[Guide] Install High Sierra or Mojave on the Dell Optiplex 7010 / 9010 Desktop PC - Revision II

[Grizz]

Well, you asked so...
No results yet. I canceled my EVO plus order as advised. Silverstone has probably taken the long road from the other side of the planet, although the store is 40 km away from my house (ahh those tourists.... ) so i am still waiting. It will arrive a bit aged but so experienced... !!. Plan was to wait for the card and then order the EVO 970. Meanwhile i burned my 3930K (!!!) so i returned to my E5-2670 and i am thinking of buying a 1680v2 but these are the money for the EVO.... what a life....
So as i said, i will report back when i have news. I try to not forget people who helped me

I gave up on the SILVERSTONE and EVO 970.

I wanted to BOOT from the M.2 card. Not possible with the Q77 chipset. I was not willing to boot from another HDD - just to load an OS from the M.2.

I will deal with having a SAMSUNG EVO 960 SSD in both of my Desktop OP7010 machines, and a secondary HDD for storage (2TB - 4TB). Granted there is only one Drive bay in the OP7010 DT model, but if you mount the HDD in there, there is enough room - one piece of velcro tape on top, you can attach the SSD to the top of the HDD. Velcro tape does not transfer heat to the SSD either.

Grizz

 

[BillyGoatGruff]

I will deal with having a SAMSUNG EVO 960 SSD in both of my Desktop OP7010 machines, and a secondary HDD for storage (2TB - 4TB). Granted there is only one Drive bay in the OP7010 DT model, but if you mount the HDD in there, there is enough room - one piece of velcro tape on top, you can attach the SSD to the top of the HDD. Velcro tape does not transfer heat to the SSD either.

Grizz

@Grizz you may not have noticed, I certainly didn't initially, that the DT single drive caddy is actually a DUAL caddy, 1 x 3.5" and a piggyback 1 x 2.5" !

 

[Grizz]

@Grizz you may not have noticed, I certainly didn't initially, that the DT single drive caddy is actually a DUAL caddy, 1 x 3.5" and a piggyback 1 x 2.5" !

View attachment 404010View attachment 404011

AWESOME - That was not noticed by me either. OK. Guess who is taking the velcro off the SSD.

 

[caniggia]

I gave up on the SILVERSTONE and EVO 970.

I wanted to BOOT from the M.2 card. Not possible with the Q77 chipset. I was not willing to boot from another HDD - just to load an OS from the M.2.

I will deal with having a SAMSUNG EVO 960 SSD in both of my Desktop OP7010 machines, and a secondary HDD for storage (2TB - 4TB). Granted there is only one Drive bay in the OP7010 DT model, but if you mount the HDD in there, there is enough room - one piece of velcro tape on top, you can attach the SSD to the top of the HDD. Velcro tape does not transfer heat to the SSD either.

Grizz

This is interesting. Today i am recieving my Silverstone card. I haven't bought a Nvme yet. So do we have any that deffinatelly work? The HP for example(?)

@Grizz you may not have noticed, I certainly didn't initially, that the DT single drive caddy is actually a DUAL caddy, 1 x 3.5" and a piggyback 1 x 2.5" !

View attachment 404010View attachment 404011

I swear i had taken this out while searching for a place to fit the SSD, but never saw it...
awesome! thanks

 

[Grizz]

This is interesting. Today i am recieving my Silverstone card. I haven't bought a Nvme yet. So do we have any that deffinatelly work? The HP for example(?)

I cannot speak to the HP, but I did some research before returning mine - the Q77 chipset apparently does not support booting from NVMe drives. That started with the Q97 (and higher). If the BIOS on the machine does not support setting the NVMe drive as a boot option - it is not gonna work.

I tried Nearly Every possible thing I could with my OP7010 DT box, and while I could get OS to install on it - I could not get it to see it as a BOOT DRIVE.

