Hi thanks for this very instructive video about setting up your OWC Thunderbay RAID for the first time. I recently used it for certifying and initializing my Thunderbay 8 (32Tb) for my Mac Mini M1 with Softraid 6. A few additional tips: Do not forget to turn OFF the energy saver, screen saver etc. because when you let the certifying process run overnight, like suggested, Softraid does NOT keep your Mac awake and the process comes to a full stop and proceeds when you wake it up next morning. Also the time remaining is far from accurate. Having 3 passes, after completed the first pass, the time drops instantly by about 20 hours. Furthermore no complains so far.
I recently purchased a OWC Thunderbay 4 and configure to RAID5 with with my Mac mini with the M1 chip, I followed you instruction here step by step but, but it never worked, and later figured out I need to go to the " startup Security utility" to select " Reduced Security" and then change the Stripe size from the default 16KB to 64KB at the last step before the creation of the RAID. It would be nice if you mentioned some instruction for the m1 Mac as it 's getting more popular these days.
We sincerely apologize Danny Li that you had an issue with setting up your Thunderbay. This instructions about the Reduced Security is posted on our SoftRAID website. www.softraid.com/support/known-issues/
Can you expand a raid 5 without a losing your data? Say I had a 4 bay unit and started with only 3 disks and raid 5, could I add another disk later and keep my data?
+Coztomba I do not work for Macsales but since you haven't gotten an answer, the quick answer is yes, you can increase a raid 5 without losing data but you need to know how to do it. If yo do it wrong, you can lose all the data in the array. As to whether or not you can do it with SoftRAID, I don't know the software that well to know if it provides that capability. I would think so.
I've got Four 4TB drives in the TB4R5 and ran the defaults on Certify and it says 54 hours? "Longer than a few hours and should let it run overnight." Or perhaps I did something wrong?
4:14 - At this step I get, "An error occurred creating the volume "RAID". SoftRAID was unable to create a file system on this volume." I'm using 8x 18TB Seagate IronWolf drives to setup a Raid 5 in a Flexbay 8. Any ideas?
Please contact our tech support at tech@macsales.com and provide them with a SoftRAID Log and they can help you what may be going on. While in Softraid, click on utilities Select Generate Report for Tech Support Put in your user information and email and select continue After generating, the report should appear on your desktop as a sr_supt file. Please reply back to my email with this!
@@poweredbyowc Why? in most arrays raid 5 requires only 3 drives. Normally is expressed as 3 for parity and two for data (I know parity is distributed it's not raid 4 but the math is the same). If that is the case that is a severe limitation of your box / software combination. Some references : www.computerweekly.com/answer/RAID-5-recovery-What-is-the-maximum-number-of-physical-drives-in-a-RAID-5-configuration another : www.vantagetech.com/faq/raid-5-recovery-faq.html Please confirm that his is the case.
I just set up a Thunderbay 4 Tbolt x2, with 4 x 4TB in a RAID 5 - initialization seemed to take only a few minutes. It's up and running. Total time about 20 mins. Did I miss something?
Multiple passes of 64TB? Yeah, most likely - that's 192TB of data being checked. You can always skip it, but if you let it finish you at least know your drives were working well when first installed.
It looks like software RAID option is way more expensive than hardware RAID. Especially if you buy the RAID closure like OWC Thunderbay 4. Since you have to pay the license fee every time when the software is incompatible with macOS. There should not have such problem if you buy hardware RAID from other vendor closure.
Thank you for providing feedback on our softRAID software. As we continue to move forward and upgrade softRAID at OWC we want to provide the most up to date software and experience to our customers. SoftRAID development is constantly ongoing. As you may have read our last paid upgrade was in 2015. Since that time we have released 36 free updates for various issues and compatibility. This is to ensure softRAID is working with all latest updated and OS releases. All of those updates were free with no additional charge beyond the original purchase. When we released softRAID 6 and now softRAID7 we need to make substantial changes to add current OS compatibility. The upgrade cost help us cover the additional development time that was needed to help us to keep support the software through testing and excellent customer support. We have more information on our website here ( software.owc.com/support/softraid-upgrade-support-plan/ ).
