Softraid LLC has announced the release of SoftRAID 3.6, a new version of their software RAID utility for Mac OS X. SoftRAID 3.6 costs $129 and is a free upgrade for all users of 3.x versions.
SoftRAID enables you to take hard disks and group them together as a striped or mirrored RAID — Redundant Array of Indepnedent Disks — for improved speed or safety, respectively. It’s a function of Apple’s own Disk Utility, included with Mac OS X. But SoftRAID’s developers claim their software has key advantages not present in Disk Utility, such as the ability to create non-RAID volumes on the same disks as RAID volumes, the ability to add disks to a mirrored volume and much more.
Version 3.6 of SoftRAID is now capable of booting Intel Macs from SoftRAID-configured volumes, and supports 64-bit memory in the new Intel EFI booting architecture used on Mac Pros and Intel-based Xserves. There are also some bug fixes, improved mirror volume performance and better support for burning startup DVDs and utility program CDs.
Softraid LLC notes the new release is Tiger-only; the company will maintain version 3.5 for users of older versions of Mac OS X who continue to need support, but has no plans to introduce new features in that older release.