SoftRAID (www.softraid.com) has updated its self-title software to version 5.0.7, which is reportedly up to 86% faster.
With SoftRAID, you can create volumes with several different RAID levels. Any SoftRAID volume can use up to 16 disks.
In version 5.0.7, reads from SoftRAID mirror volumes (RAID 1) are now up to 86% faster than AppleRAID. SoftRAID is now uses all of the disks in a mirror volume for reading data. By spreading the reads over multiple disks, reads from mirror volumes now approach the speed of stripe volumes. SoftRAID mirror volumes with two disks can now read at speeds of up to 270 MB/sec using HDDs (disks with rotating media) and 710 MB/sec using SSDs (disks with solid state media).
SoftRAID has also improved the performance for RAID 1+0 volumes. Reads from RAID 1+0 volumes are now up to 67% faster than AppleRAID. SoftRAID is now uses both disks in each mirror pair of a RAID 1+0 volume. This produces reads speeds which approach that off a RAID 5 volume with the same number of disks.
SoftRAID 5.0.7 is a free update to all registered users of SoftRAID 5.x. For new users the cost is US$$179. SoftRAID requires Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later.