Create a "Fusion Drive" on your CustoMac

[lamous]

Currently I have 10.8.2 installed on a 120 GB SSD with my home folder moved to a 1 TB HD.
The only apps on the SSD are the Apple apps, iLife, iWork, Aperture, etc.
All of the other apps I add are in the app folder in my home folder. This works well for me.

What would be the advantage of combining the two drives into a Fusion Drive?

how do you move the home folder to a 2nd hard drive? i had no idea you could install apps on a second drive!!

 

[SierraClimber]

Relocating the Home Directory Off the Boot Drive:

http://macperformanceguide.com/SettingUp-Relocating-HomeDir.html

 

[Valmar12]

Agree- for build-your-own systems, one usually has room for a few extra drives. I don't see Fusion Drive as something that solves any particular issues for us. However this is a cool hack- I've been enjoying reading about it, and I'm glad that so many are experimenting with this.

That is wrong in my opinion. Usually if you have a setup with SSD and HDD you install your system and programs to the SSD and move the Home Folder to the HDD. By doing this you also move the Library Folder to the HDD, which a lot of programs use to store data and information, like Mail or Safari. If you have a setup like this, Safari and Mail will slow down and not benefit from the SSD, even though they are running of the SSD (because they need files which are on the HDD).

You could also manually change folders and directions to the hard disk if you don't want to move the home folder off the SSD. But then again there is a lot of configuring (you can't change symbols in the pre-defined shortcuts in Finder for Locations on another drive) because you have to change default Path for saving and stuff like that.

If you are using a Fusion drive you don't have to mess around with moving the Home Folder, changing paths, thinking about whether it is better to keep the iPhoto Library on SSD oder HDD and stuff like that. There is the advantage of the Fusion drive. All this is done automatically.

edit: I just saw Cougarcat writing already about the same thing. Mea culpa.

 

[mozo]

Same question here.
Does this work on a BIOS based motherboard?
I'm using Chimera as a boot loader and somehow it's not detecting the drives.
Is it me or am I doing something wrong?

Yes it does work on BIOS mobos. It's the same mechanic like in Apple's Soft RAID - small hidden helper partition on each disk with boot configuration and prelinked kernel file. I successfully booted it with Clover. In Clover menu you will see two "Boot OS X" partitions, start any and you'll get to the system. I think Chimera or Chameleon should be updated first for Fusion Drive support because boot configuration plists could be different for Soft RAID and Fusion Drive.

 

[tonyd]

Hi Mrengles.


Thanks for this excellent guide, I have managed to load "Fusion on my 2011 real Mac mini without any problems as it contains an SSD and a hard drive - it appears to work very well.

Wish i could say the same about the Hackintosh, as that has similar SSD and drives to the MacMini, however the Terminal entry

diskutil cs create "Fusion Drive" disk0 disk1 causes a POSIX error and does not complete, the complere error shown is

"Error 22: POSIX reports: invalid argument", all searches on the web do not give any reason. Any ideas?

Brgds/Tony.

 

[mrengles]

Hi Mrengles.


Thanks for this excellent guide, I have managed to load "Fusion on my 2011 real Mac mini without any problems as it contains an SSD and a hard drive - it appears to work very well.

Wish i could say the same about the Hackintosh, as that has similar SSD and drives to the MacMini, however the Terminal entry

diskutil cs create "Fusion Drive" disk0 disk1 causes a POSIX error and does not complete, the complere error shown is

"Error 22: POSIX reports: invalid argument", all searches on the web do not give any reason. Any ideas?

Brgds/Tony.

What version of OS X are you using 10.8.2? Also are you sure the two drive you want to use are disk0, and disk1?

please post output of "diskutil list"

 

[tonyd]

What version of OS X are you using 10.8.2? Also are you sure the two drive you want to use are disk0, and disk1?

please post output of "diskutil list"

Yep disk0 and disk1 are correct.

Hackintosh Version of OSX 10.8.2 is 12C2034 which is the amended version for the retina Display MacBook Pro, while my real MacMini5,3 is running 10.8.2 version 12C60 - Mhh I wonder whether that is the problem.

