Softraid vs apple raid update#
Softraid vs apple raid driver#

Softraid vs apple raid driver#

Users are confused about the steps they must perform to get the SoftRAID driver to load. Over the past two years, the driver loading process has become particularly onerous and it has become our #1 customer support issue. In Apple’s continued effort to make macOS as secure as iOS, they have been increasing the checks the OS performs before loading third party drivers. I learned a ton in this process about making software more secure. All of these suggested security enhancements are now part of SoftRAID version 7. We know of no instances where these vulnerabilities are being actively exploited but I want to close these vulnerabilities before they are discovered.

They performed a thorough review and identified several points where malware could have exploited the driver to gain control of macOS. This year, in our ongoing effort to provide the most secure storage software, we engaged a team of outside macOS security experts-one of the most experienced teams in their field-to review the SoftRAID driver source code. We do not want to be like other utility applications and have the notoriety of being a door through which malware takes control of your Mac. We then review all the source code looking for instances where malware could use these techniques to gain access to macOS through the SoftRAID driver or application. We always start this process by reviewing the most up-to-date information on malware and the techniques used to gain root access to macOS. Improved securityĮvery two years, we perform a security review of all the source code for the SoftRAID application, softraidtool, SoftRAID Monitor and the driver. I have outlined some of these changes in the following sections. These improve the performance and reliability of SoftRAID and will be a benefit for all our customers. There are not a lot of visible changes but there are lots of internal changes. SoftRAID 7 is just like these macOS releases. No Visible changes, lots of internal changesĮvery few years, Apple introduces a new version of iOS or macOS which looks very similar to the previous changes but has a lot of internal changes which improve performance or fix problems users are encountering. We anticipate shipping SoftRAID 7 within the next two weeks. I want to make sure that this upgrade cycle does not cause any problems for our users.

Once the shipping version of macOS Ventura arrives, we will perform our final tests with it and SoftRAID 7, making sure there are no last-minute changes that Apple introduced which adversely affect SoftRAID or OWC storage hardware.

Softraid vs apple raid update#

With the release of macOS13 Ventura, I wanted to provide all of our customers with an update on the development of the next release of SoftRAID,: SoftRAID 7. Editor’s Note: The following update is from Tim Standing, VP of Software Engineering, Mac, at OWC.