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SATA Express meets the '09 Mac Pro - Bootable NGFF PCIE SSD

SoyCapitanSoyCapitan said:
No. My triple SM951 RAID was visible in Bootcamp and I was able to choose it in Start Up disk in Windows. I had no BSODs from it. There was one main issue with it, sometimes the computer would hang when I wanted to shut down or restart. This occurred in OSX and Windows.

Thanks for your opinion though.
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How was this RAID of 3 SM951's created then if I may ask? That is of interest to me for my own case. I would like to be able to use my RAID10 4 x 3TB when in Windows (from SSD). When loading the standard BootCamp drivers the system has a BSOD. Removing AppleHFS.sys and AppleMNT.sys was the only option but obviously did not let me keep the software RAID10.
 
bokkow said:
How was this RAID of 3 SM951's created then if I may ask? That is of interest to me for my own case. I would like to be able to use my RAID10 4 x 3TB when in Windows (from SSD). When loading the standard BootCamp drivers the system has a BSOD. Removing AppleHFS.sys and AppleMNT.sys was the only option but obviously did not let me keep the software RAID10.
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I heard that Bootcamp didn't support RAID, certainly it doesn't support booting Windows RAIDs. Maybe that's what Apple means? But I was able to see both my Mac software RAIDs with the Boot Camp drivers installed.
 
SoyCapitanSoyCapitan said:
I've see mixed answers and theories but nobody has shown 8.1 running on a blade in cMP.
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I feel like Mikeboss confirmed that in post #135. Perhaps I have misunderstood?

Paging Mikeboss... did your Windows 8.1 install onto one of these blades work out to be bootable on a cMP and is it working okay?

mikeboss said:
I just did the install of Windows 8.1 again. this time, I didn't even follow this guide from the internet. just booted the installer DVD (EFI) and then installed like I would on a normal PC.
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I can't find any confirmation of W10 working one one of these sticks, but if W8.1 is confirmed as working, I'm willing to give 10 a try.
 
I don't get it, you had 3 SM951s each on a seperate PCI-e card in RAID0 by using Disk Utility. You then used BootCamp Assistent to create a BootCamp partition on this RAID0 set and it worked?

I'm genuinly puzzled, in no way I got Windows to recognize a Apple software RAID set :/
 
bokkow said:
I don't get it, you had 3 SM951s each on a seperate PCI-e card in RAID0 by using Disk Utility. You then used BootCamp Assistent to create a BootCamp partition on this RAID0 set and it worked?

I'm genuinly puzzled, in no way I got Windows to recognize a Apple software RAID set :/
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No you misunderstood. The RAID had Yosemite. Windows was installed on a single HDD. But yes, Windows could mount the RAIDs in File Explorer.

But I'm not recommending that set up. When the computer hangs during shut down you have to force the computer to turn off by holding down the power button. That can very easily damage the RAID and lead to data loss.
 
Misunderstood is a bit harsh, you were not complete in your information..

But howwwww? What kind of RAID setup was supported in both Windows and OSX? I have a SSD dedicated to BootCamp, a SSD dedicated to Yosemite and 4 x 3TB setup as RAID10 in Disk Utility. The RAID array is visible and usuable in OSX (obviously) but not in Windows. Even worse; the BootCamp drivers for NFS make Windows crash when trying to mount the RAID array. How did you manage to have a software RAID volume mount in Windows?
 
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bokkow said:
Misunderstood is a bit harsh, you were not complete in your information..

But howwwww? What kind of RAID setup was supported in both Windows and OSX? I have a SSD dedicated to BootCamp, a SSD dedicated to Yosemite and 4 x 3TB setup as RAID10 in Disk Utility. The RAID array is visible and usuable in OSX (obviously) but not in Windows. Even worse; the BootCamp drivers for NFS make Windows crash when trying to mount the RAID array. How did you manage to have a software RAID volume mount in Windows?
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It could be because you use RAID 10. I used 0 and 5. Also, encrypted volumes won't show on Windows.

Macdrive claims they can read/write HFS RAID in Windows. I did try it. It it was a bit slow and I didn't like their software anyway.
 
I'm sorry but there is just no way that an Apple software RAID array (0, 1, 5 or 10, encrypted or unencrypted) can be used in Windows through BootCamp.

