SoftRAID - 3.6.8

Yes, Apple does have built-in software RAID support. However having used it extensively I can say that SoftRAID is far better and far more intuitive than Apple's offering.

There are two main problems with Apple's software RAID. The first is notification. It doesn't have any bells, alarms, email, etc. alerts to say "hey, your RAID slices are out of sync!" you have to periodically run Apple's Disk Utility software to see, oh, the RAID went out of sync a week ago, a drive failed, etc.

In addition when attempting to rebuild a RAID set Disk Utility is as rudimentary and counter-intuitive as it gets. The biggest shortcoming of the Apple software RAID is that when rebuilding you have no idea which slice has the most current data and which fell out of sync, hence I lost a month of work on a set due to a disconnected drive, which Apple's RAID software never warned me about.

SoftRAID on the otherhand, while not perfect, notifies you in the Finder as soon as there is a sync or drive problem within a RAID set. I'm still waiting for them to implement out of the box SMS or email alerts but it still trounces Apple in this regard. The software is also much more intuitive (though the interface is still a throwback to OS 9 and could also be improved for clarity). All in all there is no comparison between the two. SoftRAID is inexpensive enough that you'd have to be crazy or broke to use Apple's implementation.

I added two enterprise 1TB drives to my G5. Fired this up and bingo and very fast Mirror RAID array with zero hassle. I have an auto backup and read speed is noticeable improved.
SR is affordable, well supported and very regularly updated. Five Star in my book

Contrary to what I've seen published elsewhere, you can create RAID sets on a partitioned drive, at least a drive with 2 partitions can have 1 in a RAID set. (I haven't tried more than 1 partition/drive. I was going to do that today, in fact, but my second SATA controller died on my G5. <sigh...>)

Having those drives all "RAID-ed" and backed up sure saved my <bacon>.

dave

How long does it take to add the Holy Grail!?!
I will pay triple the current price to get RAID5 because it's still cheaper than a hardware RAID5 card.
Release a Server/Pro version and a consumer version to keep your customers happy... too easy..
You better hurry up SoftRaid LLC because Silicon Image have now beaten you to this.
They already offer RAID5 in software, but fortunately for you guys, they only offer it with their SATA card only...
You better hurry up, because it's only a matter of time before the opensource community gobbles up your potential market share...

Disapointed I.T. Manager Down Under...

First of all, RAID is not better than backup, it is something that should go hand-in-hand with a backup plan. RAID might help you get the most performance out of your drives or insure against drive failure, but won't help you recover from mistakenly deleted files, for example.

Second, Mac OS X can already do RAID 0 and 1 straight through Disk Utility for free, so I have no idea why one would want to spend good money on software that just duplicates OS functionality...