@@poweredbyowc True, but you should print in the package to remind the customer that you have to pay license fee for some upgrade. Otherwise, this is misleading the hidden cost of buying enclosure with software RAID.
this process is horrible. After 3 days one of the disks certified with another day+ left on the other 3. Then as I disconnected one of the USB cords for some reason I got an error message that the disk was disconnected - ARGGGGGHHHHHHH. I never touched the thunderbolt cable that this device was connected to my mac with - So I had to start all over from the beginning; another 5 days of waiting for this ridiculous process -
Do not buy SoftRAID as you have to paid license fee for each macOS major upgrade. It costs you $79.99. If you do not pay it, you can only stay in the macOS version. You can imagine how much you have to paid at each major macOS upgrade and Apple tends to upgrade macOS every 2 years, then you have to paid every 2 years. The license cost will only increase with inflation.
Thank you for providing feedback on our softRAID software. As we continue to move forward and upgrade softRAID at OWC we want to provide the most up to date software and experience to our customers. SoftRAID development is constantly ongoing. As you may have read our last paid upgrade was in 2015. Since that time we have released 36 free updates for various issues and compatibility. This is to ensure softRAID is working with all latest updated and OS releases. All of those updates were free with no additional charge beyond the original purchase. When we released softRAID 6 and now softRAID7 we need to make substantial changes to add current OS compatibility. The upgrade cost help us cover the additional development time that was needed to help us to keep support the software through testing and excellent customer support. We have more information on our website here ( software.owc.com/support/softraid-upgrade-support-plan/ ).
Hi thanks for this very instructive video about setting up your OWC Thunderbay RAID for the first time. I recently used it for certifying and initializing my Thunderbay 8 (32Tb) for my Mac Mini M1 with Softraid 6. A few additional tips: Do not forget to turn OFF the energy saver, screen saver etc. because when you let the certifying process run overnight, like suggested, Softraid does NOT keep your Mac awake and the process comes to a full stop and proceeds when you wake it up next morning. Also the time remaining is far from accurate. Having 3 passes, after completed the first pass, the time drops instantly by about 20 hours. Furthermore no complains so far.
TIME TO UP-DATE THIS VIDEO...
I recently purchased a OWC Thunderbay 4 and configure to RAID5 with with my Mac mini with the M1 chip, I followed you instruction here step by step but, but it never worked, and later figured out I need to go to the " startup Security utility" to select " Reduced Security" and then change the Stripe size from the default 16KB to 64KB at the last step before the creation of the RAID. It would be nice if you mentioned some instruction for the m1 Mac as it 's getting more popular these days.
We sincerely apologize Danny Li that you had an issue with setting up your Thunderbay. This instructions about the Reduced Security is posted on our SoftRAID website.
www.softraid.com/support/known-issues/
@@poweredbyowc - The link does not work anymore.
Can you expand a raid 5 without a losing your data? Say I had a 4 bay unit and started with only 3 disks and raid 5, could I add another disk later and keep my data?
+Coztomba I do not work for Macsales but since you haven't gotten an answer, the quick answer is yes, you can increase a raid 5 without losing data but you need to know how to do it. If yo do it wrong, you can lose all the data in the array. As to whether or not you can do it with SoftRAID, I don't know the software that well to know if it provides that capability. I would think so.
I've got Four 4TB drives in the TB4R5 and ran the defaults on Certify and it says 54 hours? "Longer than a few hours and should let it run overnight." Or perhaps I did something wrong?
4:14 - At this step I get, "An error occurred creating the volume "RAID". SoftRAID was unable to create a file system on this volume." I'm using 8x 18TB Seagate IronWolf drives to setup a Raid 5 in a Flexbay 8. Any ideas?
Please contact our tech support at tech@macsales.com and provide them with a SoftRAID Log and they can help you what may be going on.
While in Softraid, click on utilities
Select Generate Report for Tech Support
Put in your user information and email and select continue
After generating, the report should appear on your desktop as a sr_supt file. Please reply back to my email with this!
Hi, what if I but the thunderbay 4 but I have just 3 4TB drives: Can I add the 4th drive (identical) in the future and expand the raid 5 later?
