Caution! Troubles with 870 evo drives on cMP 5,1 !

[wrianwolfsn]

Hi people,
I wanted to install Mojave on a new 870 evo drive and it was a desaster !
In difference to my 860 ‘s the installer didn’t reboot into the 2’nd phase .
I had to hard reboot ?
Later on , the drive even had’nt been recognized . That happened also after starting from another mojave drive ( 860 evo ) . With a second new 870 it’s been the same issue . Bootchime was missing and OpenCore didn’t start from . An serious Installation is’nt possible !
I asked Samsung, but they told me there should ( as I thought by myself ) no difference ?
But since I’m successfully using 4 860 evo’s and 3 970 Pro’s and plenty of installation experience , I may say, that I know, what I’m doing !
Maybe it’s correlated with the new drive controller ?
Using the 870 drives as HP ssd 7110 APFS raid 0 drives seems to be no problem ?
Be cautious !
I’m looking now for another 860 evo drives ‘cause they work as expected.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Wha...?

From what I can tell, the 870 Evo is just a SATA drive. They shouldn't need anything special. That's really weird...

 

[seanshou]

Hi people,
I wanted to install Mojave on a new 870 evo drive and it was a desaster !
In difference to my 860 ‘s the installer didn’t reboot into the 2’nd phase .
I had to hard reboot ?
Later on , the drive even had’nt been recognized . That happened also after starting from another mojave drive ( 860 evo ) . With a second new 870 it’s been the same issue . Bootchime was missing and OpenCore didn’t start from . An serious Installation is’nt possible !
I asked Samsung, but they told me there should ( as I thought by myself ) no difference ?
But since I’m successfully using 4 860 evo’s and 3 970 Pro’s and plenty of installation experience , I may say, that I know, what I’m doing !
Maybe it’s correlated with the new drive controller ?
Using the 870 drives as HP ssd 7110 APFS raid 0 drives seems to be no problem ?
Be cautious !
I’m looking now for another 860 evo drives ‘cause they work as expected.

Same issue: I have SSD 870 EVO 2TB. Only hard (cool) boot, it will in list `diskutil list`. If it's warm boot. It will disappear.

Samsung 870 EVO not recognised in my MacPro4.1->5.1

Hi there I just bought Samsung 870 EVO 2TB. But it's not recognised by my MacPro 4.1 -> 5.1. Please find the BootROM Hardware Overview: Model Name: Mac Pro Model Identifier: MacPro5,1 Processor Name: 6-Core Intel Xeon Processor Speed: 3.46 GHz Number of Processors: 2...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[MarkC426]

Maybe the firmware needs updating....?

 

[seanshou]

Maybe the firmware needs updating....?

possible. But so far Samsung don't have new firmware for 870 evo

 

[tsialex]

More than two years and 3 months since the first 860 QVO drives were released and Samsung did not yet released a compatible firmware for SATA2 Macs, I wouldn't expect a 870 EVO firmware update anytime soon…

 

[sfalatko]

More than two years and 3 months since the first 860 QVO drives were released and Samsung did not yet released a compatible firmware for SATA2 Macs, I wouldn't expect a 870 EVO firmware update anytime soon…

@tsialex - does that mean it will have problems in a drive bay with SATA II but perhaps not on a PCIe card with SATA III?

 

[tsialex]

@tsialex - does that mean it will have problems in a drive bay with SATA II but perhaps not on a PCIe card with SATA III?

It's not so simple.

While recent SATA III drives are partially incompatible with the ancient SATA II interface of Mac Pros (3V3 pin is now used to signal/control sleep to the drive, problem with almost any recent big size HDD too), there are also SATA communication protocol improvements with the current implementation that seems to make some recent SATA III drives incompatible with Apple SATA drivers itself.

Some SATA III drives have a fail-safe workaround implemented in the firmware to make it compatible to computers that still have the ancient SATA II standard, what is usually called a quirk, but now seems that no manufacturer is bothering with it anymore with recent releases. Even some Macs that had an early SATA III controller like some 2011 and 2012 MacBook Pros with the Intel 6 and 7 chipset series have problems with recent released SATA III drives.

