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macOS 11 Big Sur on Unsupported Macs Thread

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The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
kuoshen said:
Hi,

Hope this is not OT on this thread. I thought I'd chime in since I went thru this consideration some time earlier this year looking at Firewire 800 vs Thunderbolt 1 as boot disk for iMac 12,2 (Mid 2011), MBP 15" 2009 and iMac 14,2 (2013).

Started with a Firewire 800 SATA enclosure made by Akitio (I have the earlier version of this with FW800, FW400 and USB2.0 - https://www.akitio.com/blog/discontinued/neutrino-u3plus-eol) which I picked up used for about $5. With MBP 2009 on Firewire 800, macOS Catalina and Sandisk SSD Plus 256GB, I was getting speeds of sequential read 88MB/s (random 4K read 19 MB/s) and sequential write 80MB/s (random 4k write with 14 MB/s).

For the iMac 14,4, I purchased an old Seagate GoFlex thunderbolt SATA adapter for $15 (https://www.storagereview.com/review/seagate-goflex-thunderbolt-adapter-review) which I use to boot Big Sur on the unsupported machine. This way, I did not have to open it to replace the spinning hard disk. With the Seagate Thunderbolt adapter, Big Sur 11.4 and Samsung EVO 860 SSD 512GB, I was getting speeds of sequential read 378MB/s (random 4K read 160 MB/s) and sequential write 325MB/s (random 4k write with 10 MB/s).

I eventually put the Samsung EVO 860 inside the iMac 12,2 running Big Sur 11.4. I got speeds of sequential read 569MB/s (random 4K read 411 MB/s) and sequential write 536MB/s (random 4k write with 124 MB/s).

Some of the other thunderbolt options I considered were: Western Digital Thunderbolt Duo, OWC Mercury Elite pro dual, Lacie Rugged thunderbolt HDD, Akitio Thunder Dock with eSATA, Kanex thunderbolt adapter with USB3 and eSATA, and the Lacie Little Big Disk (limited to SATA2). Most were not available or cost too much. I considered using USB3 SATA enclosures but there is no way to enable TRIM for SSD.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
This is indeed helpful Thanks.
 
kuoshen said:
Hi,

Hope this is not OT on this thread. I thought I'd chime in since I went thru this consideration some time earlier this year looking at Firewire 800 vs Thunderbolt 1 as boot disk for iMac 12,2 (Mid 2011), MBP 15" 2009 and iMac 14,2 (2013).

Started with a Firewire 800 SATA enclosure made by Akitio (I have the earlier version of this with FW800, FW400 and USB2.0 - https://www.akitio.com/blog/discontinued/neutrino-u3plus-eol) which I picked up used for about $5. With MBP 2009 on Firewire 800, macOS Catalina and Sandisk SSD Plus 256GB, I was getting speeds of sequential read 88MB/s (random 4K read 19 MB/s) and sequential write 80MB/s (random 4k write with 14 MB/s).

For the iMac 14,4, I purchased an old Seagate GoFlex thunderbolt SATA adapter for $15 (https://www.storagereview.com/review/seagate-goflex-thunderbolt-adapter-review) which I use to boot Big Sur on the unsupported machine. This way, I did not have to open it to replace the spinning hard disk. With the Seagate Thunderbolt adapter, Big Sur 11.4 and Samsung EVO 860 SSD 512GB, I was getting speeds of sequential read 378MB/s (random 4K read 160 MB/s) and sequential write 325MB/s (random 4k write with 10 MB/s).

I eventually put the Samsung EVO 860 inside the iMac 12,2 running Big Sur 11.4. I got speeds of sequential read 569MB/s (random 4K read 411 MB/s) and sequential write 536MB/s (random 4k write with 124 MB/s).

Some of the other thunderbolt options I considered were: Western Digital Thunderbolt Duo, OWC Mercury Elite pro dual, Lacie Rugged thunderbolt HDD, Akitio Thunder Dock with eSATA, Kanex thunderbolt adapter with USB3 and eSATA, and the Lacie Little Big Disk (limited to SATA2). Most were not available or cost too much. I considered using USB3 SATA enclosures but there is no way to enable TRIM for SSD.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Also, I did not experience any speed difference running them with OCLP on Big Sur versus Catalina on iMac 14,4.
 
