5.1 - PCI M.2 SSD: Trim Enabled or Internal but not both?

[harlansmart]

My issue is certainly caused by lack of knowledge & experience, it is this:

Right now, on 2 x Samsung AHCI M.2 SM951 SSD's either trim can be enabled or they can be shown as internal.

A kext patch will make the Mac System Information list the Samsung M.2 AHCI SM951's as Internal but doing this turns off trim support for these 2 discs (but not other SSD's in the cMP). I am able to add the kext patch as I can get into Recovery with ⌘R that allows SIP to be turned off & the kext patch works & the discs become Internal (but this turns off trim).

Am trying to stripe the 2 x 951's & use this RAID 0 to boot High Sierra from.

=====

System:

2009 4.1 cMP FLASHED 5.1
2 x 3.33GHz
64GB RAM

Slot 1: AMD HD7950 unflashed
Slot 2: Sonnet Pro 3.0 USB
Slot 3: Lycom DT-120 / Samsung AHCI M.2 SM951 256GB SSD
Slot 4: Lycom DT-120 / Samsung AHCI M.2 SM951 256GB SSD

=====

So I can disable csrutil, turn off SIP, that allows the kext patch to work & the M.2's become Internal but this turns off Trim for the M.2's

=====

Have the following installed, and have tried solving my issue from each OS:

High Sierra 10.13.3
Sierra 10.12.6
El Capitan 10.11.6
Yosemite 10.10.5
Mavericks 10.9.5

=====

What I am missing this time round, previously had clean installed Sierra 10.12.0 onto these M.2's but attempting a clean install of High Sierra 10.13.0 from a USB has gotten me in this position where I can't get the M.2's to be both trim enabled & shown as internal.

If someone could assist me, tell me where to look or what I am doing wrong that would be awesome!

TIA
=====

Current screengrabs : currently booting from 1GB HDD in Bay #2 (i.e. pro-2)

Hardware Overview:

PCI Info:

SATA Info / Trim OFF / M.2 in Slot #4 / Has High Sierra on it right now.

SATA Info / Trim OFF / M.2 in Slot #3 / Has some .mp4 files on it right now

SATA Info / Trim ON / 256GB Apple SSD in Upper Drive Bay / Has some .mp4 files on it right now

Storage Info: M.2's currently Internal (if Trim is enabled they become External)

csrutil status / trim status:

SIP disabled (hence the kext means the M.2's show up as Internal (at the same time turning OFF Trim for the M.2's))

Trim No Yes No (i.e. OFF for the M.2's and ON for the SSD in Upper Bay)

 

[h9826790]

What patch?

Sorry, I didn't read through your post, it looks complicated. The SM951 AHCI is supported natively on cMP, why mess around with any kext patch? Just install it, format to HFS+, turn on TRIM, then you are good to go.

 

[saulinpa]

Why do you care about showing as internal?
You just need to turn TRIM on for non-Apple drives.
sudo trimforce enable

 

[harlansmart]

Thanks heaps h9826790 & I have read tonnes of your useful posts, and recognise you are often super helpful to members here.

I want to stripe the 2 x SM951 M.2 SSD's on the Lycom DT-120 cards in my PCi slots (3 & 4) & install my boot drive again.

Previously I had Sierra on these 2 discs, striped, and I wanted to install High Sierra but now I'm screwed up, and need advice/instruction/assistance.

The kext patch I refer to is in Post #3 here, which does work, and does allow one to make the discs show as Internal but doing so also makes the trim for the PCI SSD M.2's OFF:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-early-2008-upgrades.1701295/

What patch?

Sorry, I didn't read through your post, it looks complicated. The SM951 AHCI is supported natively on cMP, why mess around with any kext patch? Just install it, format to HFS+, turn on TRIM, then you are good to go.

=======

Thanks a lot saulinpa, AFAIK (and I know very little) I can't use OS X Disk Utility to stripe external drives to RAID 0

I can use the terminal command sudo trimforce enable to turn on trim for the SM951's but if I do this the disks also become 'external' so preventing me striping them.