No Mac has SATA drives since 2019 and Apple did not yet made any workarounds or corrections with the SATA kexts - even 2019 Mac Pro has some recent drives that are not compatible.

Back to 860 QVO, the only way to use one reliably with a Mac Pro is to use it via an USB->SATA adapter. This could be also the case of 870 EVO, needs confirmation.

 

[sfalatko]

It's not so simple.

While recent SATA III drives are partially incompatible with the ancient SATA II interface of Mac Pros (3V3 pin is now used to signal/control sleep to the drive, problem with almost any recent big size HDD too), there are also SATA communication protocol improvements with the current implementation that seems to make some recent SATA III drives incompatible with Apple SATA drivers itself.

Some SATA III drives have a fail-safe workaround implemented in the firmware to make it compatible to computers that still have the ancient SATA II standard, what is usually called a quirk, but now seems that no manufacturer is bothering with it anymore with recent releases. Even some Macs that had an early SATA III controller like some 2011 and 2012 MacBook Pros with the Intel 6 and 7 chipset series have problems with recent released SATA III drives.

No Mac has SATA drives since 2019 and Apple did not yet made any workarounds or corrections with the SATA kexts - even 2019 Mac Pro has some recent drives that are not compatible.

Back to 860 QVO, the only way to use one reliably with a Mac Pro is to use it via an USB->SATA adapter. This could be also the case of 870 EVO, needs confirmation.

Thanks for the thorough explanation - as usual you are really on top of things relative to our old cMPs.

Regards,
sfalatko

 

[norda72]

I have 860 EVO 4 TB in my Mac Pro 5.1 with the issue UDMA CRC Error Count. Can something be done about it? I have maybe asked this before. Right now the disc is formated but I can’t install anything because it hasn’t any firmware. Is it BOOT Rom 144.0.0.0.0 that is needed? How do I install it?

 

[tsialex]

I have 860 EVO 4 TB in my Mac Pro 5.1 with the issue UDMA CRC Error Count. Can something be done about it?

UDMA CRC errors are cabling/connectors problems. Each time a communication error is detected, the counter increases. It's not a user resettable setting, only the manufacturer can do something about the counter. You can repair the defect and then the counter will not increase anymore.

I have maybe asked this before. Right now the disc is formated but I can’t install anything because it hasn’t any firmware.

Maybe you are talking about partitioning?!?! You don't install firmwares to a SSD, you update it when the manufacturer
releases an updated version.

Is it BOOT Rom 144.0.0.0.0 that is needed?

Not related in any way, Mac Pro BootROM is stored on a SPI flash memory located on the backplane and SATA support itself didn't change from the old MP51 series of Mac Pro EFI firmwares to 13x and 14x.0.0.0.0 versions.

How do I install it?

MP5,1: What you have to do to upgrade to Mojave (BootROM upgrade instructions thread)

Please fully read this first post, you will probably find that you have one or more problems described into the various notes below. Mojave will only install if you have upgraded your BootROM to the current release and your Mac Pro have a Metal capable GPU*. If you are trying to install Mojave...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[krakman]

I have a 870 EVO 500gb running in a 4.1>5.1 fitted to the spare DVD sata connector.

it works fine as boot drive. Im running catalina via dosdude patch.

maybe we should collect the ssd drive firmware details for comparison?

 

[AppleGeezer]

I just bought a 1TB EVO 870 last week to replace a smaller 840 Pro on my Accelsior PCIe card. Have been using it it as a boot drive with Mojave (and experimenting with OC + BS) with no issues so far....

 

[MarkC426]

Sounds like the issue is only with larger capacity ssd's then..... ?

 

[goodfidelity]

Had some problems with that EVO 980 drive.

What would be the best SSD (SATA) to buy for these machines?
And what is the recommended NVME for these machines?

Thanks!

 

[14UG]

Is there *any* high capacity (4TB) SSD that will work in the SATA 2.0 slots of the cMP ?

