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Mac Pro 5,1 PCIE SATA SSD shows as External

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GalactiNaut

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 19, 2018
20
6
I'm using an OWC Mercury Accelsior S and my Mac thinks that the drive is external. Is there a way to get it to show it as internal, or is this just how it is?
[doublepost=1529718451][/doublepost]Also, I've installed the drivers.
 
LOL I always search before I post and never find what I'm looking for, it's quite frustrating....
 
My understanding is that you can install windows on a separate drive, and install the bootcamp drivers, and it'll work just fine...is that correct?
 
GalactiNaut said:
I'm using an OWC Mercury Accelsior S and my Mac thinks that the drive is external. Is there a way to get it to show it as internal, or is this just how it is?
[doublepost=1529718451][/doublepost]Also, I've installed the drivers.
Click to expand...

It showed external because it is... its external of the onboard SATA II circuits.
 
crjackson2134 said:
It showed external because it is... its external of the onboard SATA II circuits.
Click to expand...

Not really. When installed via the onboard SATA II port. The drive will not shows as external.

My MX500 is mounted on a Tempo SSD PCIe SATA III card, which shows external. But the DGM is mounted on a onboard SATA II port, and shows internal.
SSD + 8TB.png
Screen Shot 2018-06-23 at 10.10.09.png
Screen Shot 2018-06-23 at 10.10.12.png
 
GalactiNaut said:
So install Mac OS with it in an internal slot then move it to the pcie card?
Click to expand...

No need, for macOS, you can install that onto any internal / external bootable drive.

However, for Windows, you should install it on an internal drive, and keep it internal.
 
h9826790 said:
Not really. When installed via the onboard SATA II port. The drive will not shows as external.

My MX500 is mounted on a Tempo SSD PCIe SATA III card, which shows external. But the DGM is mounted on a onboard SATA II port, and shows internal.
View attachment 767400 View attachment 767399 View attachment 767398
Click to expand...
So are you saying that there is a way to have a drive on a pcie card but mount via the SATA II and show as internal, or am I misunderstanding?
 
h9826790 said:
Not really. When installed via the onboard SATA II port. The drive will not shows as external.

My MX500 is mounted on a Tempo SSD PCIe SATA III card, which shows external. But the DGM is mounted on a onboard SATA II port, and shows internal.
View attachment 767400 View attachment 767399 View attachment 767398
Click to expand...

I think you misunderstood my post. Simply put, I intimated that if it’s on a PCIe adapter, it’s going to show external. If it’s on a cMP port, it should show internal.

The way I see it is like this... The cMP came hard wired for 6 internal SATA connections. If it’s installed by way of anything external to those 6 connections, it’s normal to consider it an external drive.

So it seems we are saying the same thing...

Unless I now misunderstood your post.
 
Last edited:
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Wait.... how about... One more thing....

OWC has cooked up a utility called ‘dual boot enabler’ on their downloads page for a couple of their products. It sounds like it’s used for changing the internal status of a storage device. They may a version that works for your setup.

PERHAPS... The approach hidden within their tool could be applied to technology beyond OWC. We seem to have a good track record lately.

Update: link. - install boot camp on external drive
 
Last edited:
handheldgames said:
Wait.... how about... One more thing....

OWC has cooked up a utility called ‘dual boot enabler’ on their downloads page for a couple of their products. It sounds like it’s used for changing the internal status of a storage device. They may a version that works for your setup.

PERHAPS... The approach hidden within their tool could be applied to technology beyond OWC. We seem to have a good track record lately.
Click to expand...

Ha Ha... Neat discovery, but personally don’t care if my Mac says the drives are installed in a baboon’s ischial callouses. I think on this matter, I personally prefer the default behavior.
 
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handheldgames said:
Wait.... how about... One more thing....

OWC has cooked up a utility called ‘dual boot enabler’ on their downloads page for a couple of their products. It sounds like it’s used for changing the internal status of a storage device. They may a version that works for your setup.

PERHAPS... The approach hidden within their tool could be applied to technology beyond OWC. We seem to have a good track record lately.

Update: link. - install boot camp on external drive
Click to expand...

But, as we all know, OWC sells CRAP. I would not let anyone I know get or use anything they promote.

Lou
 
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I ended up just putting it in the second optical slot. I wanted OS X and Windows on the same drive so...... Benchmarking produces markedly slow performance, but it's still pretty damn fast.....it's on par with boot tests of even nvme drives in PCs, so I think it's one of those things where in real world application it doesn't matter as much as the benchmark might indicate. Maybe you'd see a bigger difference in downloading files and such though.
 
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GalactiNaut said:
I ended up just putting it in the second optical slot. I wanted OS X and Windows on the same drive so...... Benchmarking produces markedly slow performance, but it's still pretty damn fast.....it's on par with boot tests of even nvme drives in PCs, so I think it's one of those things where in real world application it doesn't matter as much as the benchmark might indicate. Maybe you'd see a bigger difference in downloading files and such though.
Click to expand...

The benchmarks are correct. However, you are looking at the wrong number.

Booting mainly depends on the 4k random read QD1 speed, not the sequential speed. No matter how fast the PCIe SSD is (including NVMe), most of them still just has rough the same 4K random read speed at the SATA SSD. And that's usually between 30-50MB/s. This is also the reason why SATA II won't limit anything in this case. Because the bandwidth is not a limiting factor at all.
 
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Yet beyond 4K, pcie ssd’s delivers stellar performance for large file writes/reads, such as those used in hibernation.

Google reduced the boot time of android emulators, from minutes to a few seconds.

It should under 11 seconds to load a 16gb hibernation file on a good NVMe ssd at 1,500 mb/sec With the good adapter, about 5.5 seconds.

I guess it’s time to enable hibernation and run some tests. lol.

Think different.
 
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GalactiNaut said:
I'm using an OWC Mercury Accelsior S and my Mac thinks that the drive is external. Is there a way to get it to show it as internal, or is this just how it is?
[doublepost=1529718451][/doublepost]Also, I've installed the drivers.
Click to expand...
Any chance it was in Slot 2? I have found that when you place OWC NVMe cards in the x16 slot, they show as external. But in the x4 slots (slots 3 and 4) they show as internal.
 
I have the OWC Accelsior S PCIe boards in my Mac Pro 5,1 as well. 2 of them. and it also bugged me that they showed as external drives. However, since I use opencore as my bootloader, I was able to edit Device Properties of those PCIe devices as built-in and they now show as internal. Also, there is a kext called Innie.kext which you can add to your config.plist and will do the same. I multi-boot as well and it seems to work across OSes, EXCEPT MacOS Sierra, that one I can't figure out LOL
 
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