Why do you care about showing as internal?
You just need to turn TRIM on for non-Apple drives.
sudo trimforce enable

 

[hnr2802]

Just wondering any reason why you want RAID 0 for you 2 x SM951?

 

[harlansmart]

Cheers hnr2802,

Simply because it was the best configuration the computer had ever had, it was excellent like it was in Sierra. Seemed pretty fast & had worked for a year or so, awesome (relatively vs my others computers).

Went to do the same in High Sierra w/a clean install from a HS USB & got screwed up with the kexts and the internal/external & the trim & now I can't get the discs raided/striped again.

Tried cloning a copy of the old RAID 0 but that didn't (even begin to) work either.

It was giving, 2500MBs approx. R/W with Sierra.

Just wondering any reason why you want RAID 0 for you 2 x SM951?

 

[h9826790]

Thanks heaps h9826790 & I have read tonnes of your useful posts, and recognise you are often super helpful to members here.

I want to stripe the 2 x SM951 M.2 SSD's on the Lycom DT-120 cards in my PCi slots (3 & 4) & install my boot drive again.

Previously I had Sierra on these 2 discs, striped, and I wanted to install High Sierra but now I'm screwed up, and need advice/instruction/assistance.

The kext patch I refer to is in Post #3 here, which does work, and does allow one to make the discs show as Internal but doing so also makes the trim for the PCI SSD M.2's OFF:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-early-2008-upgrades.1701295/



=======

Thanks a lot saulinpa, AFAIK (and I know very little) I can't use OS X Disk Utility to stripe external drives to RAID 0

I can use the terminal command sudo trimforce enable to turn on trim for the SM951's but if I do this the disks also become 'external' so preventing me striping them.

Of course you can RAID external drives together. I can actually RAID a SD card and a USB drive together as a RAID 0 array.

That "external" is quite cosmetic in macOS, just leave it as is should be fine.

 

[macuser453787]

I can use the terminal command sudo trimforce enable to turn on trim for the SM951's but if I do this the disks also become 'external' so preventing me striping them.

So HS isn't allowing you to stripe the SM951's when they mount as "external" drives?

That doesn't seem right. I previously owned this card with 2 SSDs mounted on it. They showed up as external drives, and I striped them for use as my primary boot drive. At the time I was running Mavericks and later updated to Yosemite. I may have even updated to El Capitan with that setup, don't quite remember though. But the point is it worked without issue in at least 2 different OSes.

Did you previously use Disk Utility to create the stripe in Sierra?
[doublepost=1520430980][/doublepost]

Of course you can RAID external drives together.

Yeah, what he said

 

[MikkelAD]

Just to be clear if anybody should be in any doubt. I am quit sure you can't make a boot-able drive set up for RAID with High Sierra unless you stay with HFS+ and DON'T upgrade to APFS...

 

[macuser453787]

you can't make a boot-able drive set up for RAID with High Sierra unless you stay with HFS+ and DON'T upgrade to APFS

Ah, maybe APFS is the reason for the OP's issue

 

[MikkelAD]

Ah, maybe APFS is the reason for the OP's issue

Maybe I am by no means an apple expert in any kind. But when I bought my 5.1 and upgraded it with PCI-E SSD card I had the idea to raid my two 850 evo's because I really don't need a lot of space.

But... I ran into exactly that problem, so it was either no raid for my boot-able SSDs or do the whole "show" with cloning your HD back to HFS+ or use earlier OSX...


DAMN! I wish apple would fix APFS and BOOTCAMP

 

[harlansmart]

Thanks a lot people, appreciate the input greatly.

ASAP will check & confirm from both HFS+ and APFS

Think (thought?) I had been trying from both HFS+ and APFS

 

[harlansmart]

macuser,

Sorry I missed the link you provided before on my phone.

Previous to the Samsung SM951's I had 2 x Samsung 850 Evo Pro SSD on exactly that same card you link to (pictured below) & was able to stripe them (or mirror) with Disk Utility no problem at all, I think they showed up as 'External', but that never gave me any issue, they definitely had Trim enabled, that was with El Capitan & possibly Sierra too also (I can not recall).

