SoftRAID app icon

When I bought my OWC Thunderbay 4 to store all my media, it came with a license for SoftRAID XT. SoftRAID is a really powerful application that allows you to combine different drives into a whatever volumes and RAID setups you want, through software instead of a special hardware card. I set up mine as RAID5, so there’s a nice balance between storage space and file safety.

SoftRAID has gotten several updates over the years, the developers are really diligent and open about making it. There’s clear documentation on release notes and known issues, good communication and support etc. It’s a solid application, with some deep level code, and a very functional user interface.

The app’s icon was quite fun in version 5, representing the physical hardware of a RAID storage device with a ventilation grid and LEDs in the front. In SoftRAID 6 they lost that fun and introduced a ‘more modern’ app icon with a monochrome logo on a blue circle. Version 6 was introduced in March 2021, that is 2 years after macOS Big Sur introduced the squircle app icons we knew from iOS to the Mac.

Official SoftRAID icons from version 5 and 6

I was expecting that if they’d update their app icon, it was be the squircle shape. But no, it was a circle. And it still is today, even with the recently released version 8. So in true designer-spirit, I made my own. I tried to replicate the idea from version 5 in a more modern way, with the expected shape.

The basis was the front the Thunderbay, with the ‘door’ full of ventilation holes. At the top there’s the status LEDs and the little key hole to open the door. At the bottom center I kept the retro logo as a nod to the company where smart software engineers make a powerful application that’s continuously updated to support the latest in macOS, but forget update the app icon for 4 years.

My alternative SoftRAID app icon

If you like it, you can download it for free and replace the app’s current icon with it. Enjoy!

Download SoftRAID icon

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