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OWC SoftRAID 9 Brings RAID 6 Protection to Mac and Windows, Introduces RAID 6+

SoftRAID 9 introduces a new way to protect your data alongside a host of other improvements.

Wayne Grayson • Sep 21, 2026

Creative professionals, production teams, and businesses managing increasingly large volumes of critical data know that storage speed is only part of the equation. Just as important is knowing that your data remains protected in the event of hardware failure while having enough visibility into a storage system to spot problems before they become disasters.

That’s the focus of OWC SoftRAID 9, the latest release of OWC’s powerful RAID management software for Mac and Windows.

Headlining the release is a highly requested feature from our customers: support for RAID 6, bringing dual-drive failure protection to SoftRAID for the first time. But that’s not all. SoftRAID 9 also introduces RAID 6+, an enhanced version of RAID 6 that goes even further.

SoftRAID 9 also delivers updated driver technology for maximum RAID performance, support for encrypted APFS volumes, proactive drive monitoring, and a broad range of RAID configurations designed for everything from high-speed scratch storage to long-term archives.

Let’s dig into all the improvements

RAID 6 Adds Another Layer of Protection

For many professional workflows, traditional single-drive fault tolerance for RAID arrays may no longer be enough. Large-capacity RAID arrays can take significant time to rebuild after a failed drive, and during that rebuild period the array can be vulnerable if another drive fails. RAID 6 addresses that risk by allowing an array to withstand the failure of any two drives without losing data or access to the volume.

That makes RAID 6 especially useful for larger arrays, long-term archival storage, and production environments where uptime and data integrity are critical.

SoftRAID 9 also introduces RAID 6+, which offers the same two-drive fault tolerance but uses dedicated parity drives rather than distributing parity across all members of the array. This approach can be particularly useful with SSD-based storage. By concentrating parity writes on dedicated drives rather than spreading them across the entire array, RAID 6+ is designed to help maintain higher performance in workflows where speed and redundancy both matter.

Note: For Mac users, RAID 6 and RAID 6+ require macOS 27 Golden Gate.

RAID 6+ delivers two-drive fault tolerance using dedicated parity drives rather than distributing parity across all drives. This can be particularly useful on SSD-based arrays like the OWC Express 4M2 Ultra.

RAID Flexibility for Different Workflows

SoftRAID 9 supports RAID 0, 1, 4, 5, 6, 6+, and 10, giving users the flexibility to configure storage around the needs of a particular workflow. That could mean prioritizing maximum throughput for editing high-resolution video, balancing performance and redundancy for an active production environment, or maximizing protection for large collections of valuable project files.

And because SoftRAID is software-based, users aren’t locked into a proprietary hardware RAID controller. The drives and data remain accessible without depending on a specific controller to interpret the array.

Proactive Drive Monitoring

Comprehensive data protection is about more than recovering from a failure after it happens. That's why OWC SoftRAID Monitor continuously watches HDDs, SSDs, and NVMe drives and can alert users to potential problems before a drive fails outright. That kind of advance warning can give teams time to replace questionable hardware before it threatens an active project or production volume.

For professionals whose storage may contain days, months, or even years of work, that visibility can be just as important as RAID redundancy itself.

Better Mac and Windows Interoperability

SoftRAID 9 also expands support for mixed-platform environments. Built-in OWC MacDrive technology allows Windows systems to access Apple-formatted APFS and HFS+ volumes, making it easier to share storage between Mac and Windows workstations.

New in SoftRAID 9 is full support for encrypted APFS volumes. That means users can access encrypted Mac-formatted storage from Windows without giving up the encryption protecting that data.

For studios, production teams, and businesses that regularly move drives between Mac and Windows systems, this can remove a major source of friction from cross-platform workflows.

Performance Built for Demanding Storage

SoftRAID 9 uses OWC’s latest driver technology to deliver maximum RAID performance across macOS and Windows, with support for storage systems capable of reaching speeds up to 26,000MB/s.

That level of performance is increasingly important as professional workflows move toward higher-resolution media, larger datasets, multi-stream editing, and faster SSD and NVMe storage.

SoftRAID is designed to make sure the RAID software doesn’t become the bottleneck standing between the drives, interface, and workstation.

Pricing and Availability

OWC SoftRAID 9 is available now. Three years of OWC SoftRAID Premium is included with most OWC RAID storage enclosures. A standalone SoftRAID license is also available for $149.99 for the initial purchase, followed by $79.99 per year after the first year.

Free Standard and Premium tiers are available, giving users the option to choose the level of functionality that best fits their storage needs.

To learn more about OWC SoftRAID 9 or purchase a license, visit OWC.com/solutions/softraid.

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