OWC Holdings, Inc., a division of OWC, a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company, announced today the launch of SoftRAID v. 5.6 RAID software featuring SoftRAID Easy Setup, which now makes it super easy to create a RAID system (redundant array of independent disks) from scratch to keep your precious files protected against disk failure and achieve faster data access. SoftRAID’s software RAID system is ideal for everyone who needs to safely store and backup massive amounts of data, including photographers, videographers, editors, audio producers, database and media managers, advertisers, archivers, and more. SoftRAID’s Easy Setup guides less technical users through the process of creating SoftRAID volumes, automating the process of configuring disks and making recommendations to help users setup their SoftRAID system. All users have to do is decide what the RAID volume will be used for and how much space to use (with hints from the application) -- SoftRAID Easy Setup does the rest.

owc softraid

Additional new features in SoftRAID include the ability to monitor USB and FireWire disks for failure and impending failure and translation to Simplified Chinese (for both the application and documentation), in addition to the 5 other languages SoftRAID already supports: English, French, German, Spanish and Japanese. SoftRAID is available to purchase from www.SoftRAID.com/store for SoftRAID lite at $49 and the full SoftRAID at $179. A 30 day fully functional Free Trial of SoftRAID or SoftRAID Lite is available to download immediately from www.SoftRAID.com/freetrial.


New Features in SoftRAID 5.6:

  • SoftRAID Easy Setup: helper application guides less technical users through the process of creating SoftRAID volumes.
  • SMART over USB proprietary driver: extends disk checking and monitoring to most USB drives, including most USB 3/3.1 and many USB 2 drives, FireWire enclosures and FireWire 400/800 connected drives.
  • Supports 6 languages: now translated to Simplified Chinese, in addition to English, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese.
  • Supports Thunderbolt 3 devices: with sustained throughput of over 2.5GB/s on a single Thunderbolt 3 bus. You can even use two ThunderBolt 3 buses at the same time and create a volume which can read and write at over 4 GB/s.
  • Email Notifications: updated to support recent security enhancements in SMTP servers, includes support for almost all third party email servers.
  • Quick Start Guides: updated for both SoftRAID and SoftRAID Lite to include an entire section on using SoftRAID Easy Setup.
  • Features improved failover handling: in the event of Mirror (RAID 0), RAID 4, RAID 5, and RAID 1+0 disk failure scenarios.
  • Extends disk certification: to all 4Kn (4 KB sector) drives.
  • Compatible with all versions of Mac OS X: from 10.6.8 through the latest release of Mac OS 10.12 (Sierra).
  • Includes bug fixes: details of which can be found in the release notes.

General SoftRAID Features:

  • Support for all Intel based Macs with Core Duo 2 processors or later.
  • Supports Thunderbolt 1, 2 & 3, eSATA, SAS, FireWire and USB 2.0, 3.0, 3.1 and USB-C.
  • Converts AppleRAID stripe (RAID 0) and mirror (RAID 1) volumes to SoftRAID.
  • Supports RAID 0, 1, 4, 5 and 1+0 (and non-RAID volumes) - (RAID 4, 5 and 1+0 volumes not available with SoftRAID Lite).
  • Supports TRIM (for SSDs) on all SoftRAID RAID levels.
  • All SoftRAID volumes can be startup volumes.
  • Supports volumes up to 4 petabytes (4,000 TB).
  • Supports up to 16 disks per volume and up to 32 volumes per Mac.
  • Automatic rebuilding of out-of-sync RAID volumes.
  • Fast Rebuilds for accelerated rebuild times.
  • Disk error reporting: SoftRAID monitors and logs all disk errors (often ignored by Mac OS).
  • Email notifications (not available with SoftRAID Lite).
  • Predictive failure analysis: gives advance warning of imminent disk failure on all disks which support SMART, most USB 3, 3.1 and USB C disks (enclosures) and also many USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and 800 disks.
  • Certify Disk: guarantees disk reliably read and write data (destructive, ideal for new disks).
  • Verify Disk: ensures entire disk can be read (non-destructive test for any-time use).
  • Validate volume: confirms your entire volume is readable and all parity data is correct.
  • I/O and error counters for every SoftRAID disk and volume.
  • Extended disk information, including hours of use, reallocated sector counts and media wear for SSDs.
  • Disk labeling and LED blinking to aid in disk identification.
  • Extensive logging of SoftRAID events.
  • Command line interface with dedicated man page (CLI not available with SoftRAID Lite).
  • Built-in recovery tools for recovering severely damaged partition maps.

Pricing for SoftRAID, SoftRAID Lite, & Free 30 Day Trial

SoftRAID version 5.6 is available now as a fully functional 30 day free trial at SoftRAID.com/freetrial, with pricing at just $179 through www.SoftRAID.com/store, Apple Certified Consultants, and retail outlets worldwide. It includes one year of free technical support via email. In addition, SoftRAID Lite is available for just $49 and includes support via online forum. SoftRAID Lite supports only non-RAID, stripe (RAID 0) and mirror (RAID 1) volumes. Users of SoftRAID version 4 can purchase an upgrade to version 5.6 for $89. SoftRAID requires Intel running Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later. Support for TRIM commands on SSDs require Mac OS X 10.7.5 or later. SoftRAID is known for their exceptional tech support, available nights and on weekends, in addition to standard hours.