@@poweredbyowc Why? in most arrays raid 5 requires only 3 drives. Normally is expressed as 3 for parity and two for data (I know parity is distributed it's not raid 4 but the math is the same). If that is the case that is a severe limitation of your box / software combination. Some references : www.computerweekly.com/answer/RAID-5-recovery-What-is-the-maximum-number-of-physical-drives-in-a-RAID-5-configuration another : www.vantagetech.com/faq/raid-5-recovery-faq.html Please confirm that his is the case.
I just set up a Thunderbay 4 Tbolt x2, with 4 x 4TB in a RAID 5 - initialization seemed to take only a few minutes. It's up and running. Total time about 20 mins. Did I miss something?
Each drive. I followed the video. It just seemed really fast. I'm not complaining, just hoping I didn't make an error.
I will. Thank you.
I run on defaults Certify with 8X8TB and it says 97 Hours!!! Is that OK??? 5 Days??
Multiple passes of 64TB? Yeah, most likely - that's 192TB of data being checked. You can always skip it, but if you let it finish you at least know your drives were working well when first installed.
The Email Notifications is not showing ???
Hey this is an old video for the previous SoftRAID version. Here is an updated video that may assist you.
ruclips.net/video/vgwoEIbNEA8/видео.html
It looks like software RAID option is way more expensive than hardware RAID. Especially if you buy the RAID closure like OWC Thunderbay 4. Since you have to pay the license fee every time when the software is incompatible with macOS. There should not have such problem if you buy hardware RAID from other vendor closure.
Thank you for providing feedback on our softRAID software. As we continue to move forward and upgrade softRAID at OWC we want to provide the most up to date software and experience to our customers. SoftRAID development is constantly ongoing. As you may have read our last paid upgrade was in 2015. Since that time we have released 36 free updates for various issues and compatibility. This is to ensure softRAID is working with all latest updated and OS releases. All of those updates were free with no additional charge beyond the original purchase. When we released softRAID 6 and now softRAID7 we need to make substantial changes to add current OS compatibility. The upgrade cost help us cover the additional development time that was needed to help us to keep support the software through testing and excellent customer support. We have more information on our website here ( software.owc.com/support/softraid-upgrade-support-plan/ ).
@@poweredbyowc True, but you should print in the package to remind the customer that you have to pay license fee for some upgrade. Otherwise, this is misleading the hidden cost of buying enclosure with software RAID.
We can certainly pass your feedback along.
Does my HDD have to be empty before raid?
No, but initialising will destroy any data present on the disks. Ideally you want the disks to be pretty new for consistency in the long term.
I wonder if this SoftRaid will work on 10.10.
That music, though. :-o Kill the music. Just leave it out. It's really distracting and completely unnecessary. Otherwise, good video.
2014?
Thank you for your comment. We are open 8AM-8PM Central time M-F.
Our number is 1-800-275-4576.
Our international number is +1.815.338.8685.
this process is horrible. After 3 days one of the disks certified with another day+ left on the other 3. Then as I disconnected one of the USB cords for some reason I got an error message that the disk was disconnected - ARGGGGGHHHHHHH. I never touched the thunderbolt cable that this device was connected to my mac with - So I had to start all over from the beginning; another 5 days of waiting for this ridiculous process -
How does anyone approve that music for this video?! You guys need a new producer.
Do not buy SoftRAID as you have to paid license fee for each macOS major upgrade. It costs you $79.99. If you do not pay it, you can only stay in the macOS version. You can imagine how much you have to paid at each major macOS upgrade and Apple tends to upgrade macOS every 2 years, then you have to paid every 2 years. The license cost will only increase with inflation.
Thank you for providing feedback on our softRAID software. As we continue to move forward and upgrade softRAID at OWC we want to provide the most up to date software and experience to our customers. SoftRAID development is constantly ongoing. As you may have read our last paid upgrade was in 2015. Since that time we have released 36 free updates for various issues and compatibility. This is to ensure softRAID is working with all latest updated and OS releases. All of those updates were free with no additional charge beyond the original purchase. When we released softRAID 6 and now softRAID7 we need to make substantial changes to add current OS compatibility. The upgrade cost help us cover the additional development time that was needed to help us to keep support the software through testing and excellent customer support. We have more information on our website here ( software.owc.com/support/softraid-upgrade-support-plan/ ).