Resolved Dual boot CONFIRMED for new Apricorn Velocity DUO X2!!!

[m4v3r1ck]

Samsung XP941 512GB

Thanks for the tests.

I think that the current options point to one thing: we really need a cheap, 2+ drives, single slot **X4** PCIe card. (Maybe even more if we think about a RAID0 of Samsung's XP941 512GB...)

Loa

It was fun tweaking around with it! Here is a nice review from Tweak Town: samsung-xp941-512gb-m-2-pcie-ssd-review Fast, fast, fast, but not bootable!

~ Cheers

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Thanks BDM for all the reviews, I have enjoyed reading your posts.
Are there any x4 PCIE card out there working with SATA based SSD ? I wonder if those cards are only made for m2 pcie based ssd

My pleasure! Here's a nice read about the SATA vs PCIe next gen:
why-ssds-are-transitioning-sata-pcie-next-gen-form-factor

~ Cheers

 

[m4v3r1ck]

DUAL boot on MP 5.1 non-RAIDED

Thanks BDM for all your tests! I like that the DUO X2 might be the simplest and best approach for booting two OSs: one from each SSD installed to the card.

Welcome! That's is absolute correct! Don't know how a RAID0 will hold a OS X partition and a Windows bootcamp partition, never tried that.

You've mentioned earlier that the DUO X2 can boot OS X and Windows, with each installed on a separate drive, but I am a bit confused by "booting both OS X and Windows with a single SSD..."

Are you confirming here that one OS on each SSD, or are you suggesting you have one OS on the DUO X2 partitioned into two, and able to boot each OS that way? In that case, what is the second SSD on the DUO X2 doing?

I installed 2 SSD on the DUO, one with OS X and one with Windows.

I would like to think I just have this mixed up and you're still going with the "single OS on each SSD" being a great use of the DUO X2. Hopefully this product will make it to market!!

The DUO X2 is - for now - my favourite SSD PCIe card and I think it is a no-brainer for many Mac Pro users among us who want to dual boot from SATA-III. NOTE: I only tested this card successful on a MP 5.1 No doubt Apricorn will list the requirements for the DUO when it comes to market.

~ Cheers

 

[Loa]

xp941 Fast, fast, fast, but not bootable!

Well, let's be more precise: not bootable on a PC, but natively bootable on Macs... This is a Mac forum, after all! :-D

SATA Express meets the '09 MacPro - Bootable NGFF PCIE SSD


Loa

 

[m4v3r1ck]

Well, let's be more precise: not bootable on a PC, but natively bootable on Macs... This is a Mac forum, after all! :-D

SATA Express meets the '09 MacPro - Bootable NGFF PCIE SSD

Loa

You're absolutely in the right! Thanks for correcting me.

~ Cheers

 

[hfg]

Welcome! That's is absolute correct! Don't know how a RAID0 will hold a OS X partition and a Windows bootcamp partition, never tried that.

I may have posted this here before ... if so, my apologies for repeating.

I hope this dual-drive card will allow a 2-SSD Windows and RAID-0 OS X configuration as I have done before, but not been able to find a PCIe card which would function with the SSD-pair (that runs fine in my MacPro sleds):

Use a 512GB SSD partitioned into 2 sections (Samsung 840 Pro).
Use a 256GB SSD which matches (Samsung 840 Pro)

Create the OS X bootable RAID-0 with the smaller SSD and one part of the larger SSD (result: 512GB RAID-0)

Use the remaining part of the larger SSD for bootable Windows (256GB).

I have created this before, and it works great on the MacPro backplane. However, other PCIe dual drive cards have not been able to support dual-OS which this new card appears to do from your testing.

Looking forward to these becoming available!

-howard

 

[m4v3r1ck]

Looking forward to these becoming available!

-howard

Hi Howard,

Was working on your suggested setup too:

WOW, haven't seen that in a very long time: Windows BSOD INACCESSIBLE_BOOTDEVICE!

But M$ has added a smiley to the Windows 8 BSOD I'm not having fun...

Any suggestions?

~ Cheers

 

[hfg]

Hi Howard,

Was working on your suggested setup too:

Image

WOW, haven't seen that in a very long time: Windows BSOD INACCESSIBLE_BOOTDEVICE!

But M$ has added a smiley to the Windows 8 BSOD I'm not having fun...

Any suggestions?

~ Cheers

You might try creating the SSD pair on the backplane SATA, then move them over to the PCIe X2 Duo.

Run Windows with the Duo card in a slot in case Windows needs to install a device driver before actually moving the drives to the card.

 

[m4v3r1ck]

You might try creating the SSD pair on the backplane SATA, then move them over to the PCIe X2 Duo.

Run Windows with the Duo card in a slot in case Windows needs to install a device driver before actually moving the drives to the card.

Oke. I'll give that a swing next week!