GRIZZ

 

[trs96]

I tried Nearly Every possible thing I could with my OP7010 DT box, and while I could get OS to install on it - I could not get it to see it as a BOOT DRIVE.

I'm going to be trying this once my adapter card arrives. I'll be using the techniques described by RPH and craighazan. The key point to remember is that you need Clover on a separate drive from the NVMe drive. You would boot from that other drive with Clover on it, then select your NVMe drive from the Clover Boot menu. There is one extra driver that you also need to add to Drivers64UEFI folder to make this all work. NvmExpressDxe-64 is it's name.

 

[Grizz]

I'm going to be trying this once my adapter card arrives. I'll be using the techniques described by RPH and craighazan. The key point to remember is that you need Clover on a separate drive from the NVMe drive. You would boot from that other drive with Clover on it, then select your NVMe drive from the Clover Boot menu. There is one extra driver that you also need to add to Drivers64UEFI folder to make this all work. NvmExpressDxe-64 is it's name.

trs96,

I understand that. But the point is...the NVMe drive is "NOT BOOTABLE" in the OP7010 series. I do not want to have a HDD or SSD installed just to hold a boot option, just to pull the rest of the OS off the NVMe.

I am happy with the Samsung EVO 960 as my SATA 0 drive, a 500GB HDD as SATA1 and Blu-Ray as SATA 2 in my OP7010 DT.

Give me fairly quick boot (less than 20 seconds from power on to MOJ Desktop) and 500GB of storage.

Best of luck to you - I pity your hair.

Grizz

 

[trs96]

NVMe drive is "NOT BOOTABLE" in the OP7010 series

It is bootable via Clover but not directly via the 7010 BIOS. That is the part that makes this feasible. I'll fully document my findings on this for the definitive answer. I'm going by what others have done and tested on their systems.

do not want to have a HDD or SSD installed just to hold a boot option

Me either. All you need is an EFI partition of 200 or more MB and then the rest of the drive can be used for storage. NVMe boot drives are going to be rather small due to their cost so it's sensible to have a second drive for storing larger files i.e. video and photo folders etc. If the NVMe drive is in a x4 slot then you've got three free Sata ports to connect other drives. Why not put those to use too ?

Give me fairly quick boot (less than 20 seconds from power on to MOJ Desktop) and 500GB of storage

Those are a great choice and plenty fast. The NVMe option is primarily for those working with larger video (4K) and photo files that need faster IOPS. Or people just too impatient to wait 20 seconds for the OS to boot up.

 

[craighazan]

trs96,

I understand that. But the point is...the NVMe drive is "NOT BOOTABLE" in the OP7010 series. I do not want to have a HDD or SSD installed just to hold a boot option, just to pull the rest of the OS off the NVMe.

Grizz

I disagree Grizz!. I have had my NVME drive show up as a bootable option in Clover on my Dell 7010 and HP6300pro. The important part, like trs96 says, is to install the NvmExpressDxe-64 driver in the Drivers64UEFI folder. Your right to say the motherboard doesn’t recognize it, but Clover does. And is it really an issue to have one extra drive for Clover?, I don’t think so, It gives me extra storage. My combined boot time between the two drives is under 15 seconds.

 

[Grizz]

I disagree Grizz!. I have had my NVME drive show up as a bootable option in Clover on my Dell 7010 and HP6300pro. The important part, like trs96 says, is to install the NvmExpressDxe-64 driver in the Drivers64UEFI folder. Your right to say the motherboard doesn’t recognize it, but Clover does. And is it really an issue to have one extra drive for Clover?, I don’t think so, It gives me extra storage. My combined boot time between the two drives is under 15 seconds.

So you have ONLY the NVMe drive in your machine?

If you have CLOVER installed on another drive (of any kind) - then the sytem is not 'truly' booting from the NVMe.

I know in the OP7010 - nothing I did would allow me to BOOT the system with ONLY the NVMe drive installed.

GRIZZ