The only problem I have had, is this time round with the SM951's. I'd striped these SM951's on Sierra no problem last year but this time round, wanting High Sierra (and preferably HPFS) I can't get them into RAID 0 even after 2 weeks of trying & don't know why.

I'll check to see if I have definitely tried with them in HFS+ ASAP.

So HS isn't allowing you to stripe the SM951's when they mount as "external" drives?

That doesn't seem right. I previously owned this card with 2 SSDs mounted on it. They showed up as external drives, and I striped them for use as my primary boot drive. At the time I was running Mavericks and later updated to Yosemite. I may have even updated to El Capitan with that setup, don't quite remember though. But the point is it worked without issue in at least 2 different OSes.

Did you previously use Disk Utility to create the stripe in Sierra?
[doublepost=1520430980][/doublepost]

Yeah, what he said

[doublepost=1520502200][/doublepost]

==============================================

MikkelAD,

This is possibly the issue, so perhaps if I check again, put both 951's in HFS+, trim enable them, ignore the issue of internal/external they might be able to be striped again. Will check this ASAP.

Just to be clear if anybody should be in any doubt. I am quit sure you can't make a boot-able drive set up for RAID with High Sierra unless you stay with HFS+ and DON'T upgrade to APFS...

==============================================

h9826790,

Unsure, possibly there are (a few variables), different types of 'external discs', different interfaces & different versions of OS.

Is my problem of being unable to RAID 0 the 2 x SM951 Samsung discs because they're being recognised as 'External'?

They're on Lycom DT-120 cards, Slots 3 & 4 in my cMP 2009 Flashed 5.1

That sounds likely. I don't think apple would have supported using their software raid on external drives.

Of course you can RAID external drives together. I can actually RAID a SD card and a USB drive together as a RAID 0 array.
That "external" is quite cosmetic in macOS, just leave it as is should be fine.

==============================================

Thanks a lot people, appreciate the input greatly.

ASAP will check & confirm from both HFS+ / APFS (and ignoring the issue of the 951's being shown as'External').

Thank you.

 

[macuser453787]

I wish apple would fix APFS

I hear ya, I have no intention of using it anytime soon.

When I upgrade to HS, I will be sure to use HFS+.

 

[MikkelAD]

I hear ya, I have no intention of using it anytime soon.

When I upgrade to HS, I will be sure to use HFS+.

Yeah. I installed HS on my Mac Pro and was at first happy with APFS but think I might have to clean install my 5.1 with HFS+ It gives too much trouble right now: No raid options (boot drive), BOOTCAMP won't recognize APFS and so on

Think I will keep HS with APFS on my iMac late 2013 though...

 

[harlansmart]

Took me a while to get back to this, but have just tried:

10.9.5
HFS+
Trim No (cannot sudo trimforce enable)
SM951 x 2 M.2 SSD's showing as Internal
SIP Disabled
Can Concatenate & Mirror
Black Magic Speed Test 500/1500
Cannot Stripe in RAID 0

10.10.5
HFS+
Trim No (cannot sudo trimforce enable)
SM951 x 2 M.2 SSD's showing as Internal
SIP Disabled
Can Concatenate & Mirror
Black Magic Speed Test 400/1500
Cannot Stripe in RAID 0

10.11.6
HFS+
Trim No (cannot sudo trimforce enable although it says it is when rebooting & says successful etc)
SM951 x 2 M.2 SSD's showing as Internal
SIP Disabled
Can Concatenate & Mirror
Black Magic Speed Test 5-600/1500
Cannot Stripe in RAID 0

10.12.6
HFS+
Trim No (cannot sudo trimforce enable although it says it is when rebooting & says successful etc)
SM951 x 2 M.2 SSD's showing as Internal
SIP Disabled
Can Concatenate & Mirror
Black Magic Speed Test 300/1500
Cannot Stripe in RAID 0

10.13.3
HFS+
Trim No (cannot sudo trimforce enable although it says it is when rebooting & says successful etc)
SM951 x 2 M.2 SSD's showing as Internal
SIP Disabled
Can Concatenate & Mirror
Black Magic Speed Test 300/1500
Cannot Stripe in RAID 0

