Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Will there be NVME booting EFI for 2010+ Mac Pro on High Sierra?

h9826790 said:
Wanna try Clover? One of the theory is a cMP can boot from NVMe or USB 3.0 by using Clover. The required driver should be there.
View attachment 739626
Click to expand...

Unfortunately it will have to wait a month or more because my only NVMe is currently in a Fusion Drive on my production cMP, and I can't afford to buy another one just yet because the kids have expensive Xmas wishes! Let's hope they're naughty and don't get anything for Xmas!! I'll probably get a Samsung 960 EVO 256GB.
 
h9826790 said:
Wanna try Clover? One of the theory is a cMP can boot from NVMe or USB 3.0 by using Clover. The required driver should be there.
Click to expand...

Clover just uses NvmExpressDxe from EDK2, so you can just use that (load from EFI shell, you may need to use EdkShell(Bin)Pkg instead of Shell(Bin)Pkg on Mac Pro's EFI 1.10 firmware).
 
Last edited:
Am I missing something here? To run Clover you can't run it from an NVME SSD so must be on something else?
 
Correct, you would have to load Clover/an EFI shell from a USB/SATA drive before loading NvmExpressDxe.
 
Yes, I should be more specific that the theory said Clover may able to boot an OS from a NVMe drive. Not booting Clover itself from NVMe. But if it work, then it may be the easiest way to boot from NVMe / USB 3.0 etc.
 
theitsage said:
NVMe is bootable in 10.13. I've tried it through a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure on 2017 iMac, 2016 MacBook Pro, and 2013 Mac Pro. No go in the Mac Pro tower due to the Boot ROM.

The low Write speed is due to eGPU firmware in the AKiTiO Node I was using for this test. I've heard the PCIe firmware in Thunderbolt 3 storage enclosure is baked differently.

19388509_10158760051625304_2004903804169188333_o-jpg.705212

19243306_10158760051650304_6009503093444890054_o-jpg.705213
Click to expand...

Can you please explain how you install the nvme samsung? Its on the external gpu you mean? Is it possible to put inside the mac?
 
If you didn’t want something as heavy as Clover, couldn’t you set up rEFInd to launch the NVME drivers?
 
armdn said:
Im already done this. Intel 750 NVMe is bootable in Mac Pro 3,1 using rEFInd and NVMExpressDxe-64.efi driver in it.
Click to expand...

Do you mind to share the detailed procedure on how to do it? This may allow the cMP boot from USB 3.0 or even have UEFI boot screen.
 
Well, it is simple. Almost. You need to use rEFInd on separate drive or partition of AHCI drive as a primary boot drive. In "drivers" folder place NVMExpressDxe-64.efi driver and APFS.efi (optional). By default rEFInd will load thoose drivers automatically. But, you also need to write in rEFInd's config a delay for searching devices, 5 seconds enough.
Installation of OS is more complicated. Default installer will no go, restoring using Disk Utility useless too. You need to install OS, using restoration process by Time Machine. TM will create Apple_Boot partition on NVMe drive, and place OS as well. On next reboot, rEFInd will show NVMe as bootable, and it will start.
[doublepost=1520149323][/doublepost]
h9826790 said:
Do you mind to share the detailed procedure on how to do it? This may allow the cMP boot from USB 3.0 or even have UEFI boot screen.
Click to expand...
USB 3.0 booting is may allow, but not UEFI boot screen, no.

P.S.: here is more info (link) about nvme booting, but be carefull, it is on Russian. As i'm a "russian hacker", lol.

P.S.S.: Ah! Forgot to say, before everything, you need to make a low-level format of nvme drive to 4k sector in windows, using intel dc tool. This is needed for Intel 750, dunno about others...
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: crjackson2134, idealtracks, ActionableMango and 3 others
armdn said:
Well, it is simple. Almost. You need to use rEFInd on separate drive or partition of AHCI drive as a primary boot drive. In "drivers" folder place NVMExpressDxe-64.efi driver and APFS.efi (optional). By default rEFInd will load thoose drivers automatically. But, you also need to write in rEFInd's config a delay for searching devices, 5 seconds enough.
Installation of OS is more complicated. Default installer will no go, restoring using Disk Utility useless too. You need to install OS, using restoration process by Time Machine. TM will create Apple_Boot partition on NVMe drive, and place OS as well. On next reboot, rEFInd will show NVMe as bootable, and it will start.
[doublepost=1520149323][/doublepost]
USB 3.0 booting is may allow, but not UEFI boot screen, no.

P.S.: here is more info (link) about nvme booting, but be carefull, it is on Russian. As i'm a "russian hacker", lol.

P.S.S.: Ah! Forgot to say, before everything, you need to make a low-level format of nvme drive to 4k sector in windows, using intel dc tool. This is needed for Intel 750, dunno about others...
Click to expand...

