I am trying to upgrade my late 2015 27" iMac that had a 1TB Fusion drive. I got the Aura Pro X2 1TB SSD and have been attempting to get it working but have yet to get it to recognize the Aura at all. Prior to installing I had the latest version of Monterey. The instructions say to split the fusion drive with diskutil cs list but that says no corestorage logical volume groups found, thats because its using APFS correct? So what would my next step be? When I went ahead with the SSD install then and cmd opt R boot and diskutil list internal only shows the SATA drive. Is it not showing because I am not booting with a Monterey USB or because something needs done with the fusion drive before installing the new SSD?
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27" Late 2015 iMac SSD replacement
- Thread starter jaylaudeman
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best method would be to boot to a USB installer, then, when you get to the menu screen, choose Disk Utility.
Go to the View menu in Disk Utility, then choose "Show All Devices"
You should see the Aura Pro listed there. Select that device, then click Erase, and continue to erase the Aura Pro. You can choose to format it as APFS at that time. Name it whatever you like. Then, install macOS, choosing the Aura Pro drive (the line with the volume name that you used when you erased the drive) as the destination.
Go to the View menu in Disk Utility, then choose "Show All Devices"
You should see the Aura Pro listed there. Select that device, then click Erase, and continue to erase the Aura Pro. You can choose to format it as APFS at that time. Name it whatever you like. Then, install macOS, choosing the Aura Pro drive (the line with the volume name that you used when you erased the drive) as the destination.
So would the reason it wasnt being listed in Disk Utility before when I did Show All Devices because I was booting with cmd opt R and not the USB? Also I would like to use the new SSD as the main drive and then have the SATA as a second drive. Should that be split before or after installing the new hardware?
The fusion drive should be split before the replacement.
You said that the "diskutil cs list" showed no corestorage logical volume groups, so, the fusion drive was already deleted in software (the HDD and SSD were not linked by software into a group), therefore no fusion drive was detected in software.
Keep in mind that the fusion drive is NOT a hardware arrangement, it is a software configuration, similar to a RAID setup, of both the spinning HDD, and the SSD.
I would suggest that if your Aura Pro does not appear with "Show All Devices" in Disk Utility, then there is likely something wrong with the Aura Pro drive stick. You should contact OWC tech support for help with that.
You said that the "diskutil cs list" showed no corestorage logical volume groups, so, the fusion drive was already deleted in software (the HDD and SSD were not linked by software into a group), therefore no fusion drive was detected in software.
Keep in mind that the fusion drive is NOT a hardware arrangement, it is a software configuration, similar to a RAID setup, of both the spinning HDD, and the SSD.
I would suggest that if your Aura Pro does not appear with "Show All Devices" in Disk Utility, then there is likely something wrong with the Aura Pro drive stick. You should contact OWC tech support for help with that.
diskutil cs list was the very first thing I had done before anything and that was coming up no corestorage logical volume groups. From what I had searched it said it would say that because the fusion drive was converted to APFS. OWC tech support said that it has to be split or else the software will not see the new drive. If it is APFS does there need to be anything different done to split the drive?
Yesterday I had put the stock SSD back in went threw and reinstalled Monterey and setup them as a fusion drive again and split it again then put the Aura Pro in and cmd opt R boot and still did not show the Aura Pro.
Yesterday I had put the stock SSD back in went threw and reinstalled Monterey and setup them as a fusion drive again and split it again then put the Aura Pro in and cmd opt R boot and still did not show the Aura Pro.
You could go through the steps to split the fusion drive, That should work, but I don't think it would suddenly make the OWC drive appear.
Cmd-Option-R is booting to internet recovery, so that may be why the new OWC drive is not appearing.
You may need to use a bootable USB macOS installer.
Cmd-Option-R is booting to internet recovery, so that may be why the new OWC drive is not appearing.
You may need to use a bootable USB macOS installer.
Right now I have the stock SSD in ,Moneterey installed and setup as fusion drive.
So to split the fusion drive I would use "diskutil apfs deletecontainer disk2"
Then I would install Aura Pro and boot with bootable USB, it should then show both internal drives and I can format each separate as APFS, and then proceed with OS install.
Just trying to make sure I have all my steps in line before having to open it up again. If it still isn't showing the Aura I would assume something is wrong with it then.
So to split the fusion drive I would use "diskutil apfs deletecontainer disk2"
Then I would install Aura Pro and boot with bootable USB, it should then show both internal drives and I can format each separate as APFS, and then proceed with OS install.
Just trying to make sure I have all my steps in line before having to open it up again. If it still isn't showing the Aura I would assume something is wrong with it then.
