M.2/NGFF/mSATA as OSX boot drive?

Has anyone successfully setup their Hackintosh using the M.2 or mSata slots on the newer Z97 motherboards?

I've only setup machines using SSDs so far and for my next build I'd like to use an M.2 or mSATA drive as my boot disk.

I bought a Crucial M.2 drive
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ITFZV0C/
as the Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H support page said it was approved. I had successfully put 10.9.4 on a Samsung SSD and went to repeat the installation on the Crucial M.2. The Samsung did fine, but the Crucial M.2 was a no-go after Multibeast did its thing and I tried to reboot directly into the M2. The screen said:

boot0: GPT
boot0: test
boot0: test
boot0: GPT
boot0: test
boot0: test
boot0: error

and it stopped there. I Fixed that with Solution 1 of http://www.tonymacx86.com/general-help/65706-boot0-error-official-guide.html and it now works.

gerrygraff said:

I bought a Crucial M.2 drive
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ITFZV0C/ref=pe_385040_121528360_TE_dp_1
as the Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H support page said it was approved. I had successfully put 10.9.4 on a Samsung SSD and went to repeat the installation on the Crucial M.2. The Samsung did fine, but the Crucial M.2 was a no-go after Multibeast did its thing and I tried to reboot directly into the M2. The screen said:

boot0: GPT
boot0: test
boot0: test
boot0: GPT
boot0: test
boot0: test
boot0: error

and it stopped there. i Fixed that with Solution 1 of http://www.tonymacx86.com/general-help/65706-boot0-error-official-guide.html and it now works.

Click to expand...

Sweet, thanks for the update!

Great guys! Care to post some benchmark scores for your drives?

Thanks!

Update 7/31/14

No empirical data, but boot times are just about the same for the M.2 as the Samsung SSD.

The M.2 does not like deep sleep. It will not respond when waking the system. For it to work - have to hard shut-down the system - unplug the cord - hold the power button in until it forgets it does not like the M.2 - then boot up. I do not know if it is the Crucial drive - may buy one of the mySSD M.2 Super Boot Drives and see if that works better.

I am trying to boot with the Samsung XP941 on a Gigabyte Z97X-UD5H, It will only be recognize as boot drive if I enable RAID instead of AHCI, then Mac OS does not work with RAID. Any ideas?

juliantoledo, you might want to take a look at this post. http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/284656-clover-general-discussion/?p=2060780 It's pretty advanced, but it worked for this guy.

He's using Clover with UEFI though, so you might have a different problem...

Thanks! wow, he is really modifying the BIOS!

Maybe I should get a Lycom DT-120 to try if that would boot.

Update:
I have ordered a DeLOCK 89370 PCI Express x4, V3.0 M.2 adapter:
http://www.delock.de/produkt/89370/pdf.html?sprache=en

I will update again once I test it, I hope it boots on the Hackintosh as AHCI. The x4 is promising, I am getting 700MB/s using the MB's M.2 as secondary drive.

Update2:
The DeLOCK 89370 does not boot either however I am getting 1000MB/s because of the 4X improvement.

Update3: FIXED!
I braved up and modded my Bios, I added the Samsung DXE as Manic Harmon1c pointed out and now I can boot properly in MacOSX as AHCI:
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/284656-clover-general-discussion/page-285#entry2060780

Benchmarks:
M.2 PCIe 2X
Results 1100.19
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.10 (14A361p)
Physical RAM 32768 MB
Model Macmini6,2
Drive Type SAMSUNG MZHPU256HCGL-00004
Disk Test 1100.19
Sequential 728.63
Uncached Write 1243.30 763.37 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 908.54 514.05 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 382.04 111.81 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 1033.80 519.58 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 2245.07
Uncached Write 2619.04 277.26 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 1664.34 532.82 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 4527.47 32.08 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 1729.66 320.95 MB/sec [256K blocks]

PCIe 4X DeLOCK 8937
Results 1405.23
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.10 (14A361p)
Physical RAM 32768 MB
Model Macmini6,2
Drive Type SAMSUNG MZHPU256HCGL-00004
Disk Test 1405.23
Sequential 968.53
Uncached Write 1641.73 1008.00 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 1178.06 666.55 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 468.74 137.18 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 1856.46 933.04 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 2559.15
Uncached Write 3259.08 345.01 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 1909.34 611.25 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 4697.31 33.29 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 1924.72 357.15 MB/sec [256K blocks]

juliantoledo said:

Thanks! wow, he is really modifying the BIOS!

Maybe I should get a Lycom DT-120 to try if that would boot.

Update:
I have ordered a DeLOCK 89370 PCI Express x4, V3.0 M.2 adapter:
http://www.delock.de/produkt/89370/pdf.html?sprache=en

I will update again once I test it, I hope it boots on the Hackintosh as AHCI. The x4 is promising, I am getting 700MB/s using the MB's M.2 as secondary drive.

Click to expand...

Its seems that windows users have been having the same problems with the Samsung using a Gigabyte board unless settings were set to raid. These settings came from a response to what should be used to get the Samsung to work from Gigabyte Support:

Update: Gigabyte finally gave me these settings to try and they worked with Windows 8.1. Apparently installing from an optical drive is a very important part of getting this combo to work. Still pressing for a Windows 7 solution.


From Gigabyte Support:
Peripherals:
SATA Mode – Raid
Bios Features :
CSM - Never
make sure to choose UEFI as the boot type for your optical drive and make sure to supply the raid driver for the board during OS Installation.
This is a link to the thread on this subject.
http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/58160-ga-z97-d3h-bios-cant-see-samsung-xp941-m-2-socket-2.html
You might also want to look this site over:
https://www.ramcity.com.au/blog/m.2-ngff-ssd-compatibility-list/189
hope this helps more that it hurts...
Ramcity is the only place you can get the Samsung in 256 at this time. The sell on Ebay as well.

Manic Harmon1c said:

juliantoledo, you might want to take a look at this post. http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/284656-clover-general-discussion/?p=2060780 It's pretty advanced, but it worked for this guy.

He's using Clover with UEFI though, so you might have a different problem...

Click to expand...

THANKS!!!!!! I just did this with my GA-Z97X-UD5H and now the XP-941 is bootable as AHCI