SoftRAID

Very nice app, but with some gripes. It seems to be rock-solid (in my case the arrays survive a lot of mishaps, e.g. kernel panics) and very well-supported. My questions to the developer get answered immediately. Still, I find a couple of things bothersome. First, the licensing policy: only one machine is allowed full functionality (in the past, SoftRaid could be installed liberally to any computers one owns). Second, the lack of some sort of knowledge base in their website. To me, this is a serious problem as storage setups become increasingly complex (FW, eSATA, PCI cards, etc) and some guidance would be very useful to the average home user. Overall, however, this is good software (version 4.0.5).

Can SoftRAID 5.7 build RAID 50 (5 +0) arrays, if not 6?

I am planning to build RAID 50 with 10 bay tower casing with 10 500MB HDDs with 5 volume array each for RAID 5 (say, array 1 and array 2) and then mirrored with RAID 0. It's for SNS use and does not necessarily need speed and size for the arrays. 2.5TB each suffice, if not overkill.

Some folk's reviews here are mind-boggling. SoftRAID is one of the most acclaimed and widely accepted soft-RAID solutions. I myself have been running it on all my drives, (13 actively connected; some RAIDed - some not; some spinners; some SSDs) for well over a decade. In those 10+ years, I can attribute ONE issue to it, about 7 years ago. Is it fast? According to BlackMagic I can edit all types of vide except2160p50/p60 10bit YUV 4:2:2... and I do. Everyone has different hardware, skill levels and experience, so these reports are all just anecdotal.
My "anecdote" is that I'm trusting my entire setup, and my business to SoftRAID and have for about 14 years, and based on 16/6 experience, I'm going to continue to do so.

Two issues: > SoftRAID is just not reliable or efficient, it is a bygone technology snarfed up by OWC > The 'demo' lite version is a crappy marketing technique to extract another $179 from purchasers of the already-pricey ThunderBay. AVOID SoftRAID and ThunderBay at all costs.

Mixed feelings. I acquired Softraid Lite under the impression it could convert an Apple Raid 1 system into a Softraid system. To this day this function isn't implemented despite the fact that the very nice people from the customer service department kept promising: "soon, very soon..." So back-Up and complete rebuild. After that it is running solidly. But promising functions that never appear is a bit lame.

Very solid software, nice support, have been using it for close to a decade: a 5-star product. However, it's kind of expensive if one wants to deploy it in multiple locations. I would have liked a more liberal licensing policy, of perhaps a single desktop / single laptop license, which enables switching disks between RAID arrays. Myself, I'll keep using SoftRAID for years to come on my main rig, but installed OpenZFS on all other systems.

Softraid 5 seems to be extraordinarily reliable as well as extraordinarily capable. While Apple's Disk Utility can set up RAIDs, SoftRAID gives you more options, and the interface is years better. I have always worried that when a disk fails, I won't know how to add a new disk back to my RAID 5 to restore the redundancy. With SoftRAID I know that it will be easy. SoftRAID also allows you to set up RAID 4, which has better performance in certain circumstances. It is also being actively developed. I found a small bug in it, corresponded with the developer, and he says that it will be fixed in the next release. Try doing that with Apple's software! Go to SoftRAID's website for benchmark speeds—my experience is that these are the speeds that you can expect. If you want fast or reliable or fast + reliable disks, use SoftRAID.

I had virtually no experience with RAID configurations other than establishing one based upon directions and Disk Utility. This software removes guess work and the user will know what he/she is getting. It is pricey, but it leaves little to the imagination and dissolves frustration.

I combined today three SSDs in an old MacPro of my customer and built a small but lightning fast server for a workgroup. This software works fantastically. I like the professional documentation. Thank you.