~ Cheers

 

[ShawnF]

I may have posted this here before ... if so, my apologies for repeating.

I hope this dual-drive card will allow a 2-SSD Windows and RAID-0 OS X configuration as I have done before, but not been able to find a PCIe card which would function with the SSD-pair (that runs fine in my MacPro sleds):

Use a 512GB SSD partitioned into 2 sections (Samsung 840 Pro).
Use a 256GB SSD which matches (Samsung 840 Pro)

Create the OS X bootable RAID-0 with the smaller SSD and one part of the larger SSD (result: 512GB RAID-0)

Use the remaining part of the larger SSD for bootable Windows (256GB).

I have created this before, and it works great on the MacPro backplane. However, other PCIe dual drive cards have not been able to support dual-OS which this new card appears to do from your testing.

Looking forward to these becoming available!

-howard

I had a frustrating experience with this. I think it could be something to do with partition formats.

When formatting as HFS+ it creates a small GPT partition as well. So when you try to have OSX and Windows in a single drive with 2 partitions, you actually end up with 3 partitions and the existence of that GPT kind of screws up the booting of the Windows partition which usually is an MBR (Master Boot Record). From my limited experience, I notice MBR partitions usually don't play nice when there is a GPT partition on the same drive - for example Windows Disk Manager will not be able to delete the GPT partition and bootcamp will refuse to install Windows in the NTFS partition because of the GPT partition.

You can try using applications like Aomei Partition Manager to realign/delete the order of the partitions and see if that works though.

 

[m4v3r1ck]

a real hassle

I had a frustrating experience with this. I think it could be something to do with partition formats.

When formatting as HFS+ it creates a small GPT partition as well. So when you try to have OSX and Windows in a single drive with 2 partitions, you actually end up with 3 partitions and the existence of that GPT kind of screws up the booting of the Windows partition which usually is an MBR (Master Boot Record). From my limited experience, I notice MBR partitions usually don't play nice when there is a GPT partition on the same drive - for example Windows Disk Manager will not be able to delete the GPT partition and bootcamp will refuse to install Windows in the NTFS partition because of the GPT partition.

Thanks for your insights Shawn!

You can try using applications like Aomei Partition Manager to realign/delete the order of the partitions and see if that works though.

That seems like a real hassle to me. That's why I like the out-of-the-box dual boot (2 single SSD's) with the DUO X2, although it might not be the fastest solution. A stable workable setup, that will run your single SSD's at it's max is also worth something.

~ Cheers

 

[hfg]

I had a frustrating experience with this. I think it could be something to do with partition formats.

When formatting as HFS+ it creates a small GPT partition as well. So when you try to have OSX and Windows in a single drive with 2 partitions, you actually end up with 3 partitions and the existence of that GPT kind of screws up the booting of the Windows partition which usually is an MBR (Master Boot Record). From my limited experience, I notice MBR partitions usually don't play nice when there is a GPT partition on the same drive - for example Windows Disk Manager will not be able to delete the GPT partition and bootcamp will refuse to install Windows in the NTFS partition because of the GPT partition.

You can try using applications like Aomei Partition Manager to realign/delete the order of the partitions and see if that works though.

I suspect that I didn't "install" Windows to this configuration, but rather used WinClone to copy the installation from a single SSD. This may have avoided that problem of too many partitions which confuses the Windows installer.

 

[m4v3r1ck]

I suspect that I didn't "install" Windows to this configuration, but rather used WinClone to copy the installation from a single SSD. This may have avoided that problem of too many partitions which confuses the Windows installer.

I used WinClone to restore from the single SSD to the newly created partition. For WinClone to restore the partition was created GPT. All WinClone restores to single SSD's never gave me issues. I'll give it another shot setting up the RAID0 OSX and clean install both OS X 10.9.3 and Windows 8 using BootCamp with my DVD on the remaining partition. SSD's will be placed in the backpane bay's. Fingers crossed.

~ Cheers

 

[Durex]

Welcome! That's is absolute correct! Don't know how a RAID0 will hold a OS X partition and a Windows bootcamp partition, never tried that.

I installed 2 SSD on the DUO, one with OS X and one with Windows.

The DUO X2 is - for now - my favourite SSD PCIe card and I think it is a no-brainer for many Mac Pro users among us who want to dual boot from SATA-III. NOTE: I only tested this card successful on a MP 5.1 No doubt Apricorn will list the requirements for the DUO when it comes to market.

~ Cheers

Thanks for the clarifications! Sounds awesome for me! While it won't be as fast as Samsung XP941 NGFF modules, it is definitely a good option (hopefully being not not-too-expensive given the relatively simple adapter card, and providing simplicity with fundamental boot options).

Thanks again and Cheers!

 

[m4v3r1ck]

Fingers crossed for the introduction price!

