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[Guide] Install High Sierra on the HP 8300 Elite / 6300 Pro Desktop PC

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trs96 said:
There's a low cost solution on Ebay that uses a Macbook Air Wifi/BT card. Has the mandatory LP bracket for the install.
www.ebay.com

Dual Band BCM94360CS2 PCI-E 867Mbps 802.11AC BT4.0 Wifi PCI-Express Adapter Card | eBay

BCM94360CS2 chip. WIFI: 2.4G 300M / 5G 867M. AC 1000M dual-band desktop PCI-E wireless LAN + Bluetooth 4.0 combo. 2 X Dual Band Antenna. Two Antenna;Signal Stronger,Full-height Bracket. Compatible interface: PCI-E X1 X4 X8 X16 and video card slot.
www.ebay.com

Try some of the ShikiGVA bootflags or you could also try Lilu and Whatevergreen installed to /L/E. Always have a bootable backup before testing out anything on your CustoMac.


You've got 4 Sata ports that you can use. You can use 3 SSDs but make sure your primary macOS boot drive is on Sata0 to get the fastest performance from it. Yes you can remove the DVD drive and use it for HDD. There is also a space for 3.5" drive directly below the optical bay.

Haven't looked into this but I'd think it should work as long as the audio interface is macOS compatible.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link and tips trs96 ,
going to order that Macbook Air Wifi/Bt card from eBay.
Don't dare yet to mess with Lilu and Whatevergreen as i have to learn first how to make a bootable backup of my working installation in case i mess up , i am new to hackintosh :oops:
I've realised that i only got one SATA 3.0 (6Gb/s) fast port and 3 SATA 2.0 (3Gb/s) slow ports ,
that will be a bottleneck for the 2 SATA 3.0 Kingston SSDs that i've just purchased .:roll2:
 
jazznerd said:
that will be a bottleneck for the 2 SATA 3.0 Kingston SSDs that i've just purchased
Click to expand...
Maybe not, read and write speeds on the Kingston SSDs I've owned have hardly gone over 350 MB/s even with Sata3 connections. Write speeds for the 120GB drives will be well under 300 MB/s. You won't notice a lot of difference in daily use of these SSDs.

If you still feel they are too slow you could add two Sata3 ports via a PCIe slot too. There are also official eSata adapters made by HP specifically for these desktops. Find those on Ebay.
 
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trs96 said:
Maybe not, read and write speeds on the Kingston SSDs I've owned have hardly gone over 350 MB/s even with Sata3 connections. Write speeds for the 120GB drives will be well under 300 MB/s. You won't notice a lot of difference in daily use of these SSDs.
Click to expand...
300mb/sec? i guess you meant 3Gb/sec or?
The 120 GB SATA 3.0 Kingston SSDs i've got proclaim 6Gb/s speeds on the box.. but what do i know.. i am new to this. Here is the SSD in question :
395595

395596



If you still feel they are too slow you could add two Sata3 ports via a PCIe slot too.
Click to expand...
I have no idea how fast/slow they are as i haven't installed them yet - trying to figure best install scenario.
Do you mean one of these PCI Express cards , any or some specific hackintosh compatible model?
https://www.amazon.com/s?page=1&rh=...e 3.0 x1 Controller Card&tag=tonymacx86com-20

There are also official eSata adapters made by HP specifically for these desktops. Find those on Ebay.
Click to expand...
Do i still need an eSATA adapter if i've got one eSata port free , would eSATA be faster than SATA 2.0 for a SSD?

was trying to search on eBay , looks like just a cable with a Low profile bracket , is that the one ?
eBay link
cheers
Jazznerd
 
jazznerd said:
Do you mean one of these PCI Express cards , any or some specific hackintosh compatible model?
Click to expand...
There are only a few that work in a Hackintosh. Here's one you can try.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005B0A6ZS/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

jazznerd said:
The 120 GB SATA 3.0 Kingston SSDs i've got proclaim 6Gb/s speeds on the box
Click to expand...
There is a big difference between a GB and a Gb (bit) remember that one B or Byte = 8 Bits. Small b is a bit.
Only NVMe drives give GB/s speeds not SSDs. As a real world test put your Kingstons on Sata3 and on a Sata2
connection. See if you can notice any performance difference. I don't mean benchmarks, just normal everyday use.
Using a Sata2 connection to your board won't slow them down so much that it feels laggy like a mechanical drive.
Just moving large files will take slightly longer, it's not a big issue.
 
