SSD upgrade

[charliebee]

Ok thanks for your help but I'm really getting confused with all the terminology.

First of all I have an OCZ Agility 3. The calculator seems to say that all OCZ drives have the same NAND Erase Block Size and NAND Page Size. Since I can't find this info on OCZ site, I'm pretending as if this is valid.

Now it gets messy for the first two parameters. iPartition gives me a "Start Block", is that what you call "starting sector"? I get 409,640. I should multiply that by 512?

As for the "File Allocation Unit Size", isn't that something that iPartition would give me? My understanding is that it's related to the partition and not the drive physically?

 

[jasjeet]

As I said the file allocation unit size is 4096 as standard on all SSDs.

Yes multiply the start block of your OSX partition in iPartition by 512 to get the partition offset (1st parameter in the alignment calculator).

The 409640 number you say multiply it by 512, this is exactly how osx partitioned my drive and it not aligned correctly. Apple SSDs align at 409600 which is correct.

Partition offset = 409640*512=209735680 misaligned (Hackintosh formatted unofficial SSD)
Partition offset = 409600*512=209715200 aligned (Apple official SSD)

Using offset of 1Mb in GParted gives:
In iPartition you see OSX starts at block 2048
Partition offset = 2048 * 512 = 1048576 Aligned perfectly now just clone your partition to it =D

For MBR partition like i used this is enough information, for a GPT drive which needs the EFI partition of 200Mb here is some more info on how to setup the partitions in GParted:

For the EFI partition, i used these settings:

Start Sector: 2048 (1,048,576 bytes (Partition Offset))
End Sector: 411647
Code: EF00 (EFI)

For the main partition:
Start Sector: 411648 (210,763,776 bytes (Partition Offset))
End Sector: wherever, depends on you.
Code: AF00 (Apple HFS+)

 

[cverri]

how can I test my hard drive to see if everything is ok?

I have an OCZ Agility 3 SSD - 90gb

tks

 

[charliebee]

cverri, everything is explained in this very thread...

jasjeet, thanks I'll try that. I thought that GPT was a requirement of Lion but I guess I'll use MBR as I don't think there's any advantages on these small size drives.

 

[jasjeet]

The OSX lion installation disk won't let you install to a MBR disk because real macs are not compatible.
But our hackintoshes will boot MBR partitions fine, but you have to restore a clone from a GPT disk to have OSX lion on an MBR partition scheme, there is another way but involves patching the Lion install media so it doesn't block installing to the MBR disk.

As I already had a GPT disk with lion working and wanted to do a OSX and Windows 7 dual boot on my SSD, it was much easier to use MBR and just clone my current Lion install from my GPT hdd to the partition I made on the SSD. Then I just installed windows as normal. Then i installed Chimera to the Lion partition on the SSD.

 

[ainsoph]

It was a good thing I haven't done the upgrage yet. Thanks for your tips jasjeet. I will try that next week.

 

[charliebee]

ok, thanks to your great help jasjeet i was able to realign my ssd properly.

I forgot to set my temporary drive as GPT when I cloned my partition so Disk Utility didn't want to restore to my ssd. I had to clone it using clonezilla but it worked fine.

I've now reinstalled Chimera and I'm a happy camper!

Thanks again for your invaluable help!

 

[ADent]

As I said the file allocation unit size is 4096 as standard on all SSDs.

For the EFI partition, i used these settings:

Start Sector: 2048 (1,048,576 bytes (Partition Offset))
End Sector: 411647
Code: EF00 (EFI)

For the main partition:
Start Sector: 411648 (210,763,776 bytes (Partition Offset))
End Sector: wherever, depends on you.
Code: AF00 (Apple HFS+)

I am using the Gparted Live CD you mentioned earlier.

How do you set the Code with Gparted (for the EFI partition)? There is no EFI option.
Also it says Sector size:512 - shouldn't that be 4096?

 

[charliebee]

Just use FAT32 for the EFI partition. Chimera will work fine with it.

 

[ADent]

Thanx.

Here is what worked for me:
Formatted the disk with Mac OS X Disk Util. It created the 200MB EFI partition (hidden in Mac OS, visible with gparted) and 225GB main partition with some slack space at the end. Used Carbon Copy Cloner to copy my boot partition from my spinning HD to the SSD. Booted that via the Chimera on the spinning disk. Worked fine.

Got the gparted disk booted.

Tried to resize the two partitions to the right size, but gparted doesn't know how to shrink the EFI partition.

So I deleted the EFI partition and committed the change. Then resized the main partition so it lined up correctly. (any resize with gparted will be MB aligned, but if you want it at 409600 you have to expand it 1MB then shrink it 1MB).

When I committed this change it took a long time. It did a full partition read, a fsck, then had to read and write the whole partition to move it 40 sectors.

Then I created a new partition. IIRC it had to be 199MB, not the original 200MB. Labeled it EFI. Type was FAT 32.

Then I booted back into Mac OS X 10.6.8 with my original spinning HD. The EFI partition mounted along with the large partition. Downloaded and ran the latest Chimera from this site and installed in on the SSD.

Booted into the SSD and it came right up. And the EFI partition was hidden again.

The SSD is very nice.