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Topic starter
Hello, one thing that is not clear to me. Your documentation says that SoftRAID is great for Time Machine backups.
But because the SoftRAID application is required to mount the drive, how could you use Time Machine to restore your Mac?
My logic is telling me that this is actually not possible, and Time Machine is limited to only being able to restore files or folders from the backup and not a full drive restoration.
Am I correct?
If so, then this page really needs to be updated with this caveat:
https://softraid.com/support/faq/can-i-use-softraid-with-time-machine/
A main reason that I purchased this OWC RAID was to be able to have a reliable backup and to be able to restore my Mac if a macOS upgrade ever went bad and I needed to revert to an earlier macOS version. The fact that a SoftRAID drive can't be mounted as a boot drive is telling me that the SoftRAID drivers can't be loaded in Apple Software Restore feature.
If I'm wrong, please tell me how we can do this. If not, let us know too… in either way the support page should be updated to show you how you can do a full restore, or that you can't.
Thanks.
Posted : 17/01/2024 4:18 pm
For a while, you could not on M1, no. Now with Sonoma, there is a bug where you cannot restore Time Machine on a SoftRAID volume on intel, but we hope that gets fixed. On M series, yes you can restore from Time Machine, as the SoftRAID driver can load no matter how the system boots.
This post was modified 2 years ago by SoftRAID Support
Posted : 17/01/2024 8:36 pm
Topic starter
Before you replied, I rebooted into the restore system just to check.
It seems that Disk Utility sees 4 separate 5TB drives with their space fully allocated, but then I did see another "drive" with 15 TB and with the name of the RAID 5 drive. It's in HFS+, so maybe it does work now as you say.
I was told not to use APFS with HDDs.
Cheers and thanks. I think it would be great to update the FAQ with this information.
Posted : 18/01/2024 12:23 pm
To clarify, you can use APFS with HDD"s, (Time Machine requires this), its that because of how APFS works, the volume's performance will start degrading the more you use the volume. If you use the volume for editing, it can happen relatively quickly. APFS works by fragmenting files with every change and creating branches. Not much of an issue with flash media, but since HDD's need to rotate to gather up the file data, it gets much slower.
I do not think this will ever get fixed, as Apple seems to think the whole world is primarily flash only now, and hence no need to accommodate HDD performance. Sad if true. And HFS will be around for quite some time, as HDD"s are still required for large scale storage. You cannot take an SSD and put it on the shelf for a year and expect to have all your data.
Posted : 18/01/2024 2:17 pm
Topic starter
@softraid-support I just saw this reply…
Sorry, what do you mean by
You cannot take an SSD and put it on the shelf for a year and expect to have all your data.
Are you saying that over time an SSD will just lose their data if not used? Can you clarify this, that sounds really scary to me.
Posted : 22/08/2025 2:13 pm
This is true. SSD's need regular power, or they will slowly lose data. They work by putting electrons into a small black box (billions of them) and that requires a charge. So as the capacitors slowly dissipate their charge, the electrons escape, along with your data.
Less expensive devices like Thumbdrives, will show such issues first. But any SSD/NVMe with data should be plugged in every 6 months or so for a few hours.
I don't have an article to point you to, this is one of the darker secrets of flash storage.
Posted : 22/08/2025 3:16 pm
SkippingRock reacted
Topic starter
@softraid-support Maybe OWC should write an article on this. This sounds like something that OWC could speak to with its experience.
Posted : 22/08/2025 3:32 pm
For a while, you could not on M1, no. Now with Sonoma, there is a bug where you cannot restore Time Machine on a SoftRAID volume on intel, but we hope that gets fixed. On M series, yes you can restore from Time Machine, as the SoftRAID driver can load no matter how the system boots.
Has the "full restore from Time Machine" from a SR RAID volume running on an Intel Mac been fixed in Sequoia?
Posted : 29/08/2025 12:12 pm
Yes this should work, but I need to test it properly and get back to you.
Posted : 30/08/2025 7:11 pm
