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Mac Pro and OWC Eccelsior PCI SSD issue...

M

mourip

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 13, 2012
19
3
I received my OWC Eccelsior card a few days ago and installed it in my MacPro 3.1 workstation. It had previously been set up to dual boot between OSX MT and Win7. Each OS had it's own standard SSD boot drive and both showed up when I held down the Option key at startup.

The new card is definitely quicker than the OWC Mercury drive it replaced. The problem is that now at bootup the new OSX drive does not show up when I hit the option key although the Windows and Time Machine drive still do. I have to either set it as the default drive while in OSX or boot to Windows and choose reboot to OSX in the Boot Camp Control Panel or boot to my OSX MT Recovery usb key and then choose it as my startup drive. I called OWC and was told that this was expected behavior. It will not show up when you hit the Option key. The tech was not too chatty and I could not think of more questions to ask so I gave up.

Since I often move between both operating systems and am not fond of emulators this was a disappointment. They certainly do not advertise this on the OWC web site. In fact they state "Tap into Accelsior's 6G speeds for near instant startup and app launching by using it as your boot drive on your Mac Pro or PC. No drivers are required making Accelsior a simple Plug and Play bootable solution." While it is true that you can boot to either OS you lose the convenience of Apples boot manager. Also when you boot to Windows you get an extra screen for the on-card bios raid launch which slows down boot up...


Does anyone know why the card works this way? Do you think that a third party boot manager would work?

Thanks!

Paul
 
I can confirm this behavior. Was quite an unpleasant surprise for me. I don't think any fix exists.
 
Actually, if you originally set it as your default boot drive, wouldn't that solve the problem? Here's what I mean. If you want to restart into OSX, just restart the computer. Even if you are runnings Windows, it will boot back into OSX when you restart if you have selected OSX as the boot drive. If you want to boot into Windows, just hit the option key when you restart. Thus:

To boot into OSX, do nothing.
To boot into Windows, hold down the option key, and select the windows drive.

This even works when you start up the computer after you have shut it down.

Am I missing something?
 
lssmit02 said:
Actually, if you originally set it as your default boot drive, wouldn't that solve the problem? Here's what I mean. If you want to restart into OSX, just restart the computer. Even if you are runnings Windows, it will boot back into OSX when you restart if you have selected OSX as the boot drive. If you want to boot into Windows, just hit the option key when you restart. Thus:

To boot into OSX, do nothing.
To boot into Windows, hold down the option key, and select the windows drive.

This even works when you start up the computer after you have shut it down.

Am I missing something?
Click to expand...

Ha, I get you, thanks for the hit of the simple stick...:)
 
I also noticed this comment in the feedback for the Accelsior on the OWC site:

The Mac Pro 2008 cannot boot into Boot Camp while the Accelsior is installed. Newer Mac Pros don't have this problem. OWC says Boot Camp can also run from the Accelsior but only if the entire drive is formatted for Boot Camp.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDPHW2R480/

I wonder if there are problems with any PCIe slotted solution, such as the adapter card for a standard 2.5" SSD as found on eBay.


-howard
 
hfg said:
I also noticed this comment in the feedback for the Accelsior on the OWC site:

The Mac Pro 2008 cannot boot into Boot Camp while the Accelsior is installed. Newer Mac Pros don't have this problem. OWC says Boot Camp can also run from the Accelsior but only if the entire drive is formatted for Boot Camp.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDPHW2R480/

I wonder if there are problems with any PCIe slotted solution, such as the adapter card for a standard 2.5" SSD as found on eBay.


-howard
Click to expand...
i boot windows on my 2008 mac pro with an ocz revo2, which is an older pci-e SSD raid card. I'm surprised the OWC drive can't.
 
I have one of the dual external eSATA PCIe cards sold by OWC and it will boot Windows from an attached drive, but it will NOT boot OS X from an attached drive.

I currently have a SSD in Bay 1 (2008 Mac Pro) with OS X and BootCamp partitions for booting which works fine if nothing is attached to the external eSATA connectors on this card. However, if I have a drive active on one of the ports, Windows cannot boot (probably too many partitions to skip over?).

This is the card I am using:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer Technology/MXPCIE6GS2/

Perhaps this is a similar problem to that of the Accelsior PCIe card?



-howard
 
lssmit02 said:
Actually, if you originally set it as your default boot drive, wouldn't that solve the problem? Here's what I mean. If you want to restart into OSX, just restart the computer. Even if you are runnings Windows, it will boot back into OSX when you restart if you have selected OSX as the boot drive. If you want to boot into Windows, just hit the option key when you restart. Thus:

To boot into OSX, do nothing.
To boot into Windows, hold down the option key, and select the windows drive.

This even works when you start up the computer after you have shut it down.

Am I missing something?
Click to expand...

Oops! Good catch. I was used to seeing both drives there but you are correct.

Now if you have a fix for the kernal panics on shutdown with OSX MT I will be a very happy camper!

Thanks!

----------
hfg said:
I also noticed this comment in the feedback for the Accelsior on the OWC site:

The Mac Pro 2008 cannot boot into Boot Camp while the Accelsior is installed. Newer Mac Pros don't have this problem. OWC says Boot Camp can also run from the Accelsior but only if the entire drive is formatted for Boot Camp.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDPHW2R480/

I wonder if there are problems with any PCIe slotted solution, such as the adapter card for a standard 2.5" SSD as found on eBay.


-howard
Click to expand...

Also a good find. Luckily my Windows boot is on it's own drive and does boot well. As the previous post pointed out I set OSX as the default and just hit Option when I need Windows.
 
mourip said:
Also a good find. Luckily my Windows boot is on it's own drive and does boot well. As the previous post pointed out I set OSX as the default and just hit Option when I need Windows.
Click to expand...

One problem you encounter with that setup is when installing or updating something in Windows which requires one or more reboots ... you will have to be there to catch the reboot and hold down the "Option" key to avoid having to load OS X and restart again.

I like how BootCamp locks the startup disk when initiated from either platform so it will reboot to that same OS unless directed otherwise by the user. It would be nice to understand how that happens and restore that functionality when using PCIe SSD drives.


-howard
 
Just found this thread, and on my Mac Pro 3,1 (early-2008) I have the following:

- GTX680 graphics card in Slot 2 (so NO Boot screen)
- HDD in bay 1
- SSD in bay 2 (bootable OSX)
- HDD in bay 3 (part of Raid0)
- HDD in bay 4 (part of Raid0)

My Raid0 array is used for bootcamp (Windows 7).

Now to the questions:

1) Can I buy a OWC Mercury Accelsior PCIE SSD card and use it as a bootable OSX drive?
2) Given that I will then move my Bootcamp Windows parition to my existing SSD, will I be able to, using BootChamp in OSX and the Bootcamp manager in Windows, switch between OSX and Bootcamp? I read somewhere that people cannot use Bootcamp with the Accelsior card... Also remember I have NO Boot screen (because of my Kepler graphics card).

Thanks in advance!
 
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