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kuoshen said:
Hi,

Hope this is not OT on this thread. I thought I'd chime in since I went thru this consideration some time earlier this year looking at Firewire 800 vs Thunderbolt 1 as boot disk for iMac 12,2 (Mid 2011), MBP 15" 2009 and iMac 14,2 (2013).

Started with a Firewire 800 SATA enclosure made by Akitio (I have the earlier version of this with FW800, FW400 and USB2.0 - https://www.akitio.com/blog/discontinued/neutrino-u3plus-eol) which I picked up used for about $5. With MBP 2009 on Firewire 800, macOS Catalina and Sandisk SSD Plus 256GB, I was getting speeds of sequential read 88MB/s (random 4K read 19 MB/s) and sequential write 80MB/s (random 4k write with 14 MB/s).

For the iMac 14,4, I purchased an old Seagate GoFlex thunderbolt SATA adapter for $15 (https://www.storagereview.com/review/seagate-goflex-thunderbolt-adapter-review) which I use to boot Big Sur on the unsupported machine. This way, I did not have to open it to replace the spinning hard disk. With the Seagate Thunderbolt adapter, Big Sur 11.4 and Samsung EVO 860 SSD 512GB, I was getting speeds of sequential read 378MB/s (random 4K read 160 MB/s) and sequential write 325MB/s (random 4k write with 10 MB/s).

I eventually put the Samsung EVO 860 inside the iMac 12,2 running Big Sur 11.4. I got speeds of sequential read 569MB/s (random 4K read 411 MB/s) and sequential write 536MB/s (random 4k write with 124 MB/s).

Some of the other thunderbolt options I considered were: Western Digital Thunderbolt Duo, OWC Mercury Elite pro dual, Lacie Rugged thunderbolt HDD, Akitio Thunder Dock with eSATA, Kanex thunderbolt adapter with USB3 and eSATA, and the Lacie Little Big Disk (limited to SATA2). Most were not available or cost too much. I considered using USB3 SATA enclosures but there is no way to enable TRIM for SSD.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
You can enable tTrim for SSD as follows

In order to enable TRIM, you can open the "Terminal" application on your Mac,
type in the command

"sudo trimforce enable" (Without inverted comma)

and then enter your admin password to activate Trim. The system will ask you twice to confirm the execution. After this, the system will automatically reboot to implement trim support.
For whatever reason, Apple hasn’t allowed you to enable TRIM (one of the best ways to maximize the life of your solid state drive) on third-part SSD drives. Now, you finally can, no third-party app required.
Apple pushed out a minor update to OS X today that fixed some bugs and also adds the ability to enable TRIM. Once you update, all you need to do to enable TRIM is open up Terminal (Applications > Utilities) and type in this command:

And if you looking for Thunderbolt 3 Enclosure for SSD you can look at Amazon for this. Mind you it says Compatible but not sure .


Screenshot 2021-06-17 at 12.26.24 PM.png
 
Last edited:
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dhinakg said:
Please try 0.1.8, we've updated Lilu to include a bugfix causing kernel panics
Click to expand...
Updated to OCLP 0.1.9.
The kernel panics has not completely gone when running BS 11.4.
After sleeping for a while, my iMac will spontaneous reboot to the BootPicker but the Big Sur volume disappears in the boot volume list.

Here is the crash report that I retrieved:

Screenshot 2021-06-17 at 6.00.08 PM.png
 
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I managed to get it installed on my 2009 13" MBP. I applied the video drivers. My fan is going crazy though - is this what you all are experiencing, too?
 