================

Used ⌘R to Enable SIP with csrutil enable which allowed me to Trim Yes & made the M.2 SSD's external

HFS+
Trim Yes
SM951 x 2 M.2 SSD's shown as 512Gb RAID Storage & External in System Information
SIP Disabled
Can Concatenate & Mirror
'Can' Stripe in RAID 0 according to Disc Utility BUT it creates a 512GB disc not a 256GB disc? (Tested by moving ~300GB media to the 'striped' SM951's (GOD)
Black Magic Speed Test 200/1500

So... still unable to Stripe the SM951's in RAID 0... what am I doing wrong?

Pics/screengrabs showing the above info & current state to follow:



SIP Enabled

Trim Yes

HFS+ / Apple RAID

511GB RAID Storage

Internal Storage No

Speed Test of the 'Striped' SM951's supposedly in RAID 0 according to 10.13.3 Disc Utility

Disk Utility showing the 2 x 256GB SM951's in RAID (but not RAID 0, more like they are concatenated)

[doublepost=1520997844][/doublepost]Breaking up the RAID set...:

SM951 in Slot #3 gets left shown after breaking up the RAID as Uninitialized

=================================================================

SM951 in Slot #4 I just formatted & named 4 & tested, works fine...:

HFS+
Trim On
Volume 4
Internal No
Device disk0s2

 

[saulinpa]

'Can' Stripe in RAID 0 according to Disc Utility BUT it creates a 512GB disc not a 256GB disc? (Tested by moving ~300GB media to the 'striped' SM951's (GOD)
Black Magic Speed Test 200/1500

So... still unable to Stripe the SM951's in RAID 0... what am I doing wrong?

Sounds like you may be confused between RAID 0 and 1. 0 uses space fully by interleaving blocks for performance so 256+256=512. 1 is mirror so 256 mirrored 256=256.

Either way there have been articles how RAID does not speed up SSDs much. Exception is if OS knows how to do concurrent I/O and no hardware bottlenecks.

 

[harlansmart]

saulpina,

Ah! - bingo, that then is something to stop worrying about - so these 2 x SAMSUNG 256GB SM951's striped in RAID 0 actually do simply become a single volume of 512GB not a 256GB volume as I'd been looking for.

So, right... where's the speed at then, with Sierra striped in RAID 0 they gave R/W 2400MBs & now can't get them above a fraction of that, this is the actual problem.

Not sure what's different, apart from the version of OS X, definitely trying now on HFS+, but have really really slow R/W speeds now i.e. 200/1500MBs

What else can is there do, what other variables might be being missed... what more can be checked?

 

[h9826790]

Took me a while to get back to this, but have just tried:

10.9.5
HFS+
Trim No (cannot sudo trimforce enable)
SM951 x 2 M.2 SSD's showing as Internal
SIP Disabled
Can Concatenate & Mirror
Black Magic Speed Test 500/1500
Cannot Stripe in RAID 0

10.10.5
HFS+
Trim No (cannot sudo trimforce enable)
SM951 x 2 M.2 SSD's showing as Internal
SIP Disabled
Can Concatenate & Mirror
Black Magic Speed Test 400/1500
Cannot Stripe in RAID 0

10.11.6
HFS+
Trim No (cannot sudo trimforce enable although it says it is when rebooting & says successful etc)
SM951 x 2 M.2 SSD's showing as Internal
SIP Disabled
Can Concatenate & Mirror
Black Magic Speed Test 5-600/1500
Cannot Stripe in RAID 0

10.12.6
HFS+
Trim No (cannot sudo trimforce enable although it says it is when rebooting & says successful etc)
SM951 x 2 M.2 SSD's showing as Internal
SIP Disabled
Can Concatenate & Mirror
Black Magic Speed Test 300/1500
Cannot Stripe in RAID 0

10.13.3
HFS+
Trim No (cannot sudo trimforce enable although it says it is when rebooting & says successful etc)
SM951 x 2 M.2 SSD's showing as Internal
SIP Disabled
Can Concatenate & Mirror
Black Magic Speed Test 300/1500
Cannot Stripe in RAID 0

