Can't Install OSX/Boot on Sonnet Tempo SSD Pro

[hfg]

Howard,

after your first reply to my post I was sure all I could do was wait for Sonnet to bring out a new firmware, as using the Sonnet Tempo SSD Pro as a boot drive is key for my usage. Not necessarily as a RAID 0 though.

With your second post everything is open up for tinkering again. :-/
I assume you told Sonnet techsupport about your new findings. If not, please do so.

My configuration is similar to yours, except I have a WD Raptor in bay 4 dedicated to bootcamp and a Seritek eSATA card in slot 4 instead of your CalDigit card. Bay1 has a data drive with a small OS X Partition for tinkering and bays 2+3 hold a RAID 0 media partition.

Well, my main reason for using the Efi boot menu aside from troubleshooting was to boot into bootcamp and back into OS X, as for some unknown reason, I cannot switch back to OS X from the bootcamp assistant in Windows (always reboots into Windows until I clear NVRAM during boot).

I resolved that issue by using a small app called QuickBoot, that aliows me to boot only once into another OS without changing the boot volume permanently. That way a simple reboot in Windows brings me back to OS X.

A bit annoying, when you install software in Windows, that forces you to reboot Windows several times, but otherwise works fine.

Btw. are you happy with your CalDigit card? Any issue, sleep/wake working, performance good?
I slowly feel the upcoming need for USB 3 ports and the combination of eSATA and USB3 on a single card saves one of the valued PCIe slots in the Mac Pro, so I might replace my Seritek card with this one. Just fear I might loose the rock solid stability of the Seritek ...

Funny you should mention the BootCamp reboot-to-OSX problem... I didn't have that problem until this last arrangement which strangely restored the efi boot screen, but now I do have it. It seems shutting down completely from Windows restores normal boot selection for me. I will look into "QuickBoot" as that would probably suit my workflow with Windows if I can't otherwise resolve the boot-device selection issue.

The CalDigit card seems to be working for me both with eSATA to a disk-docking Voyager and so far with a USB 3.0 Seagate 4TB backup drive. It does cause the often mentioned "improper eject" message when sleeping, but I think it is reconnecting after wake ... still testing this. I intend to use the other eSATA channel to connect to my RAID-5 backup system after my testing settles down. I did install my CPU upgrades yesterday, and that is working fine, so I think I am about to button this Mac Pro up. install it in my desk, and start using it for real work instead of the iMac I am using now.

The USB 3.0 disk issue isn't likely to bother me as I don't intend to have any drives normally connected, preferring to use the eSATA connections. I purchased the Seagate 4TB backup on a good sale at Amazon recently, with the intent to remove the disk and install it internally in the Mac Pro (sale price was way lower than the price of the disk enclosed!). But I am using it as a USB 3.0 "test device" for now.

-howard