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jowaju said:
While testing the Firewire Boot portion of the OCLP 0.1.7 patcher, I devided to do a few benchmarks and thought someone might benefit from the info I got. Here's the breakdown of what I used :

1. Old USB 2.0 and Firewire 400 board salvaged from an HP DVD-Writer from around 2005. Uses external power brick.
2. Cheap USB 2.0 to Pata adapter from at least 10 years ago, it's basically just a black usb cable with a 44 pin IDE connector and 40 pin IDE connector at the other end. No name knock off, Jmicron chipset
3. New Mercury On-The-Go-Pro 2.5" SATA to UBS 3.0 / Firewire 800 Box

Drives :
1. 100GB 7200 RPM Laptop 44 Pin IDE Drive Hitachi Branded
2. 480GB PNY External USB 3.0 Portable SSD Elite - This is not a 2.5" Drive, it's about 1/4 that size
3. 480GB 2.5" SATA SSD Super Talent Branded

Config 1 : USB 2.0 with Spinning 100GB IDE Drive
This was the slowest config by far, coming in around 20-25 MB/s for both read and write.View attachment 1794182

Config 2 : Firewire 400 with Spinning 100GB IDE Drive
This was pretty much identical to the USB 2.0 config, at 20-25 MB/s for both read and write.
View attachment 1794178

Config 3 : USB 2.0 with a fast 2.5" SATA SSD
Better at around 30 MB/s read and 35 MB/s write, much more usable than the spinning disk configs.

View attachment 1794183

Config 4 : USB 2.0 with fast non-SATA SSD
Same as config 3, this looks like the top speed for USB 2.0 ports

View attachment 1794184

Config 5 : Firewire 400 with fast 2.5" SATA SSD
Same as both of the USB 2.0 SSD results, 30ish write, 35ish read

View attachment 1794179

Config 6 : Firewire 800 with Fast 2.5" SATA SSD
Pretty much double the speed of the USB 2.0 fastest SSD's at about 60 MB/s read and write

View attachment 1794181

These were all drives that were booted from to MacOS Big Sur 11.2.3 with OCLP 0.1.7 installed to that drives EFI partition on a 24" 2008 iMac8,1. The spinning drives were usable but pretty painful, long stretches of no activity, lots of stalls and beach balls. The FW400 SSD Configs were surprisingly usable, but the PNY SSD Elite kept pace as well. The FW800 SSD Config is the obvious choice if you must have external storage. The price is sky-high though, the OWC Mercury On-The-Go-Pro case by itself is $50. You could buy a cheap $25 SATA SSD and spend 20 minutes replacing the internal drive in the iMac and get 2-3x the speed of even Firewire 800.

Side note - I had a lot of issues getting drives to boot USB, 3 of my 4 USB adapters failed to boot into Big Sur, including the USB 3.0 on the brand new On-The-Go-Pro. I could plug them in USB and use them when booted to another drive but they would NOT boot Big Sur, just a Prohibitory Sign halfway through the boot process. Not sure what the issue was but the Jmicron adapter was the only one that worked. The PNY SSD didn't use an adapter and worked flawlessly as well.
Click to expand...
Nice benchmarks!
However I have to repeat that Firewire will perform better when the CPU is busy with heavy tasks, like encoding video or multicore compression.
An HFS formatted High Sierra volume should also work smoother when accessed through FireWire 400 than the same drive connected via USB 2.0 - I had that experience with a PowerBook G4 and Tiger/Leopard.
 
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Hello,

Nice work on OCLP guys!
I'm getting some random crashes when using Forcepoint VPN Client or VMWare Fusion. The menu bar icons start to close by themselves and the system is totally irresponsible. someone with the same problem? It got worse in 11.4.
 
Pri-est said:
Updated to 0.1.9 in my CMP 3.1 - excellent! Thank you Guys!

P.S Tryed to install windows 10 from USB stick and got ACPI error (BSOD), after Windows logo appears.
Click to expand...

My Mac Pro 3,1 does not boot. At every restart it randomly freeze.
I have tried to reset MSC, reset NVRAM, remove the only PCI card (Sonnet Allegro USB-C 3.2 PCIe Card) but it freeze constantly.

:(
 
Last edited:
khronokernel said:
Could you please enable verbose mode in OpenCore Patcher settings and send us the kernel panic or wherever it gets stuck?
Click to expand...
I installed OCLP 0.1.9 and 11.2.3 boots normally again with no crashes or boot loops.