================

Used ⌘R to Enable SIP with csrutil enable which allowed me to Trim Yes & made the M.2 SSD's external

HFS+
Trim Yes
SM951 x 2 M.2 SSD's shown as 512Gb RAID Storage & External in System Information
SIP Disabled
Can Concatenate & Mirror
'Can' Stripe in RAID 0 according to Disc Utility BUT it creates a 512GB disc not a 256GB disc? (Tested by moving ~300GB media to the 'striped' SM951's (GOD)
Black Magic Speed Test 200/1500

So... still unable to Stripe the SM951's in RAID 0... what am I doing wrong?

Pics/screengrabs showing the above info & current state to follow:



SIP Enabled

View attachment 754377


Trim Yes

View attachment 754375


HFS+ / Apple RAID

View attachment 754376


511GB RAID Storage

View attachment 754374


Internal Storage No

View attachment 754378


Speed Test of the 'Striped' SM951's supposedly in RAID 0 according to 10.13.3 Disc Utility

View attachment 754379


Disk Utility showing the 2 x 256GB SM951's in RAID (but not RAID 0, more like they are concatenated)

View attachment 754380
[doublepost=1520997844][/doublepost]Breaking up the RAID set...:

SM951 in Slot #3 gets left shown after breaking up the RAID as Uninitialized

View attachment 754383

=================================================================

SM951 in Slot #4 I just formatted & named 4 & tested, works fine...:

HFS+
Trim On
Volume 4
Internal No
Device disk0s2

View attachment 754382

1) It seems now you already know what is RAID 0, then this problem is fixed. There is nothing wrong in your system on this matter.

2) Your result suggested that the TRIM is not supported in a software RAID array. That's why the write speed is so slow, but read speed is not affected.

3) PCIe slot 3 and 4 share used the same x4 lane. It's impossible to get anything higher than ~1500MB/s by RAIDing the SSD in slot 3 and 4 (even though either of them can achieve 1500MB/s independently). You are bottlenecked by the bandwidth.

If you want faster read speed, you can swap onc of your SSD with the USB 3.0 card, then join the SSD in a RAID 0 array (in your case, make it a single 512GB partition). Then the read speed of the RAID 0 array should go above 2500MB/s, but write speed may still stay slow because lack of TRIM support.

 

[harlansmart]

h9826790,

Once again 'thank you' for your experience and mega supa brains!

So I need to switch one the SSD M.2's into the #2 PCIe slot the SONNET USB3.0 card is currently in & try again.

I don't know what slots I used to use, I should have kept some notes / records duh !

Also, I have over time, had 7-8 of these 'same' 256GB SAMSUNG AHCI SM951's & have just seen that some are labelled '-000H1 Media' while some are labelled '-00000 Media'.

The 2 x M.2 SSD's that I have now are '00000' & '000H1'.

google says '00000' is a plain SAMSUNG disc while the '000H1' is a HP version, wonder if that makes any difference.

Will swap one of the Lycom DT-120/SM951 AHCI cards to the #2 slot & test.

Cheers again, for the solid advice & time/help!

 

[harlansmart]

(Please this is mostly (merely?) a record for me).


So:

Lets do as h9826790 suggests and swap ‘Volume 4’ PCIe SSD into Slot 2, hence:

Slot 1 GPU
Slot 2 SSD 00000 ‘4’
Slot 3 SSD 000H1 ‘3’
Slot 4 USB

HFS+
Striped
RAID 0
Trim On
External…

BM 1GB Block Speed: 1400/1500MB/s

Hmmm, why isn’t the read speed more like 2500MB/s ?
[doublepost=1521430253][/doublepost]Some more tests booting from 10.13.3 using a 1TB HFS+ Formatted HDD in Bay 1

Test 1:

PCIe Slot 4
Volume ‘4’
Model: SAMSUNG MZHPV256HDGL-000H1
Revision: BXW24H0Q
Serial Number: S1WZNYAGA06648
Trim Support: Yes
Internal: No
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
File System: Journaled HFS+
System Integrity Protection status: enabled

