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Software Fusion and RAID alternative

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Hi folks,

I have something of importance I want discuss with you all, and it is that I've been told by someone that the version or build of Mountain Lion - the ones we buy from the App Store are DIFFERENT to the versions received by those who ordered their Fusion. In addition, the Fusion drive version of ML DOES NOT allow the user to install ML onto a separate drive!

Here is the message. When discussing the performance of a Hackintosh vs Mac FD drive, someone with a real Fusion Drive system recently wrote: 'You need to be aware of the build number of 10.8.2 Some of the new Mac Minis and MBP's that are Fusion capable have a different build (12C2034) vs the version 12C60 that is in most other models and at the App Store. The Fusion version (12C2034) would not allow my mini to have seperated drives, it appeared to work normally but it didn't allow projects from iMovie to save (I didn't test it futher than that) and Recovery Disk Utility saw the drives as having an error although Applications > Utility > Disk Utility saw no errors.'

Now I have been comparing speeds from my Hackintosh Fusion Drive and against a real Mac Fusion Drive, and I would say the performance seems to be 'half' what I would have expected from a system of this spec. I'm getting around 180-200Mb/s on reads and writes with my system, while on a real Mac Fusion most are getting 300Mb/s on reads and 400-450Mb/s on writes. Is it possible the Fusion Drive performance of a Hackintosh is throttled due to the build version? I really don't know...but it's worth investigating.

Aside from this, I have two other issues that need addressing. First is that, I've discovered, while my Areca 1882X card works in the Z77X-UP5-TH, my Areca RAID tower (from an old Mac Pro setup) does not respond to it. And the same goes when I try to connect a test Areca Thunderbolt to my Gigabyte system's TB ports - it doesn't work either. I've tried swapping out cables to see if it was that, and it didn't work. I can connect other TB drive like my TB SSD to it, but it doesn't see the Areca TB drive. So I am stumped at the moment at what to do…
 
Okay folks, gotta share some REALLY GOOD NEWS FOR YOU ALL....and it is.....ARECA RAID WORKS ON THIS BOARD (GA-Z77X-UP5-TH)!! :D
I was trying out getting my ARC-1882X working, when I read that it's not supported yet by Mountain Lion 10.8.2, so I tried an older card ARC-1222 which I had been using with an old Mac Pro. I plugged it in...and at boot it paused saying it was waiting for the firmware to be updated. So I waited...and lo and behold a minute later, our old system drive (12TB) came up on the desktop in addition to our Drobo unit via 1Gb/E ! I was so ecstatic as I thought the RAID was never going to work!!! As the system build has taken a long while (about 2 weeks) for me to fix to debug..

In addition, the card was recognised in the System Profiler as proper SAS!!!! I attach a photo of it below.
And this is the performance results I got from Blackmagic... :D

The only thing now I need to test is the Areca Thunderbolt unit which is currently being tested on another system. There is apparently Areca Thunderbolt drivers for 10.7 & 10.8, which I have yet to download and test. But it all looks like the biz right now!!! Bluetooth works (via Cliptec BT key), Airport works (with TP Link WDN4800), onboard sound works, LAN works (two ports, builtin+one on external Intel1000E card); Fusion Drive works and Nvidia card works.

The great thing about this system, is addition to being able to run the latest stuff with Ivy Bridge and being on ML 10.8.2, I can at last backup my main drive a hell of a lot faster with Thunderbolt! At being able to transfer 1GB in one minute from the Fusion Drive onto SSD or HD via TB for example, I cannot complain.....
 

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Just to confirm, Areca ARC-1680X card is now working in Hackintosh!! :)
 

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[QUOTE ... snip..


* The Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H requires beta BIOS 15m for the card to boot in AHCI mode. Banged my head against the wall for days until I figured that out!
...
Hope this is useful![/QUOTE]

dlaporte - your good notes about the BIOS update was the thing that save my day. I was adding the Rocket 640L to my Z77X-UP5 TH in "The Black Prodigy" and the pre-boot HighPoint BIOS screen was not coming up. I was at board BIOS F11 and went to the F12e and things started to work correctly.

Again, thank you for your very detailed posting.

neil
 
Okay folks, gotta share some REALLY GOOD NEWS FOR YOU ALL....and it is.....ARECA RAID WORKS ON THIS BOARD (GA-Z77X-UP5-TH)!! :D
I was trying out getting my ARC-1882X working, when I read that it's not supported yet by Mountain Lion 10.8.2, so I tried an older card ARC-1222 which I had been using with an old Mac Pro. I plugged it in...and at boot it paused saying it was waiting for the firmware to be updated. So I waited...and lo and behold a minute later, our old system drive (12TB) came up on the desktop in addition to our Drobo unit via 1Gb/E ! I was so ecstatic as I thought the RAID was never going to work!!! As the system build has taken a long while (about 2 weeks) for me to fix to debug..

In addition, the card was recognised in the System Profiler as proper SAS!!!! I attach a photo of it below.
And this is the performance results I got from Blackmagic... :D

The only thing now I need to test is the Areca Thunderbolt unit which is currently being tested on another system. There is apparently Areca Thunderbolt drivers for 10.7 & 10.8, which I have yet to download and test. But it all looks like the biz right now!!! Bluetooth works (via Cliptec BT key), Airport works (with TP Link WDN4800), onboard sound works, LAN works (two ports, builtin+one on external Intel1000E card); Fusion Drive works and Nvidia card works.

