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NVMe for Mac Pro 5,1
- Thread starter Lauwie
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Maybe start with just getting the kext working. It could work as a storage drive if you did whatever mods the next needs to work as a HD. I can boot into Windows 8.1 and all of a sudden the NVME drive appears as a normal drive. It plays peek-a-boo, only appearing in Windows.
So if you could get kext support first, it might get more interest in getting EFI working.
So if you could get kext support first, it might get more interest in getting EFI working.
It would be interesting if the NVMe kext did a similar check that AHCIBlockStorage does on SSDs for TRIM support. Looks for 'APPLE' in the Model field.
Perhaps you could use perl to re-write the kext if it's looking for an 'APPLE' and replace it with a wildcard value?
Obviously this would then me an issue with kext-signing.
Perhaps you could use perl to re-write the kext if it's looking for an 'APPLE' and replace it with a wildcard value?
Obviously this would then me an issue with kext-signing.
It is nowhere near this simple.
I have a generic NVMe kext running as a block storage device already. I am currently working on support for management ioctls and direct application access to bypass the file system stack.
I do not know if I can release this publicly or not. This is why I privately contacted the OP. And then there is the matter of whether Apple will allow such a driver to be signed. They turned down my last request...
But as I indicated earlier, it works fine in thunderbolt adapters such as the Akitio as well as classic Mac Pro machines as a very fast data drive.
There is no magic here, and I do not have the time to educate the novices nor correct all the wild inaccuracies of this thread. [Not directed at Draeconis, who asks a question, rather at those that state opinion as fact and try to promote their misinformed beliefs as fact]
-JimJ
I have a generic NVMe kext running as a block storage device already. I am currently working on support for management ioctls and direct application access to bypass the file system stack.
I do not know if I can release this publicly or not. This is why I privately contacted the OP. And then there is the matter of whether Apple will allow such a driver to be signed. They turned down my last request...
But as I indicated earlier, it works fine in thunderbolt adapters such as the Akitio as well as classic Mac Pro machines as a very fast data drive.
There is no magic here, and I do not have the time to educate the novices nor correct all the wild inaccuracies of this thread. [Not directed at Draeconis, who asks a question, rather at those that state opinion as fact and try to promote their misinformed beliefs as fact]
-JimJ
t t
So you've got a generic NVMe kext that can see NVMe devices and read/write to them as a basic storage device?
I assume the way you've written your comment means that it's not a bootable volume because the kext isn't signed? Or can't be loaded at boot?
I assume the way you've written your comment means that it's not a bootable volume because the kext isn't signed? Or can't be loaded at boot?
It is not bootable because there is no EFI support for generic (standard compliant) NVMe devices.
Kext signing must be disabled for the non-signed driver to load. Once loaded, each namespace of the NVMe device shows up as a separate physical disk that may be partitioned, formatted, mounted, read from, and written to.
So much like a USB 3.0 external disk on the classic Mac Pro, you cannot boot from it, but once booted the system can use it for any other purpose.
-JimJ
Amazing work enabling wicked fast storage I'd be interested to see how the SM951 NVE's perform in the empty Squid Quad M.2 PCIe adapter I'm looking at. With the right driver, I would have a good excuse to pick up some new silicon for the test bench.
It would be absolutely trivial for Apple to have adhered to the standard. This is part of the reason I delayed so long in creating my own driver - in the hopes that Apple would "do the right thing"(TM). At any moment Apple could make my efforts a waste of time.
The counter argument is that not all of the devices out there are 100% spec compliant either since the specification is relatively young and many are first generation products. So it would be entirely possible for Apple to release a compliant driver that would not work with all possible devices... However this would have the effect of getting people to complain to hardware vendors to improve their products to the benefit of all.
It really is a shame that Apple chose the path it did - though they probably did so to control their configurations tightly as well as the user experience. If that is the case, they should not label their devices as NVMe or NVMexpress, rather "Apple Proprietary SSDs".
-JimJ
How's this going? Ive noticed Windows users can do this to get boot?
"One of the key things is that you need to build the USB to install windows with "Rufus", as usual (or original DVD). You need to select "GPT/UEFI" AND ALSO ENSURE ITS USING FAT32.
Anything that is not FAT32 will not work.
As soon you have the USB, then you need to play with the BIOS few times:
BIOS - BOOT - CSM Mode - DISABLED
BIOS - BOOT - Secure Boot - Other OS
Boot from USB /DVD
Install Windows from a bootable USB with GPT partition scheme or from the original Windows DVD
When the system reboots for 1st time:
Go back to BIOS and Enable CSM
Change Secure Boot - Windows UEFI Mode
Select M.2 as boot device
Save and exit.
The system will keep installing and will boot from the M.2"
Quote from http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answe...lling-windows-sm951-z170-pro-gaming-mobo.html
"One of the key things is that you need to build the USB to install windows with "Rufus", as usual (or original DVD). You need to select "GPT/UEFI" AND ALSO ENSURE ITS USING FAT32.
Anything that is not FAT32 will not work.
As soon you have the USB, then you need to play with the BIOS few times:
BIOS - BOOT - CSM Mode - DISABLED
BIOS - BOOT - Secure Boot - Other OS
Boot from USB /DVD
Install Windows from a bootable USB with GPT partition scheme or from the original Windows DVD
When the system reboots for 1st time:
Go back to BIOS and Enable CSM
Change Secure Boot - Windows UEFI Mode
Select M.2 as boot device
Save and exit.
The system will keep installing and will boot from the M.2"
Quote from http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answe...lling-windows-sm951-z170-pro-gaming-mobo.html
It is going well... and being tested by a handful of people on both internal cMP and external ThunderBolt configurations.
Please note that this will NOT be a bootable solution for OS X on Apple machines due to the lack of EFI support.
-JimJ
thanks for the update. irrespective of the lack of efi support, this represents a great step forwsrd in storage technology for os/x. congrats!
thinking outside of the box, could the boot techniques used to enable the 1,1 and 2,1 mac pro's to boot el Capitan be leveraged for the 4,1 and 5,1?
Perhaps... but in all honesty this is not an area I have any current plans to pursue. My work leverages NVMe devices, but there is no need for boot support. Not enough time in the day to do everything I would like!
-JimJ
Release is very near... Final edits/revisions to the download page.
-JimJ
[Edit] To be clear, the reason for waiting for the download page to be complete is that you will need to read/accept the legal disclaimer and terms of use. Lawyers got involved...
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If all goes well we'll publish the source around the end of february.
Didn't have to much luck with writing/modifying the kext.
I hope releasing the source of the modded EFI binary will help you folks and maybe someone can figure out how to get it working
Didn't have to much luck with writing/modifying the kext.
I hope releasing the source of the modded EFI binary will help you folks and maybe someone can figure out how to get it working
If all goes well we'll publish the source around the end of february.
Didn't have to much luck with writing/modifying the kext.
I hope releasing the source of the modded EFI binary will help you folks and maybe someone can figure out how to get it working
I think that's probably the only way, lots of fresh eyes
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