Thanks for the clarifications! Sounds awesome for me! While it won't be as fast as Samsung XP941 NGFF modules, it is definitely a good option (hopefully being not not-too-expensive given the relatively simple adapter card, and providing simplicity with fundamental boot options).

Thanks again and Cheers!

YMW! Surely not a warp-speed solution, but it's a PCIe card that serves OS X and Windows well and at the maximum SINGLE SSD speed provided. Fingers crossed indeed for the introduction price of the DUO X2. FWIW I even suggested Apricorn a pricing 'strategy' for it's current SOLO X2 and the new DUO X2

 

[crjackson2134]

Apricorn has suspended their tests (and at least their feedback) of the Velocity DUO X2 in MP's 3.1 - 5.1. Keep you posted later on...

Just to be clear, have they now resumed?

 

[m4v3r1ck]

Just to be clear, have they now resumed?

Yes they have!

 

[flowrider]

Well, seems the Velocity Duo x2 has now been released:

http://www.apricorn.com/products/desktop-ssd-hdd-upgrade-kits/vel-duox2.html

Lou

 

[crjackson2134]

Available on Amazon

 

[Gav Mack]

It still doesn't boot off the 3,1 so I'll be keeping my X2 with my second 840 stuck on top of the other running off the second port with ODD power which boots Windows and OSX on individual SSD's.

If it aint broke don't fix it, that upgrade can wait till a cheap 5,1 dual crosses my path first...

 

[hfg]

It still doesn't boot off the 3,1 so I'll be keeping my X2 with my second 840 stuck on top of the other running off the second port with ODD power which boots Windows and OSX on individual SSD's.

If it aint broke don't fix it, that upgrade can wait till a cheap 5,1 dual crosses my path first...

Hmmm ... the spec sheet claims that it will boot from a 3,1 and above. I guess we will know for sure when people start receiving production models of the Duo X2 in their hands.

 

[VirtualRain]

Well, seems the Velocity Duo x2 has now been released:



http://www.apricorn.com/products/desktop-ssd-hdd-upgrade-kits/vel-duox2.html



Lou

It's a shame it's still only a x2 card. It's not going to unleash the full potential of the SSDs connected to it.

 

[Loa]

It's a shame it's still only a x2 card.

IMO it's totally unacceptable in 2014. The only explanation I see is that the chips for X4 are ridiculously more expensive.

It's pretty much the same as if Apple had decided to put 8 ram slots in the Mac Pro, but limited the total ram to 16GB.

Loa

 

[crjackson2134]

It's probably a case of practical economics regarding profit margins. Consider that the Sonet Tempo Pro has an 4x lane width but still only delivers 160 GB/s faster than the x2 lane of the Apricorn. If I'm already able to get 800MB/s for 1/2 the price, why bother? Of course I realize some people MIGHT actually need the performance differences but I'm guessing most don't. Also, with NGFF and Apple interfaced cards on the rise, it's probably wasted effort and resources to pursue that path. Apricorn would be smarter to go doen the NGFF path I would think. JMHO

 

[VirtualRain]

It's probably a case of practical economics regarding profit margins. Consider that the Sonet Tempo Pro has an 4x lane width but still only delivers 160 GB/s faster than the x2 lane of the Apricorn. If I'm already able to get 800MB/s for 1/2 the price, why bother? Of course I realize some people MIGHT actually need the performance differences but I'm guessing most don't. Also, with NGFF and Apple interfaced cards on the rise, it's probably wasted effort and resources to pursue that path. Apricorn would be smarter to go doen the NGFF path I would think. JMHO

Back in the day, I had a Highpoint 8x RAID card with 3xSATA3 SSDs attached. I found it could do 1300MB/s in one of the x16 slots, but only about 950MB/s in either of the x4 slots. You would think that the x4 slots in the cMP would be able to support up to 2000MB/s but that wasn't the case... at least with the card I was using. I wonder if there's something limiting those top x4 slots to 1000MB/s (in which case a x4 bus would be a lost cause). It might also explain the Sonet Tempo Pro's poor performance as well.

 

[crjackson2134]

Back in the day, I had a Highpoint 8x RAID card with 3xSATA3 SSDs attached. I found it could do 1300MB/s in one of the x16 slots, but only about 950MB/s in either of the x4 slots. You would think that the x4 slots in the cMP would be able to support up to 2000MB/s but that wasn't the case... at least with the card I was using. I wonder if there's something limiting those top x4 slots to 1000MB/s (in which case a x4 bus would be a lost cause). It might also explain the Sonet Tempo Pro's poor performance as well.

Could be. If I were going to run hardware that bandwidth hungry, I'd put it in a x16 slot anyway. I know some people don't have that choice because of secondary video cards, but I only run one. Even my Solo x2 resides there now since it's the most bandwith consuming card I have next to the video card.