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Topic starter
Having a lot of issues with SoftRaid8. Direct support is very slow, and does not address my issues.
1. Was not told when I bought the OWC enclosure that the software was required.
2. Paid for $150 Premium, but no serial number provided, no license listed on My Account page on web. No way to register software. No reply from support.
3. SSDs installed into OWC M2/usb4 enclosure (4x 8TB Samsung990), set up RAID10 with SoftRaid, nowhere was I given a choice to name volume.
4. Now I cannot rename volume.
5. The array is locked into Quick Removal, cannot change to Better Performance, whether from Windows of SoftRaid.
Any clue how to resolve any of these issues?
Posted : 25/06/2026 12:40 pm
SoftRAID is bundled with select enclosures, and for 0GB (bare) enclosures, its a $150 "premium" on a non bundled price. If you purchased the bundled version, there will be a sticker on the bottom with a SoftRAID 8 license number. Is there one there?
You cannot rename your volume in Windows?
Lets start with these basic issues.
Posted : 26/06/2026 8:31 am
Topic starter
OK, I have discovered a few things. The way the OWC website (and descriptions of the OWC M2 enclosure on resellers such as B&H Photo, Amazon, etc.) is worded, there is no clear mention that SoftRaid is included only if a fully stuffed enclosure is purchased. It would help if a simple statement, like what you posted, were included in their sales literature: "SoftRaid is NOT included for bare enclosures".
I tried numerous times to rename the RAID volume in Windows. It originally came up with a long and convoluted name, something like "RAID0 + RAID1 OWC array"... I wanted (which I finally got) RAID10-16TB. I don't really know why, after about 10 attempts and multiple reboots, Windows finally succeeded in renaming the volume.
2 days after purchasing, I finally received a serial number...
The issue of Quick Removal vs. Better Performance turned into about 6 hours with Claude/ChatGPT, downloading ATTO, CrystalDisk, and IOMeter, and running tons of tests. Turns out it is almost certainly a bug in SoftRaid 8.6. x - bad reporting or something wrong in how SR is interacting with the Windows kernel. Digging deep enough, I found the drives are actually set to Better Performance, but the UI in SoftRaid keeps showing an error stating they are all set to Quick Removal.
The last issue is the lack of transparency about write speeds. I'm using Samsung 9100 Pro SSDs, 8 TB each. There is no higher-performance SSD on the market right now, so that is not the issue. OWC says a lot about read speeds (3.2 GB/s advertised) but very little about write speeds. My best performance is 1.1GB/s, barely 1/3 of the read speed. It appears this is a result of the bridge/interface chips in the OWC enclosure and the SoftRaid app/driver itself.
I am reasonably happy with the final result, but had hoped (since this cost as much as a small used car!) for better write speeds.
Posted : 26/06/2026 11:30 am
SoftRAID can be bundled, its an option on 0GB enclosures. Its clear when purchasing from our web site, I agree its not as clear from amazon or B&H, who are focused on competing on the bottom.
I will bring your UI comment to Windows engineering. thanks.
Did you create your volume with 64K stripe unit sizes?
Windows has a lot of variablity with performance based on their hardware designs. There are no real standards, so the same setup can give very differenty performance on different computers. But with Windows, in general, larger stripe unit sizes gives better overall performance.
Posted : 26/06/2026 7:21 pm
