Sonnet tempo pro two drives two os?

[mazuma]

I've been reading on any post I can find regarding adding a SSD PCIe card to my Mac Pro. I have a 2012 6 core 3.33. Is it possible to add a Sonnet Tempest Pro with one SSD that has OS X and the other Win 7?

From what I've been reading the Apricorn brand has some issues with bootcamp when using separate drives for each OS? I'm not finding anything on whether what I'm attempting is possible with the Sonnet. It also seems the OWC brand has fallen out of favor for now with their product.

Ultimately, I thought it would be nice to have both OS's running at peak speeds while still leaving the four upper bays open.

Any thoughts or pointing me in a direction on this would be appreciated.

 

[mazuma]

So, after further reading, this doesn't seem like a worth while endeavor. There are a few threads that go into greater detail. But, if I only plan on using these as system disks then the SATA 3 won't be worthe the effort. For the SATA 3 to really shine one would need to have sustained writes, i.e. large files. Which makes sense. Setting this up in a Raid 0 scenario, large files would have an amazing response.

So, I will just stick to using the upper bays for the system ssds.

 

[hfg]

You may have come across threads (including mine) attempting to host both OS X and Windows on the Tempo Pro .... without success.

I tried everything I could think of to get Windows booting from this card ... I keep hoping someone will discover the secret and make it possible for all of us.

However, I do run the Tempo Pro with a pair of 500GB SSDs in RAID-0 to host my photo library and it is working great for that (very large files).

After trying many, many combinations of cards, I settled for the fastest and most stable in real-world tasks (not simply benchmarks) for my system and workflow. I currently run OS X boot and Windows boot on separate 840 Pro SSDs located on a standard drive sled and in the optical bay. My photo library, as mentioned, is on the Tempo Pro PCIe as a 1TB RAID-0. It all is working great!

Hope that helps...

Please post your success with your system configuration for the rest of us...


-howard

 

[jenzjen]

I wanted to be able to keep both OS on same SSD that lived on this card, but as others mentioned, boot camp would not load on the sonnet. I now use a solo x2 since it does boot boot camp.

 

[mcnallym]

I've been reading on any post I can find regarding adding a SSD PCIe card to my Mac Pro. I have a 2012 6 core 3.33. Is it possible to add a Sonnet Tempest Pro with one SSD that has OS X and the other Win 7?

From what I've been reading the Apricorn brand has some issues with bootcamp when using separate drives for each OS? I'm not finding anything on whether what I'm attempting is possible with the Sonnet. It also seems the OWC brand has fallen out of favor for now with their product.

Ultimately, I thought it would be nice to have both OS's running at peak speeds while still leaving the four upper bays open.

Any thoughts or pointing me in a direction on this would be appreciated.

I do this. I have a total of 2 SSD Tempo Pro cards in the Mac Pro with 4 SSD's

A Toshiba 256Gb that boots OSX and a 512Gb OCZ that is partitioned in half with Bootcamp, and I use the other half for Lightroom.

The trick is to install OSX on the 1st SSD with the SSD installed in the Lower Optical Bay.

Transfer the SSD to the SSD Tempo Pro.

Then install 2nd SSD into the Lower Optical Bay.

Install using Bootcamp Utility onto the 2nd SSD

Transfer 2nd SSD to the SSD Tempo Pro.

You can't select at Boot Time, it will always boot into the last OS that shutdown from. Instead you have to use the Startup Disk Selection in OSX and the Restart in OSX from the Bootcamp Utility in Windows to change OS.

The only trick is in using your Lower Optical Bay for the SSD when installing the OS, and then transfer to the SSD Tempo Pro afterwards.

 

[hfg]

I do this. I have a total of 2 SSD Tempo Pro cards in the Mac Pro with 4 SSD's

A Toshiba 256Gb that boots OSX and a 512Gb OCZ that is partitioned in half with Bootcamp, and I use the other half for Lightroom.

The trick is to install OSX on the 1st SSD with the SSD installed in the Lower Optical Bay.

Transfer the SSD to the SSD Tempo Pro.

Then install 2nd SSD into the Lower Optical Bay.

Install using Bootcamp Utility onto the 2nd SSD

Transfer 2nd SSD to the SSD Tempo Pro.

You can't select at Boot Time, it will always boot into the last OS that shutdown from. Instead you have to use the Startup Disk Selection in OSX and the Restart in OSX from the Bootcamp Utility in Windows to change OS.

The only trick is in using your Lower Optical Bay for the SSD when installing the OS, and then transfer to the SSD Tempo Pro afterwards.

That is very interesting ... what is unique about the lower optical bay rather than one of the standard drive sleds when installing the OS images?

I have a 256GB SSD with Windows-8 in the lower optical bay, and a 512GB SSD with OS X in drive bay #1. I think at one time or another I simply mounted them on the Tempo Pro board and Windows would not boot. I do not recall how I created this particular bootable Windows ... either a WinClone copy, or a straight Windows install from the DVD (no BootCamp Assistant other than driver download). It may have been initially installed in a drive bay, then moved to the optical bay. Perhaps that is my problem?



Thanks,
-howard

 

[mcnallym]

Just simply that fits easier on the Optical Bay Cable, and isn't left hanging at right angle on the motherboard connector ( I didn't have any 2.5" to 3.5" adaptor available ) and I already have the Samsung F3 drives in the regular HDD Bays.

 

[jenzjen]

I was not able to get a bootable Windows volume either on my Tempo. IIRC, I moved my SSD (that had both OSs) from the lower optical bay to the Tempo and still no luck. Do you have a newer Tempo card? Maybe they made a subtle update that allows for Windows to boot?

 

[mcnallym]

I have an A and a B model.

I did install my Windows via Bootcamp and it has all the Bootcamp Drivers Control Centre etc installed in it.

Originally was on the A card but worked on B card as well.

I simply installed the fresh SSD into my Lower Optical Bay area.
Initialised and formatted with Disk Utility.

Used Bootcamp 5 to install Windows 7 Home Professional onto a Partition on the SSD, I took a 256Gb Partition.

Installed OK, rebooted etc.

Shutdown Mac Pro, moved SSD to Port 2 on the SSD Tempo Pro card.

Mac Pro fired up in Windows

Used the Bootcamp Control Panel to say to restart in OSX and rebooted into OSX.

As the SSD's were dropping off the B model with Sleep then reinstalled OSX onto the Toshiba and installed that onto the B model. I have found that the non-booting SSD's don't drop off when on the A.

Attached the SSD with Win7 Bootcamp on it to the second port on the B model card and it worked OK, didn't have to re-install at all.

I know that there are some differences to how the cards work in 3,1 4,1 and 5,1 machines. Mine is a 5,1 but a 2010 model, so possibly may be something more different under the hood between the 2010 and 2012 models.

 

[Draeconis]

Apologies for the thread necromancy here, but I'm trying exactly this and it isn't working.

I have a Sonnet Tempo SSD running the latest firmware, an Intel 330 SSD for OS X and an Intel 335 SSD for Windows 8.1 64bit.

Windows and OS X were both installed while connected to SATA-II connectors in the ODD bay, and both work normally when run from there.

The 330 is now installed in the first slot in the Tempo SSD, and the 335 is installed in the expansion.

When turning my Mac Pro on, it boots into OS X fine, sees the Windows partition, and I can select it with either 'Startup Disk' or BootChamp, but once the machine reboots, it fails to see Windows, suggesting the media is blank.

I remember reading that Mac Pros don't like booting Windows from anywhere other than 'Upper', 'Lower' and 'Bay 1', and since the Windows isn't there any more, EFI can't see it. What did you do differently?