 

[jackfp]

Hi people,
I wanted to install Mojave on a new 870 evo drive and it was a desaster !
In difference to my 860 ‘s the installer didn’t reboot into the 2’nd phase .
I had to hard reboot ?
Later on , the drive even had’nt been recognized . That happened also after starting from another mojave drive ( 860 evo ) . With a second new 870 it’s been the same issue . Bootchime was missing and OpenCore didn’t start from . An serious Installation is’nt possible !
I asked Samsung, but they told me there should ( as I thought by myself ) no difference ?
But since I’m successfully using 4 860 evo’s and 3 970 Pro’s and plenty of installation experience , I may say, that I know, what I’m doing !
Maybe it’s correlated with the new drive controller ?
Using the 870 drives as HP ssd 7110 APFS raid 0 drives seems to be no problem ?
Be cautious !
I’m looking now for another 860 evo drives ‘cause they work as expected.

I have had the exact same problem with Samsung 870 EVO 500GB. did not expect it.

 

[Scrotorr]

I am having a similar issue with new ADATA 750 and WD Blue 3D NAND SSD - both 2.5" 500gb. Older SATAII SSDs that I have sitting around work just fine.

 

[jackfp]

Hi people,
I wanted to install Mojave on a new 870 evo drive and it was a desaster !
In difference to my 860 ‘s the installer didn’t reboot into the 2’nd phase .
I had to hard reboot ?
Later on , the drive even had’nt been recognized . That happened also after starting from another mojave drive ( 860 evo ) . With a second new 870 it’s been the same issue . Bootchime was missing and OpenCore didn’t start from . An serious Installation is’nt possible !
I asked Samsung, but they told me there should ( as I thought by myself ) no difference ?
But since I’m successfully using 4 860 evo’s and 3 970 Pro’s and plenty of installation experience , I may say, that I know, what I’m doing !
Maybe it’s correlated with the new drive controller ?
Using the 870 drives as HP ssd 7110 APFS raid 0 drives seems to be no problem ?
Be cautious !
I’m looking now for another 860 evo drives ‘cause they work as expected.

I can verify the same, installed 500GB Samsun 870 EVO into Mid 2010 13" macbook pro, had same problems as post, changed to 500GB 860 EVO and it is working great!

 

[kings79]

Anyone know if a Samsung 870 QVO 4TB will work as purely a storage drive?

 

[mikehalloran]

Something is missing from this thread. How was the MacOS installed onto those problem 870s?

 

[zedex]

Good point - so many ways to skin the cat..

1) CLASSIC METHOD: "Clean Install" or BOOTABLE OSX INSTALLATION (createinstallmedia)
2) CLONE METHOD: Cloning a fresh OSX installation from a "personal master build" using either CCC or SuperDuper

..then, of course, Forum members reporting issues should specify whether they have used HFS+ or APFS -- so 2 pretty major disk function diagnostics/considerations missing from this thread(!)

 

[MarkC426]

Anyone know if a Samsung 870 QVO 4TB will work as purely a storage drive?

I would steer clear of QVO drives, even for storage.
They seem to have a lot of issues with cMP.

I know they are bit cheaper than an evo, but your data is still important, go with the tried and trusted.

 

[flowrider]

Anyone know if a Samsung 870 QVO 4TB will work as purely a storage drive?

My experience is yes they will work for storage only duty. I ran an 860 QVO in the early days before I knew better. Used it for storage only. Never had any issues with it. I sold the QVO when I sold my 5,1 cMP. Would I do it today❓ Nope ?

Lou

 

[kings79]

My experience is yes they will work for storage only duty. I ran an 860 QVO in the early days before I knew better. Used it for storage only. Never had any issues with it. I sold the QVO when I sold my 5,1 cMP. Would I do it today❓ Nope ?

Lou

Thanks Lou. Yeah I took the plunge and opened the packet. Seems ok. What would you do again? @flowrider

** Now onto my 870 EVO m.2 in my kryo PCIE slot. Because this is my main work drive. That is all my Pro Tools sessions run from this. I had to free up a few hundred gigs from it. Files/folders have bveen deleted but the space does not show as available.

See below the disk in question.

Shows 40 odd Gig available but when I inspect each folder they add up to around 435Gig

Ive repaired the disk with disk utility and turned Trim on.

Any one have any idea what might be causing this?