Indeed Macdrive offers the ability to mount but more for backup purposes rather than actual use.

The only way to have a RAID setup supported by both OSX and Windows is a hardware RAID card that works cross-platform. Therefore it remains a mistery to me how you made it work under Windows :/
 
bokkow said:
I'm sorry but there is just no way that an Apple software RAID array (0, 1, 5 or 10, encrypted or unencrypted) can be used in Windows through BootCamp.



The only way to have a RAID setup supported by both OSX and Windows is a hardware RAID card that works cross-platform. Therefore it remains a mistery to me how you made it work under Windows :/
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I could build a RAID tonight from 2x2TB HDDs to see if it still works. But consider this...on my little YouTube channel 'Fastest Macs' I have a demo of my triple RAID SM951 set up and I have a video of GTA V running on Bootcamp. I made these videos at around the same time. I didn't have Bootchamp installed and if my RAIDs were not showing in Windows I would not have been able to boot back into OSX from Start Up disk.
 
SoyCapitanSoyCapitan said:
I could build a RAID tonight from 2x2TB HDDs to see if it still works. But consider this...on my little YouTube channel 'Fastest Macs' I have a demo of my triple RAID SM951 set up and I have a video of GTA V running on Bootcamp. I made these videos at around the same time. I didn't have Bootchamp installed and if my RAIDs were not showing in Windows I would not have been able to boot back into OSX from Start Up disk.
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Hmmm yeah ok, well, it is still interesting to see what drivers/software you're using (original Apple or not) that makes this setup work! That would be very nice indeed, although I cannot find any other source that has a working config like yours :/

filmak said:
I can certainly access and work with files on an apple software raid via macdrive in bootcamp.
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Ok, also interesting, no performance hit? I am not sure how Macdrive works but I guess it replaces the Apple HFS driver?
 
bokkow said:
Hmmm yeah ok, well, it is still interesting to see what drivers/software you're using (original Apple or not) that makes this setup work! That would be very nice indeed, although I cannot find any other source that has a working config like yours :/



Ok, also interesting, no performance hit? I am not sure how Macdrive works but I guess it replaces the Apple HFS driver?
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I only had the Boot Camp driver. What I do know is that Apple's only official position is that you can't install Windows on a soft RAID, not that you can't access a soft RAID through File Explorer. But then they also think systems before 2012 can't run Windows 10.

I did install the demo version of Mac Drive to test write speeds and it was slower than native writes.

Before writing people off, consider this people's experiences with configuring their cMP systems.

- some can install Windows in EFI mode without hassle, some can't.
- some can install a SM951 in slot 2 and it runs at half speed. Macvidcards was saddened to find his working at quarter speed.
- I installed a USB 3.1 card and it negotiated the correct x2 lane link. 666sheep has the same card in the same slot and it can only negotiate a X1 link.
- I could access software RAID 0 and 5 from Windows. You couldn't access a RAID 10.
- some guys can run a Radeon 7970 using a 6pin and mini 6 pin to 8 pin adapter right off the motherboard. Some can't use a high power card, their systems are forced to shut down.

There are many such examples of random behaviour in cMP, almost all related to either Windows or the use of PC hardware.
 
I 'll try to find some time to do a test, probably tomorrow, and I 'll let you know about the difference.
Opening files etc - under normal use - I haven't noticed anything weird.
A test will show more details...
 
Unless the RAID partition was changed from HFS+ to FAT, there isn't any way for a Windows OS to work with a HFS-formatted drive without some sort of HFS driver for Windows (which would need to be loaded in, as Windows has no native support for HFS file systems). I use Paragon's HFS+ and I suppose Macdrive is something similar.

I looked on Paragon's website and it doesn't say whether it works for Apple software RAID drives or not.
 
dmylrea said:
there isn't any way for a Windows OS to work with a HFS-formatted drive without some sort of HFS driver for Windows (which would need to be loaded in, as Windows has no native support for HFS file systems).
Click to expand...

Well that's technically true, but the Boot Camp driver package includes HFS drivers. So everyone should have HFS read-only support on their Mac anyway, unless they are avoiding Boot Camp drivers for some reason.
 
