a hand when you have a minute, please? I'm hoping this is not a "real" failure since all 4 drives going at once is pretty rare. Thank you, guys.

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disc privilege issues

photographerphil — Mon, 08 May 2023 17:36:27 +0000

Im having an odd folder access / disc permission issue - Ive been successfully using the same OLD system with close to zero issues for many years ( g4 tower running 10.4.11 & softraid 3.68) - yes I know THATS old - for what im doing its been working fine till now) I run in "mirror mode" for a simple redundant 2 drive system for " working file storage"

my problem: suddenly there are some folders I am not allowed access to and or I can not add to over the network so I " do not have privileges "

My question is how can I run a disc utility on the mirror raid ( I get a can not unmount message ) , or is that not a thing for the raid and I should I NOT be relying

doing that ?

thanks !