Questions on SIP

[KingCornWallis]

I am trying to configure a Late 2011 Macbook Pro with Raid 0 Boot SSDs on High Sierra as well as an updated Bluetooth 4.0 card for continuity.

Continuity Activation Tool requires disabling SIP, and installing in RAID 0 (via DOSDude patcher) removes Recovery Mode, but disabling SIP requires Recovery Mode.

I thought I had this all working, but somehow SIP was re-enabled and the Wifi card is no longer detected (bug with CAT, need to reinstall kexts and disable SIP). I will wipe everything, disable SIP again, and reinstall the RAID, but I need to know where I went wrong.

1. Where is the SIP Enabled Flag stored (Boot Disk, Base Image, or BIOS)?
2. What causes it to change outside of user input?
3. Why is Recovery Mode required and no workaround available?

 

[BrianBaughn]

I'm not advising you to do anything here but you could possibly use rEFInd as your MBP's bootloader. One custom option it has is to disable SIP at boot.

I just used it as part of getting El Capitan on an unsupported 2008 MacBook.

 

[KingCornWallis]

I'm not advising you to do anything here but you could possibly use rEFInd as your MBP's bootloader. One custom option it has is to disable SIP at boot.

I just used it as part of getting El Capitan on an unsupported 2008 MacBook.

That looks very interesting, I will need to do some reading. Ironically I just installed Mavericks on my unsupported 2008 MacBook this last weekend. Why did you need this tool, and how well does El Capitan run??

 

[BrianBaughn]

That looks very interesting, I will need to do some reading. Ironically I just installed Mavericks on my unsupported 2008 MacBook this last weekend. Why did you need this tool, and how well does El Capitan run??

If I understand correctly EC done this way won't run unless SIP is disabled. It's running well with an SSD. Upping the RAM is going to help, too. It was worthless with Lion.

By the way, you can download rEFInd image for a USB stick, put it in your Mac and start up via rEFInd without installing it. Quick way to see what it all is.

 

[KingCornWallis]

If I understand correctly EC done this way won't run unless SIP is disabled. It's running well with an SSD. Upping the RAM is going to help, too. It was worthless with Lion.

By the way, you can download rEFInd image for a USB stick, put it in your Mac and start up via rEFInd without installing it. Quick way to see what it all is.

Interesting. There is brand new development on github from DOSDude and friends for installing any version of macOS and now OSX on a wide range of unsupported systems. The OSX tool was not available last until recently.

But what about UI lag? Without Hardware acceleration Yosemite ran like garbage on my 08, and I can't imagine different for El Capitan. My system (MacBook4,1 (T8300, 6GB, 120GB SSD) has taken to Mavericks nicely, but it was the last OS before Yosemite where the apps and UI were completely redesigned for a K.I.S.S look (what I attribute to my machine running it so poorly)

 

[throAU]

Outside of the SIP problem I'd strongly suggest you don't run RAID0 SSDs in a 2011 MacBook Pro.

The 2011s have issues with the secondary SATA port (the one for the CDROM) that you are no doubt planning to use for the SSD. Essentially, interference with the wireless adapter (or something) causes data corruption when run at SATA3 speeds. This isn't a problem for the SATA2 optical drive in it, but it does cause problems with high speed (at the time) SSDs.

Which means it is only safe at SATA2 speed. Which is HALF of that SATA3 speed your regular drive bay will run at, and half of what any modern SSD will negotiate (dangerously) in the optical bay.

Short version is, even without the SIP problems what you are trying to do here is a very bad idea.

If you really need the "faster than SATA3" SSD speed, upgrade machine. In general use, you will not see any difference between RAID0 SATA SSDs and a single SATA SSD anyway, so you're basically causing a whole heap of complexity and potential catastrophic data corruption for little benefit.

 

[KingCornWallis]

Outside of the SIP problem I'd strongly suggest you don't run RAID0 SSDs in a 2011 MacBook Pro.

The 2011s have issues with the secondary SATA port (the one for the CDROM) that you are no doubt planning to use for the SSD. Essentially, interference with the wireless adapter (or something) causes data corruption when run at SATA3 speeds. This isn't a problem for the SATA2 optical drive in it, but it does cause problems with high speed (at the time) SSDs.

Which means it is only safe at SATA2 speed. Which is HALF of that SATA3 speed your regular drive bay will run at, and half of what any modern SSD will negotiate (dangerously) in the optical bay.

Short version is, even without the SIP problems what you are trying to do here is a very bad idea.

If you really need the "faster than SATA3" SSD speed, upgrade machine. In general use, you will not see any difference between RAID0 SATA SSDs and a single SATA SSD anyway, so you're basically causing a whole heap of complexity and potential catastrophic data corruption for little benefit.

That is...frightening, but very curious. Do you have any documentation behind this? am now quite concerned for my setup.

 

[throAU]

Some here:

Macbook Pro 2011 SSD Placement Location

I just recently upgraded my 2012 macbook pro with a 250gb SSD and have succesfully clean installed a new OS on the SSD. I was also able to change the boot setting so that the SSD would boot first a...

apple.stackexchange.com

Obviously it's almost 10 years ago now but... see the third post in that thread.

RAID0 isn't a great idea for reliability at the best of times, but in those machines... definitely I would recommend strongly against it. Its not much of a win in real world performance anyway, even a single ssd is good enough for video editing.

Some people back in the day were trying to wrap that bluetooth/wifi cable in foil, etc. to sort of RF shield it, but that's janky AF and I just would not recommend it at all. Especially given the minimal benefits you'll get from RAID0 performance in the real world.

also see here:

Macbook Pro 2011 17" SATA3 in optical bay DIY fix.

After my 2009 mac mini died on me- I had a spare slimline SATA adapted cable from the earliest dual SATA2 hard drive mod (the procedure is available at ifixit.com - http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing+Mac+mini+Model+A1283+Terabyte+Drive/660/3] and upon looking at the results from...

forums.macrumors.com

the 2011 15" and 17" machines had the same issue.