SoftRAID LLC (http://www.softraid.com/) has released SoftRAID 4.0, a major upgrade to its RAID management software for Mac OS X.
Users have taken one of the mirror disks to a secure location as part of a mirror backup. Periodically, the mirror disk gets brought back to the Mac to be rebuilt (resynchronized) with the volume. With 1TB volumes, this rebuild process can take several hours. Now SoftRAID 4.0 introduces Fast Mirror Rebuilds. With Fast Mirror Rebuilds, SoftRAID keeps track of which parts of the volume are used when a mirror disk is not present, and only rebuilds those sectors when the other mirror disk is reconnected, according to Mark James, vice president of SoftRAID This allows users to rebuild there mirror volumes in minutes rather than hours, he adds.
SoftRAID version 4 brings many additional new features to the Mac for the first time. These features include: email notification of errors and events which occur with your SoftRAID volumes, a Command line interface for remote maintenance, verification of disks and volumes, SMART error reporting and disk certification.
The SoftRAID 4.0 release is available electronically for $69 to all 3.x owners. A bootable CD version is available for $20 more, plus $7 postage and handling. Users who purchase SoftRAID 3 after Jan. 1, 2009, will receive a free upgrade to SoftRAID 4.0.
The SoftRAID 4.0 electronic download is $129 and the retail CD is $149, both available from the SoftRAID web site and retail outlets worldwide.