Thanks for the sharing, really appreciated.
 
armdn said:
Well, it is simple. Almost. You need to use rEFInd on separate drive or partition of AHCI drive as a primary boot drive. In "drivers" folder place NVMExpressDxe-64.efi driver and APFS.efi (optional). By default rEFInd will load thoose drivers automatically. But, you also need to write in rEFInd's config a delay for searching devices, 5 seconds enough.
Installation of OS is more complicated. Default installer will no go, restoring using Disk Utility useless too. You need to install OS, using restoration process by Time Machine. TM will create Apple_Boot partition on NVMe drive, and place OS as well. On next reboot, rEFInd will show NVMe as bootable, and it will start.
[doublepost=1520149323][/doublepost]
USB 3.0 booting is may allow, but not UEFI boot screen, no.

P.S.: here is more info (link) about nvme booting, but be carefull, it is on Russian. As i'm a "russian hacker", lol.

P.S.S.: Ah! Forgot to say, before everything, you need to make a low-level format of nvme drive to 4k sector in windows, using intel dc tool. This is needed for Intel 750, dunno about others...
Click to expand...
Thanks, I will try if works in my Mac Pro.
 
Today i tested this in Mac Pro 5,1. Everything works so far. But found a problem. With unflashed (usual PC card) graphic card, rEFInd goes to hang. So no go for my gtx titan. Damn!
 
Back when I had a Mac Pro, rEFInd's ability to load .efi drivers for the preboot environment was tantalizing. I tried to find USB3.0 .efi driver for USB 3.0 booting, but I struck out. I'm happy to see there is an NVME .efi driver to make that bootable.

The other thing I looked for was some sort of GPU .EFI driver that could init GPUs for boot screens on unflashed cards. That would benefit an ENORMOUS number of people. I know some have tried this with Clover and rEFInd (a rEFInd fork with GOP GPU init support) and there was at least one success, but unfortunately it seems to be elusive for everyone else.
 
In Mac Pro's EFI has no GOP Driver. I've read, that, GOP Driver is a separate .efi driver, but where is to find, is a big question.

Also, i was in experiments with native Apple's NVMe efi driver now. Toked out from MacBook Pro (Late 2011) EFI image. Apple updates several EFI ROMs with APFS and NVMe drivers. Even for old MacBooks.
 
  • Like
Reactions: idealtracks
armdn said:
In Mac Pro's EFI has no GOP Driver. I've read, that, GOP Driver is a separate .efi driver, but where is to find, is a big question.

Also, i was in experiments with native Apple's NVMe efi driver now. Toked out from MacBook Pro (Late 2011) EFI image. Apple updates several EFI ROMs with APFS and NVMe drivers. Even for old MacBooks.
Click to expand...


that's really a sad news...apple seems abandon us
 
theslboat said:
that's really a sad news...apple seems abandon us
Click to expand...
Apple abandoned EFI, actually. The current standard is UEFI 2.7(A). Apple is using a fork of the old EFI spec, which was deprecated at V1.10 in 2005.

Hope that Apple adopts UEFI for the MP7,1 (if it ever ships).
 
Is it possible for someone with the skills to incorporate the NVMe efi driver into dosdude1's patch for APFS and HS on MP3,1 so we can boot using M.2 NVMe in a PCIe adapter?
 
nekton1 said:
Is it possible for someone with the skills to incorporate the NVMe efi driver into dosdude1's patch for APFS and HS on MP3,1 so we can boot using M.2 NVMe in a PCIe adapter?
Click to expand...
But why?

The main advantage to NVMe is better performance with massively parallel IO loads. (And this means hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands of concurrent IOs.)

On more typical loads the advantage isn't there.

Note that Bare Feats measured NVMe vs AHCI in an MP6,1. http://barefeats.com/hard230.html

angelshark_sr[1].png

angelshark_sw[1].png

The AHCI drives were faster than the NVMe drives.

If you have apps that do massively parallel data transfers of huge files - then NVMe data drives could be useful. As a boot drive, jumping through hoops to use NVMe is most likely a waste of time.

(in a year or three, when AHCI drives more or less disappear from the market - then NVMe boot drives might be more interesting)
 
Last edited:
Despite whether AHCI is better, faster or cheaper, some of us want to be able to boot from an NVMe blade simply because we have an NVMe blade. If someone does have the skill, time, perseverance and motivation to somehow modify the efi driver/firmware to enable booting from NVMe then there would be some people (maybe thousands) of cMP owners who might quite like to extend their machines a little bit further, just like cMP 1,1 benefited from piker’s (credit to whoever worked on this) modded boot.efi hack, which has arguably been the most significant mod for extending the usability of any Apple hardware in history, IMHO. I may well be living a pipe dream but I live in hope.
 
  • Like
Reactions: splifingate
Thanks for the headsup armdn but the dosdude1 patch is not rEFind as far as I know (see dosdude's post 6502a in the Unsupported Macs thread) so where might that driver be placed in the EFI method we're using?
 
Last edited:
Also where does one acquire the PCINVMedrv.efi driver. I've looked in the EFI partition on a late 2013 Macbook Pro running 10.13.3 but nothing there.
I don't see it in /usr/standalone/i386 either.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back