Unfortunately, the performance measures I'm using aren't fully effective. Disk tests are being directed to the PCIe SSD. A much better test would be some intensive high-k video processing. As for concerns about where stuff is stored, many have said you won't notice a difference using a SATA SSD for booting verses a PCIe SSD.
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Boot OSX on a NVMe Card
- Thread starter foxfoobar
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Any benefit to creating a fusion drive with an NVMe & AHCI blade SSD such as SM951 or SSUBX rather than with a SATA SSD?
I would expect the fastest component drives would give the best results. NVMe and AHCI would be fast. NVMe and NVMe would also. NVMe or AHCI and SATA would be on average a little slower depending on what the fusion drive stores. Very large video would likely end up on the larger store, usually the slower media.
Well I'm going to try this NVMe/SATA fusion drive method. It's hard to tell which NVMe SSD to go for. I read the newest PM981 has a lot of issues with MacOS and the 960 EVO and Pro look like fine options but apparently still lack proper power management. So I decided to get a genuine Apple NVMe drive. They are more expensive so I got a 128GB. The 2TB fusion drives in a new iMac seem to be fast using those. I'll pair it with a larger 860 EVO 2.5 SATA and see how that works out. The SSUBX drive works fine except it hangs for almost a minute at boot with it installed in slot 3. It didn't do that in slot 2, but I can't install it there now with the new GPU covering it. Hopefully the new setup won't do that.
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Im tested Fusion with NVMe Intel 750 and Samsung SM951 AHCI. Everything works. In next two weeks i plan to test booting from Intel Optane itself, and then Fusion with Optane.
Can we use the APFS format with the fusion drive? I know Apple doesn't support APFS for fusion drives with a HDD counterpart yet, but does it work with the SSDs?
[doublepost=1523930132][/doublepost]What kind of speeds are you getting from the NVMe/SATA fusion drive? I read on reddit that someone made a fusion drive from 2 SSDs in their iMac and they were getting the lower speeds of the SATA drive. Also, if one of the SSDs fails then the drive is lost. I think I'm going to back away from this fusion drive idea.
https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/4uuita/i_just_made_a_diy_fusion_drive_from_2_ssds_on_my/
[doublepost=1523930132][/doublepost]What kind of speeds are you getting from the NVMe/SATA fusion drive? I read on reddit that someone made a fusion drive from 2 SSDs in their iMac and they were getting the lower speeds of the SATA drive. Also, if one of the SSDs fails then the drive is lost. I think I'm going to back away from this fusion drive idea.
https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/4uuita/i_just_made_a_diy_fusion_drive_from_2_ssds_on_my/
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This is what I believe a good option indeed. Using symbolic link should able to provide very seamless experience.
Okay, so with the user folder and apps moved to the faster drive then it would not be set up as a fusion drive. That sounds like a better option. Do the NVMe drives attain any better speed than 1500 mb/sec in the cMP? That’s nearly what I’m getting with the SSUBX.
I believe 1500MB/s is the max you can get due to limited to PCIe 2.0 x4. Unless there is a PCIe card that can turn PCIe 2.0 x16 into two PCIe 3.0 x4 slots.
What the point to do that? There is a better choice for SATA, for example Intel DC S3700 Series SSD.
Booting possible. But TBH, I believe making a Fusion Drive is much easier.
Have anyone tried to make a PCIe M.2 NVMe & a normal SATA SSD fusion drive? Is it possible to boot from it?
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Does anyone else feel that we need a "sticky" on this "Boot OSX from NVME". ?
I really, really do think so.
NVME is the ONLY system in Apple's history that we CANNOT BOOT from.
WHY ?
I surmise that is so that cMPs will finally die.
It's illogical that 4,1 & 5,1's got a firmware update to use APFS .. . but .. . no booting.
NVME for data only is so un-Apple-like.
Is NVME booting planned for the next lineup in Hi Sierra final release ?
We KNOW that booting from NVME is either 10.12. or 10.13 can he done with hacks.
I will be buying a Samsung 960 Pro NVME in keen anticipation that some talented Mac cMP hacker-owner will triumphantly post here ( soon ).
( Where is S.J. when you need him ? He would never allowed this to happen. )
I really, really do think so.
NVME is the ONLY system in Apple's history that we CANNOT BOOT from.
WHY ?
I surmise that is so that cMPs will finally die.
It's illogical that 4,1 & 5,1's got a firmware update to use APFS .. . but .. . no booting.
NVME for data only is so un-Apple-like.
Is NVME booting planned for the next lineup in Hi Sierra final release ?
We KNOW that booting from NVME is either 10.12. or 10.13 can he done with hacks.
I will be buying a Samsung 960 Pro NVME in keen anticipation that some talented Mac cMP hacker-owner will triumphantly post here ( soon ).
( Where is S.J. when you need him ? He would never allowed this to happen. )
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I wonder if anyone open a ticket on Apple bug report page to state that "unable to boot from NVMe" is a bug.
I tested a genuine Apple SSPOLARIS NVMe SSD in my cMP. I attempted to install HS on it and it failed so I can confirm the latest firmware lacks the ability to boot NVMe even genuine. However, I did a speed test and it’s no faster than the AHCI SSUBX. In fact, it’s a little slower. Write speed was about 750 mb/s and read was about 1485 mb/s. On the SSUBX I get about 1485 mb/s write and 1505 mb/sec read. So even if it could boot there is no point at all to choose an NVMe over the AHCI for the cMP. Only reason would be if you planned to later move it to a new system that could take advantage of its full potential.
Isn't this obvious, that NVMe drive will work better on PCIe v.3.0 instead of 2.0/1.1 in cMP?
For the reason, i think macOS Server is the choise for NVMe.
Well yeah, but I didn’t expect the performance to actually be worse than AHCI in the cMP when these are the suppose to be the fastest drives. I guess if you got an X16 adapter and put it in slot 1 or 2 you would see more benefit. I don’t think there are any X16 adapters for the proprietary Apple SSDs though.
Proprietary SSDs from Apple not the only choice. There is an anothers one. Like Samsung, Kingston, Plextor, Intel, Toshiba... etc. I prefer Intel as it stable and reliable as rock with best write resource. But this is my opinion.
Why performance poor? Well, i guess the firmware of thoose nvme drives is not optimized for using on lower speeds. But still greater than standard SATA/SAS.
It is good that we have ability to boot from NVMe on cMP, as we have now a choice wider than only AHCI.
Why performance poor? Well, i guess the firmware of thoose nvme drives is not optimized for using on lower speeds. But still greater than standard SATA/SAS.
It is good that we have ability to boot from NVMe on cMP, as we have now a choice wider than only AHCI.
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