BM 1GB Block Speed: 1200/1400MB/s

[doublepost=1521430345][/doublepost]Test 2:

PCIe Slot 3
Volume ‘3’
Model: SAMSUNG MZHPV256HDGL-000H1
Revision: BXW24H0Q
Serial Number: S1WZNYAGA06648
Trim Support: Yes
Internal: No
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
File System: Journaled APFS
System Integrity Protection status: enabled

BM 1G Block Speed: 750-1250/1350-1400MB/s

 

[harlansmart]

Test 3: Will format Volume ’4’ in APFS (Done)

Will (attempt) to RAID 0 External Trimmed PCIe SM951 APFS Volumes ‘SAMSUNG MZHPV256HDGL-000H1 Media (disk1)’ + ’SAMSUNG MZHPV256HDGL-00000 Media (disk0)’ (Fail)

Will attempt to RAID 1 External Trimmed PCIe SM951 APFS Volumes ‘3’ + ’4’ (Fail)

[doublepost=1521430812][/doublepost]

Test 5

Hmm… while I am here in HS 10.13.3 with the PCIe SSD’s in APFS lets try to Mirror RAID 1 External Trimmed PCIe SM951 APFS Volumes ‘SAMSUNG MZHPV256HDGL-000H1 Media (disk1)’ + ’SAMSUNG MZHPV256HDGL-00000 Media (disk0)

Doing this has changed the format to HFS+

Still Trimmed, still External etc

 

[harlansmart]

Test 6

Will format/erase Volumes ‘3’ +’4’ leaving in HFS+ and attempt to Stripe RAID 0

Tricky to delete the RAID

Eject/Erase GOD

Lets try stripe RAID 0 the PCIe HFS+ SSD’s
Still on HS 10.13.3 in 1TB HDD Bay 1 / Trimmed / SSD’d are External

HFS+
RAID 0 Stripe
Trim On
External
10.13.3

BM 1G Block Speed: 1350-1400/1400-1450MB/s

(This is almost the same as when the discs are not in RAID 0.)

Test 7 Complete
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Is there any way to get the discs to read/write faster?
Should be 2500MB/s read speed from 2 x SM951 in PCIe RAID 0
[doublepost=1521433016][/doublepost]Test 8

Boot into Recovery with ⌘R
Disable SIP with csrutil disable

PCIe SM951 SSD's in Slots #2 and #3 are now Internal

Of course now TRIM Support = No

 

[harlansmart]

Just checking the speed of the sticks on their own...

Slot #2 SM951 (HFS+ / Internal / Trim No)

Slot #3 SM951 (HFS+ / Internal / Trim No)

Will stripe in RAID 0....

HFS+
Internal Yes
SIP: Disabled
Striped / RAID 0
Slots #2 and #3
TRIM Support No

So: Thus far, results of Black Magic Speed Test suggest adjusting the following (3) variables makes practically no difference on R/W speed:

Which PCIe slots used or
Whether Trim is enabled or
Whether discs are Internal or External

 

[h9826790]

Just checking the speed of the sticks on their own...

Slot #2 SM951 (HFS+ / Internal / Trim No)
View attachment 754896


Slot #3 SM951 (HFS+ / Internal / Trim No)
View attachment 754895

Will stripe in RAID 0....

View attachment 754897
View attachment 754898

View attachment 754899

HFS+
Internal Yes
SIP: Disabled
Striped / RAID 0
Slots #2 and #3
TRIM Support No

View attachment 754900


So: Thus far, results of Black Magic Speed Test suggest adjusting the following (3) variables makes practically no difference on R/W speed:

Which PCIe slots used or
Whether Trim is enabled or
Whether discs are Internal or External

Thanks for the detailed report.

If you want me to explain this. It's because your adaptor cannot run PCIe 2.0 x4 in slot 2, but PCIe 1.0 x4 （this is a known issue of some adaptors)

Therefore, the associated drive is now limited to 750MB/s. And the whole RAID 0 array is limited to this 750MB/s x2 = 1500MB/s.