OWC HOLDINGS LAUNCHES SoftRAID UPDATE V. 5.6.3 NOW COMPATIBLE WITH macOS 10.13 HIGH SIERRA

Mill Valley, CA September 26, 2017 — OWC Holdings, Inc., a division of OWC, a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company, announced today the launch of SoftRAID v. 5.6.3, an update and bug fix release, which makes SoftRAID compatible with macOS 10.13 High Sierra. SoftRAID http://www.softraid.com keeps precious files protected against disk failure — ideal for everyone who needs to safely store and quickly access large amounts of data, including photographers, videographers, editors, audio producers, web designers, database and media managers, advertisers, archivers, and more. SoftRAID 5.6.3 features a highly optimized driver, which provides a software RAID solution that equals and can often exceed the performance and reliability of dedicated hardware RAID controllers. In addition, SoftRAID provides advanced disk testing, logging, disk health monitoring, and a unique disk failure prediction system for advanced warning of potential disk problems to protect users from catastrophic data loss.

Easy Setup Automatically Guides Less Technical Users through Setup

SoftRAID 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.

Key Changes/Bug Fixes in SoftRAID v. 5.6.3 
• Now compatible with macOS High Sierra:* 
o SoftRAID 5.6.3’s certify, verify, and monitoring features work with APFS formatted disks (Note: SoftRAID 5.6.3 does not support creating, modifying or converting APFS volumes). 
o Driver modifications ensure that disks do not hang as a result of changes in macOS High Sierra’s kernel features. 
o Driver now uses fewer threads — no more than 1 thread per disk for disk update operations, since macOS High Sierra limits the number of threads which can run at one time. 
o Driver has been changed to handle disk errors better.

• Fixes driver loading to ensure that the correct driver is installed the first time and that newly updated drivers are always loaded. In previous versions, it was possible for older cached versions of the driver to be loaded by mistake under certain circumstances. 
• Driver no longer reports read errors on stripe (RAID 0) volumes as write errors. 
• The command line interface of the SoftRAID Tool no longer returns an error every time the disk unmount command is used. In previous versions, this command used to unmount all volumes, which use a given disk and would return an error even if it was successful. 
• Also includes numerous bug fixes, details of which can be found in the release notes at: https://www.softraid.com/release-notes.

“At SoftRAID, we don’t believe that software should be shipped and then forgotten. We are constantly refining and improving our product, because we love what we do and want it to be the best it can possibly be!” said Tim Standing, VP of software Engineering, OWC Holdings Inc.

SoftRAID Key Features: 
• Supports all versions of Mac OS X from 10.6.8 through macOS High Sierra 10.13. 
• Disk Error Reporting: SoftRAID monitors and logs all disk errors often ignored by macOS. 
• Email Notifications: available with full version of SoftRAID only. 
• Predictive Failure Analysis: provides advanced 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 disks 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 that entire volume is readable and all parity data is correct. 
• Supports 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. 
• 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 (not available with SoftRAID Lite). 
• Built-in recovery tools for recovering severely damaged partition maps.

SoftRAID supports mac OS from 10.6.8 to 10.13 High Sierra

SoftRAID version 5.6.3 is compatible with all versions of Mac OS X from 10.6.8 through the latest release of macOS 10.13 High Sierra. SoftRAID works hard to ensure that their software is ready for every new mac OS release.

Invaluable Features at a Great Price & Free Trial — Great Customer Support

SoftRAID version 5.6.3 is available as a fully functional free trial version at SoftRAID.com/freetrial, allowing prospective customers to download and try all the features of SoftRAID for 30 days for free. Priced at just $179, the full version of SoftRAID supports 5 RAID levels (0, 1, 4, 5 & 1+0), plus email notifications of potential disk failure, and command line support, available at http://www.SoftRAID.com/store. SoftRAID includes one year of free technical support via email. For $49, users can purchase SoftRAID Lite and create RAID 0 and RAID 1 volumes, or convert their AppleRAID volumes to SoftRAID.SoftRAID Lite includes support via online forum. SoftRAID and SoftRAID Lite are available for download at http://www.SoftRAID.com/store, through an Apple Certified Consultant, or retail outlets worldwide. Both versions use exactly the same great driver, provide the same disk testing and health monitoring, and are localized for French, German, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese languages.

SoftRAID provides one of the best tech support services in the industry, available at nights and on weekends, ready to get to the bottom of each and every customer problem. See customer comments about SoftRAID at: https://softraid.com/pages/comment/customers_comments.html. SoftRAID 5.6.3 requires an Intel based running Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later. Support for TRIM commands on SSDs requires Mac OS X 10.7.5 or later. For more information about SoftRAID version 5.6.3, please contact SoftRAID at sales@softraid.com.

About SoftRAID & OWC Holdings, Inc.

Headquartered in Mill Valley, California, the SoftRAID team has provided high quality storage solutions for Mac OS for over 18 years. The company’s founders have worked with disk drives on Mac OS since the Mac Plus shipped in 1986. SoftRAID has earned its reputation as a rock solid product with great technical support, shipping for Mac OS X since 2003. SoftRAID was the first to market with many key features, including fast mirror rebuilds, full email notification, bootable RAID volumes, disk certification, RAID volume validation, TRIM support on all RAID Levels, disk failure prediction, and more.

In 2014, SoftRAID was acquired by OWC, the leading manufacturer and upgrade provider for Apple and PC enthusiasts, and renamed OWC Holdings, Inc. SoftRAID is included with all preconfigured OWC ThunderBay RAID enclosures and OWC Mercury Viper SSDs that offer read speeds of 4.6 GB/s and write speeds of 4.0 GB/s. For more information, see the website:http://www.SoftRAID.com and http://www.macsales.com, http://www.owcdigital.com, Facebook: facebook.com/softraid.