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jazznerd said:
300mb/sec? i guess you meant 3Gb/sec or?
The 120 GB SATA 3.0 Kingston SSDs i've got proclaim 6Gb/s speeds on the box.. but what do i know.. i am new to this. Here is the SSD in question :
Click to expand...
The 6 Gb/s shown is the maximum theoretical throughput for SATA 3, not the actual speed of your SSD. The package just says it is compatible with SATA 3 (and also backwards compatible with SATA 2 at 3 Gb/s). Whether SATA 2 will be fast enough will depend on your SSD.

I used to have a PCI SATA card in my SFF, but no longer needed it so I removed it. If you search my posts you should find details about the card as well as what I found out about the eSATA port (I think that one might be a SATA 3 port but don't remember.) If you can't find the posts, I can dig out the card I used and let you know what it was.
 
HP Elite 8300 SFF
Z77 Board |  i5 3570 |  GeForce Other
jazznerd said:
would eSATA be faster than SATA 2.0 for a SSD?
Click to expand...

No, the esata port on the 6300/8300 is SATA2 so no full speed either. I have a couple of 8300 SFF and I've just bought a Dell 7010 MT in which I plan to have 3 booting SSD (Mojave, Windows 10, Ubuntu Budgie or Mint) so I have been making some researches on how to get 3 full speed sta 3 ports. As Micalllee suggests, the easy way out would be to get a Pcie Sata3 adapter but from what I have read they too aren't going to reach full sata3 speeds, lets say they are sata 2 and a half (300 to 350 speed). I agree with trs96 when he says that the lack of performance would be hard to notice, still I don't like to give one of the 3 operating systems a slight handicap.
That's why even though for testing purpose I'll probably buy one of those cheap pci-e sata adapters as well (they have long and shorts brackets and I have many computers where I can put them) I have decided that I will stick to the best gadget I used for my Customacs so far:

51I7YifryXL._SL1000_.jpg


https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0788FQJPZ/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

Since you'll never use the 3 operating systems at the same time, this solution gives you the opportunity to leave one of the 3 ssds (for me it's win 10) mounted in the pc and attached to port Sata1 (which is sata3 speed) and insert 1 of the other 2 ssds (mac and linux) in the bay (connected to sata0 port, also sata3 speed) when you need them, beefore booting.

Also this bay gives you the opportunity to insert a removable 3,5" mechanichal hard disk (hot swap at least in windows) attached to port sata1 (sata2 speed) which leaves the "slow" esata port (also sata2 speed) available for the dvd or another mechanical hard disk mounted inside the computer case.

I have used one of these bay inside an hp 8300 SFF (replacing the dvd) and they are fantastic.

English is not my first language I hope I have been clear enough in this post and I apologize for the mistakes.
So far I've installed sierra and high sierra on a handful of 8200/8300 machines and mojave on a couple of 8300's and now I'm looking forward to install mojave on my new dell 7010 as soon as it will be here; that's why I want to thank trs96 for his very useful guides and all the contributors to these threads that make tonymaccx86 a special place.
 
Algernon said:
I have used one of these bay inside an hp 8300 SFF (replacing the dvd) and they are fantastic.
Click to expand...
Thanks for bringing this up. It is really an elegant solution to add a hot swap bay in the SFF models or even the MT. The best part is that you can keep Windows and macOS separate. That helps avoid potential problems.

One other addition to make for working front USB 3.0 ports. Buy the KT4006 by Inateck. Plug it into a x1 slot and you can have front USB 3 that works at USB 3 speeds. Even adds two more USB 3 ports in the back of the case too.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JFR2H64/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
 
Looking back at my notes I do see that I tested the eSATA port and it was SATA 2.0. I was a little confused because I knew I had two SATA 3.0 ports, but now I realize that it's because jazzman showed specs from a 6300, where the SATA1 port is 2.0 (it is 3.0 in the 8300). Unfortunately, the only speed test I did comparing the 2.0 vs. the 3.0 was with a mechanical HDD. It showed essentially no difference in speed.

I'm pretty sure the cheap SATA 3.0 card I have showed up in System Report as "5 G transfer/sec" instead of "6 Gbps" that the native SATA 3.0 ports showed.

Another option for the front 3.5" bay is a dual 2.5" hot swap dock:

iStarUSA BPN-2535DE-SA 3.5" to 2 x 2.5" SATA 6 Gbps HDD SSD Hot-swap Rack

That has the advantage of letting you connect two SSDs with only one power connector.
 
HP Elite 8300 SFF
Z77 Board |  i5 3570 |  GeForce Other
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