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ActionableMango said:
Well that's technically true, but the Boot Camp driver package includes HFS drivers. So everyone should have HFS read-only support on their Mac anyway, unless they are avoiding Boot Camp drivers for some reason.
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I suppose that the Apple RAID driver could be included in the BootCamp HFS driver package that gets installed. As far as being able to boot back to RAID OS X, I had noticed that my RAID 0 drives always appeared individually in the "OptionKey Boot" list, and I suspected that each drive had a boot loader on it to get it up and running, at which time the full RAID driver would take over to access the array.
 
Well, so far I haven't seen anyone with any Apple software RAID without non-Apple tools successfully using it in Windows regardless of the type of RAID, 0/1/5/10/etc.

Summary:

-Windows does not support HFS without third-party drivers (Apple/Macdrive/Paragon/...)
-HFS RAID is even less supported in Windows with only Macdrive officially supporting.
-RAID10 is a combination of RAID0 & RAID1, more complex? :/ I think RAID5 is more complex (and not recommended anymore btw!)
-My own experience: with AppleHFS.sys and AppleMNT.sys trying to mount the array = BSOD, with AppleHFS.sys and AppleMNT.sys but disks deactivated in Windows Disk Management = no BSOD, removing AppleHFS.sys and AppleMNT.sys and still disks active (to no avail) = no BSOD.

I am interested in what Macdrive does in terms of reliability, does it make the array less reliable in any way?
 
bokkow said:
-RAID10 is a combination of RAID0 & RAID1, more complex? :/ I think RAID5 is more complex (and not recommended anymore btw!)
Click to expand...

Sorry I made a slip. I had a RAID0 (3xSM951) and a RAID1 (not 5 - it was two mirrored HDDs)

I could mirror those same HDDs as a RAID1 again to show you. The problem is they have a large amount of archive data (including four Winclone images I made in the last week) on them that I have nowhere to move to.
 
There you are. Fresh results.
test machine: Mac Pro 3,1 - raid0 - sata 2 connections - two drives - macdrive latest version.

mac 10.10.5.pngpc.png


Surprising is the win7 result, a little better than OS X 10.10.5
 
Thanks for everyone's contributions

My .02 FWIW...
Variances between sata II & 3 SSD's was one if the first topics explored at the start of tbis thread. While there are more than 6 ways to skin a cat, the same applies to data storage configurations and perceived performance.

Today, the cMP s X58 SATA II controller shows its age and there is a lack of high performance SATA III controllers beyond the meh solutions from Marvell. OWC has and continues to deliver products i would never consider that come in at less than Meh.

jumping to a PCIe SSD was by far the biggest performance jump in my cMP... ever. As a developer, i compile code countless times an hour. Every day. Without hiccup. loading xcode has never been faster. downloading apps to the simulator fly. All on a mac from 2009 thats probably my favorite desktop to date and has had the longest leg of any PC/Mac that Ive ever had.

YMMV.
 
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handheldgames said:
Thanks for everyone's contributions



jumping to a PCIe SSD was by far the biggest performance jump in my cMP... ever. As a developer, i compile code countless times an hour. Every day. Without hiccup. loading xcode has never been faster. downloading apps to the simulator fly.
YMMV.
Click to expand...

If a file you are working on could actually consume more than 500MB/s of bandwidth then you will notice improved loading times over SATA3. I would find it incredible that an Xcode project could use that much bandwidth, especially considering mobile devices load apps very quickly at around 50-60MB/s (the typical speed of memory in an iPhone or iPad). You would have to be building a project with very big asset files to measurably and objectively notice a difference over SATA2/3.

For measure, look at how much memory an operating system is consuming on a fresh boot. Divide that by how long it took the system to boot. The result is the effective loading speed in MB/s. It is typically around 160-170MB/s regardless of whether you use SATA2, 3 or PCIE.

The only apps that can consume more bandwidth than an OS loading are the ones loading a very large asset file into memory, such as a video or or a large zip/packed file (games sometimes use these and uncompress the assets in memory).

Let's not praise PCIE like some faith based cult and give it incredible powers that it isn't capable of. I was almost guilty of that some months ago because the placebo effect is very real. Make benchmarks, publish evidence, share objective measurements, inform wisely, save money.
 
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All I do during GPU work hours is test GPUs. Means boot after boot after boot.

PCIE SSDs have greatly increased my productivity since boot time is a huge part of that process.

I can put a faster boot drive in cMP then shipped in my nMP by around 50% faster. Nothing to sneeze at.
 
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