The great thing about this system, is addition to being able to run the latest stuff with Ivy Bridge and being on ML 10.8.2, I can at last backup my main drive a hell of a lot faster with Thunderbolt! At being able to transfer 1GB in one minute from the Fusion Drive onto SSD or HD via TB for example, I cannot complain.....

Question Hi Middleman, how did you get it to show up. I am trying to get an arc 1882i to work but it doesn't show up in sas nor pci in systemprofiler. Iam using GA-Z77X-UP5-TH, gtx 670, 3770. Running multibeast 5.2.1. Mac pro 3.1
 
Since it hasn't been discussed much, I figured I'd mention an alternative to software-based "fusion" drive and RAID approaches. The Highpoint Rocket 640L (not RocketRAID 640L) is a 4-port PCI-e SATA3 card (2x, so max ~1000MB/s throughput) that is natively supported by ML (and Unibeast). It's a good alternative for those who would rather drop $70 than have a slightly non-standard build. The card is based on the Marvell 88SE9230 controller, which is actually better than the 88SE9235 on the RocketRAID 640L:

http://www.marvell.com/storage/system-solutions/assets/Marvell-88SE92xx-Product-Brief.pdf

It supports RAID0,1,10 as well as "HyperDuo", which is a Fusion drive type solution that dynamically moves content that is accessed often to an SSD. All of this is transparent to the OS, so no need for dd'ing or Chameleon plist edits. I've been running on the card for a week (using RAID0, not HyperDuo) and everything seems stable.

A few issues I ran into in the course of my build:

* Firmware updates to the card destroy your RAID configuration. That isn't mentioned by Highpoint, but ruined my day the first time through.

* The Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H requires beta BIOS 15m for the card to boot in AHCI mode. Banged my head against the wall for days until I figured that out!

*I've disabled the on-board Marvell controllers as they seemed to slow down boot-up, but that may have been another issue.

* You can find an updated BIOS on-line (2.3.0.1043) for the controller here: http://www.station-drivers.com/page/marvell.htm

Remember, flashing the card will kill your RAID configuration (and, therefore, your installation). It didn't seem to affect performance and also required that I dd boot1h, which the standard BIOS does not. I did the flash, but I don't see any real reason to unless, like me, you think bigger version numbers are "better".

Once you are up and running, the controller shows as unknown. To get it recognized, replace /System/Library/Extensions/AppleAHCIPort.kext/Contents/Info.plist with the one attached. I got that from here:

http://benjenq.pixnet.net/blog/post/30988001-黑蘋果啓用硬體raid磁碟陣列

As long as you install third-party SATA in MB, there should be no need for the other change he shows (to make the attached drives appear as internal).

The Syba SD-PEX40054 is based on the same controller, also has 2 eSATA ports, and goes for $50. I haven't tried, but it may work. There is a sketchy review on Amazon that recommends the Rocket 640L instead, but it may be a good science project for someone.

Hope this is useful!

I realize this is quite an old post, but I'm wondering if anybody on this thread had troubleshooted through conflicting SATA controllers on their board and PCI cards? I have a rig that won't boot up when the card mentioned here, Syba SD-PEX40054, is plugged in.

More in my post:

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...-88se9230-sata-pcie-card.203092/#post-1334270

Thank you!
 
I know this is an old thread and I cannot message Dave so I need to ask dalaporte a very important question. How does one obtain the IOPCIPrimaryMatch value to insert into the Info.plist from the link you provided (http://benjenq.pixnet.net/blog/post/30988001-黑蘋果啓用硬體raid磁碟陣列)

Example the Marvell 88SE9230 IOPCIPrimaryMatch VALUE is 0x92301B4B. How would I find out what the value is on the Marvell 88SE9235 RocketRaid 640l card? I tried to use google translation for that website but its still all messed up and much of the stuff he writes cannot be understood properly.

Any help is appreciated as this would fix my issue using the RocketRaid 640l in my GA-Z97X-UD3H mobo and the system report showing Generic AHCI Controller instead of Intel 9 like it should.
 
Well duh I found it. Highpoint actually has drivers on their website for these cards and the answer is in their kext that's installed into the Library/Extensions...Sorry for bringing this up..
 
Well duh I found it. Highpoint actually has drivers on their website for these cards and the answer is in their kext that's installed into the Library/Extensions...Sorry for bringing this up..
I have a 640L, but it's showing "AHCI bios not installed" during POST. My SSD cannot boot the installed SierraOS unless I run a USB Clover stick to choose booting to the SSD. Do you think it's related to a driver issue? I didn't see any kexts on the Highpoint site. Would you mind a link?
 
Okay a couple of things: Do you have the 640l setup as Raid 0 in the 640l configuration/bios setup? During Bootup press Command M to bring up the 640l's configuration. Make sure AHCI is setup. If using Raid 0 make sure its setup correctly. To be honest one of the easiest cards to setup Raid 0 on. You also stated that you cannot boot you SSD that you have Sierra installed on. Did you install Clover on that SSD? Remember after installation if you want to boot from the SSD you need to install clover onto that SSD. Clover will everything onto the EFI partition of the SSD. Thats where Clover is located, even on your USB stick.

Also here is the link to highpoints ROCKETRAID 640l card. Just click on downloads and the drivers are the OS X ones..

http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series_rr600-overview.htm
 
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