MP 1,1-5,1 Need help making NVME show up as "internal"..

[Diggi]

Trying to revive a 2010 Mac Pro, 5,1 with 144.00 boot rom. I bought a Startech NVME adapter card and 2, 500GB WD Blue NVME drives.

I created a single RAID0 drive for them in DiskUtility, but...... it shows up an an "External" drive.

I have not found a way to make them "internal". I've searched and read about a "tool" of some sort to help with this, but cannot find a download link to anything that will help me fix this, and ultimately allow me to install a new OS to this RAID0 configured boot drive.

Can anyone help me make this NVME "internal" as opposed to external?

Many thanks!

 

[Macschrauber]

Innie: A fix for PCI drives seen as external

It is well known that macOS sees PCI drives in a cMP as external. In the past, there have been several attempts to fix this annoyance, typically through codeless kexts and driver patches. However, these approaches are far from perfect. Codeless kexts affect the properties of all (even non-PCI)...

forums.macrumors.com

basically install an os to a single drive and clone it to the Raid set - but be prepared that every system update will break the os and you will need to do it to a single drive again.

 

[Diggi]

Innie: A fix for PCI drives seen as external

It is well known that macOS sees PCI drives in a cMP as external. In the past, there have been several attempts to fix this annoyance, typically through codeless kexts and driver patches. However, these approaches are far from perfect. Codeless kexts affect the properties of all (even non-PCI)...

forums.macrumors.com

basically install an os to a single drive and clone it to the Raid set - but be prepared that every system update will break the os and you will need to do it to a single drive again.

Dang. I'd read that the read/ write speeds would be far greater with the nvme as a Raid compared to a single drive or plain old SSD.

Sounds like there might not be an easy way to make this RAID0 as my bootdrive and have it seen as internal.

Is there no other solution?


Thanks for your help.

 

[avro707]

Dang. I'd read that the read/ write speeds would be far greater with the nvme as a Raid compared to a single drive or plain old SSD.

Well, they are faster than an old SSD - I just check mine (Samsung) on a Sonnet card in MP 7,1 and got 3131.8mb/s write and 3050.3mb/s read.

You still do get a benefit, even without raid. It's also faster than the standard Apple 1TB SSD in my MP7,1.

 

[Diggi]

OK, got it. Is there an easy way to at least make my Mac see them as “internal” as opposed to external?

 

[Macschrauber]

I dont get where you see a drop in performance.

if you want to use a newer system than Mojave or want it by a gui you will check out the OpenCore variants OpenCore Legacy Patcher and MyBootMgr.

I wont recommend raid for a boot drive. But thats another story.

MP7,1 speeds are not comparable as it has a PCI3.0 bus where the classic has a PCI2.0 bus.

 

[avro707]

On 5,1 it was about 1800mb/s IIRC. If set as a two drive raid it was much faster still but no use for booting the OS.

Opencore used to make them appear as internal on my old 5,1.