Diskutil

Last login: Mon Nov 5 21:48:42 on ttys000
localhost:~ tonydickinson$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *128.0 GB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS MountainLion 127.0 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *600.1 GB disk1
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1
2: Apple_HFS Data 599.8 GB disk1s2
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk2
1: EFI 104.9 MB disk2s1
2: Microsoft Reserved 134.2 MB disk2s2
3: Microsoft Basic Data Windows 499.9 GB disk2s3
/dev/disk3
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.5 TB disk3
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk3s1
2: Apple_HFS MountainLion2 1.5 TB disk3s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk3s3
/dev/disk4
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: FDisk_partition_scheme *8.0 GB disk4
1: Windows_FAT_32 CLOVERV2 8.0 GB disk4s1


Update: I changed the OSX 10.8.2 to the correct build 12C60 and get the same error. The SSD is an M4-CT128M4SSD2.

 

[king13p]

I tried this procedure and was unable to boot afterwards. I could install to the Fusion Drive but couldn't boot back into it.
I used the clover EFI boot loader running from a CD and chose the Fusion Drive,
It started to Verbose and never finished. Anybody else able to get it to boot after install?

Can't remember the exact last line of the verbose but will repost later tonight. Thanks

 

[sirenum]

I had to take a few additional steps to get it to work. Here's how I did it:

1. Carbon Copy Clone the existing boot drive (SSD in my case) to an additional disk (let's call it "Clone")

2. Move the custom DSDT.aml from chimera's /Extra to the root of Clone so that clover can find it

3. Install clover to Clone (using the installer) and make sure it boots

4. Boot into Clone and follow mrengles instructions to create the fusion drive. (my new "Macintosh HD")

5. "diskutil list" now shows 4 partitions on each of the physical fusion disks

/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         999.9 GB   disk1s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk1s3
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *128.0 GB   disk2
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         127.7 GB   disk2s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk2s3

The EFI partitions are just empty partitions that are required by I think the EFI standard. The "Boot OS X" partitions are the ones that later will show up in clover's boot menu. The Apple_CoreStorage partitions obviously make up the Fusion Drive.

Now I wanted to install clover to disk1 or disk2 (i.e. one of the physical fusion disks) but you can't just install it to the logical fusion drive (a.k.a. "Macintosh HD" in my case). Also, if you have a custom DSDT, you will have to put it into "Boot OS X" otherwise clover won't find it for some reason. So I decided to install clover to my SSD (/dev/disk2).

I downloaded the files for manual installation from sourceforge. I don't understand why some people like to choose exotic compression formats... you're gonna need XZ utils to unpack the iso.

6. Mount the iso, open a Terminal and cd into "/Volumes/Clover-LXXX-X64/usr/standalone/i386" (replace XXX with your version number)

7. Install the stage 0 bootloader to disk2 (in my case)

sudo fdisk -f boot0 -u -y /dev/rdisk2

8. Install the stage 1 bootloader to the "Boot OS X" partition on disk2

sudo dd if=boot1h2 of=/dev/rdisk2s3

9. Mount the "Boot OS X" partition

diskutil mount /dev/disk2s3

and

10. copy the stage 2 bootloader, the dsdt and the EFI folder to "Boot OS X"

cp x64/boot "/Volumes/Boot OS X"
cp /Extra/DSDT.aml "/Volumes/Boot OS X"
cp -R /Volumes/Clover-LXXX-X64/EFI "/Volumes/Boot OS X"

11. CCC everything back from Clone to Macintosh HD

12. Reboot and choose disk2 as your boot partition in BIOS and the respective "Boot OS X" in clover

I haven't figured out how to customize clover yet since it seems to ignore my EFI/config.plist. The mouse driver doesn't seem to work either. But I guess that's something for the clover forum.

 

[tonyd]

I haven't figured out how to customize clover yet since it seems to ignore my EFI/config.plist. The mouse driver doesn't seem to work either. But I guess that's something for the clover forum.

Hi

In your EFI directory you have your config.plist. However during the install Clover inserts another config.plist in the EFI/OEM/SystemProductName directory which it appears it always defaults to - ignoring the main one. You have two options 1. Delete the config.plist in the EFI/OEM/SystemProductName directory, or copy your amended config.plist to that directory as well.

I delete the second version as it is confusing.

Good luck with Clover its GREAT....