Took it a step further and installed 11.4 (nothing migrated) on a new volume ("test") in an existing container containing Mojave and 11.2.3. It boots most of the time but it seems to hang in 2 spots (installing seemed fine). Found it easier to use an old iMac in target display mode since my main monitor is a little big. Using a OWC Accelsior S PCIe to 2.5" SATA SSD adapter if that helps. The blinking lights on the PCIe card also stop. Not the end of the world since 11.2.3 is stable.
20210617_183122.jpg

20210617_183433.jpg
 
amishallin said:
I installed OCLP 0.1.9 and 11.2.3 boots normally again with no crashes or boot loops.

Took it a step further and installed 11.4 (nothing migrated) on a new volume ("test") in an existing container containing Mojave and 11.2.3. It boots most of the time but it seems to hang in 2 spots (installing seemed fine). Found it easier to use an old iMac in target display mode since my main monitor is a little big. Using a OWC Accelsior S PCIe to 2.5" SATA SSD adapter if that helps. The blinking lights on the PCIe card also stop. Not the end of the world since 11.2.3 is stable.
View attachment 1794728
View attachment 1794729
Click to expand...
Same problem with clean install 11.4 on MacPro (early 2009) (sata ssd, no PCI-Express cards), randomely USB halts.
 
mdgm said:
Installed Big Sur on one of my mid-2011 iMacs onto the stock internal hard drive. Installing it was slow, but I got there in the end. It was painfully slow before installing the Graphics Acceleration patches.

Will have to use it some more over the weekend.


View attachment 1794813
Click to expand...
Hi
which correctives did you use to activate this Radeon?

I also have a Radeon HD5730 and would like to activate it on Big Sur too

thanks in advance

google translate
 
There is a beta Post Install patch for AMD Terascale 2 GPUs in OCLP 0.1.7 (and later). There is an issue with distortions after waking from sleep on macOS Big Sur 11.3 and later at the moment so it is best to use 11.2.3 for now.
 
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khronokernel said:
Hello everyone, we're proud to release OpenCore Legacy Patcher 0.1.5!
github.com

Release 0.1.5 · dortania/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher

Fix crashing when Wireless module not present Add iMac10,1 default dGPU pathing Add agdpmod=vit9696 to all Nvidia Metal iMacs Fixes external display support on Nvidia iMac12,x Remove reliance on...
github.com github.com

Overall note worthy changes are:
- Enhanced GPU Power management for El-Capitan Era Macs
- Fixed Brightness Control for MacBookPro8,2/3
- Enhancements to Legacy acceleration Patches
- SeedUtil Configuration in Advanced Patcher Settings

Hope everyone enjoys the new changes!
Click to expand...
Sir, i have installed the big sur on my mid 2011 21.5 imac and the imac is painfully slow and i am facing and ISSUE after installing the GPU patches, soon after I installed the patch and rebooted the system, the notifications bar wasn’t fully loaded and when i try to use the notifications bar i end up back to the login screen on my (iMac 12,1) **THE SECOND CLIP ARE THE STEPS I FOLLOWED..**

 
Last edited:
PG7 said:
Hi
which correctives did you use to activate this Radeon?

I also have a Radeon HD5730 and would like to activate it on Big Sur too

thanks in advance

google translated
PG7 said:
Hi
which correctives did you use to activate this Radeon?

I also have a Radeon HD5730 and would like to activate it on Big Sur too

thanks in advance

google translate
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
mdgm said:
Installed Big Sur on one of my mid-2011 iMacs onto the stock internal hard drive. Installing it was slow, but I got there in the end. It was painfully slow before installing the Graphics Acceleration patches.

Will have to use it some more over the weekend.


View attachment 1794813
Click to expand...
Hi, even i have the same imac and i am also facing the same issue, i had installed the GPU patches just now, there is no difference and when I click notifications bar, a black screen shows up and i end back to login screen..
 
uzzonfire said:
Hi, even i have the same imac and i am also facing the same issue, i had installed the GPU patches just now, there is no difference and when I click notifications bar, a black screen shows up and i end back to login screen..
Click to expand...
You should put off under accessibility->display-> Reduce motion (Tick) + reduce transparency (tick).
Will make it slightly better in opening apps
 
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