MP 1,1-5,1 Bootcamp Mac Pro 2012 with PCIe SSD (SATA 3)

[BerndL]

Hi there,
I am the proud owner of a "new" Mac Pro 2012 (Mojave) after my graphics cards on my Mac Pro 2010 (Snow Leopard) gave up on me twice within 8 months. The new unit has dual Xeon processors X5690, a Radeon RX 570 with 8 GB RAM and runs from a Samsung Evo 850 m.2 SATA 3 SSD mounted in a PCIE slot. OS is Mojave 10.14.6 and BootRom version is 144.0.0.0.0.

The SSD runs about 15 to 20 times faster than a Barracuda drive in the SATA drive bay, which is great. So far so good. But ...

I want to install Windows 10 Pro via Bootcamp, and I don't seem to find a solution online on whether I would be able to achieve this with the PCIe SSD. Ideally, I don't want to mess with the UEFI and install the Windows BIOS version only. Also, I don't really need the EFI Boot screen.

My questions:
1. Can you install Windows on a PCIe mounted SATA SSD (no need for NVME)?
2. Can this be done without involving Open Core and / or changing Bootcom?
3. Would it be better to forego the PCIe option and install Windows 10 into a SATA mounted SSD instead?

Thanks a lot for your help.
Cheers Bernd

 

[tsialex]

Install BootCamp to a SATA SSD installed on one of the Mac Pro SATA2 bays, not with a PCIe SATA3 card.

Later on, when you learn the ropes, see the boot loop/hijacks that frequently happen with Windows Updates, you can try to complicate your config, not now.

 

[Soba]

I definitely second Alex's recommendation of just using a SATA drive bay. It requires no fancy configuration and it just works. If you need a very fast PCIe scratch disk for graphics work, video editing, or some other application, you can easily set that up as a second drive (I suggest NVMe in that case).

Before the Mac Pro 5,1 supported NVMe booting, and before the problem of Windows boot certificates bricking Macs was known, I had Windows in UEFI mode installed on an AHCI PCIe SSD. After the boot certificate problem was publicized here, I immediately switched Windows 10 to legacy BIOS mode on a SATA SSD mounted in one of the drive bays. As a Windows boot drive and for application launching, there was a very small (but noticeable) performance decrease, but the difference was not meaningful and would not impact 99% of users.

Use a SATA drive in one of the SATA2 drive bays. It will operate with no headaches.

You will need a 2.5" drive mounting bracket designed for the 2009–2012 Mac Pro, but these are very inexpensive and are easy to get from OWC or other sources.

 

[Dayo]

In addition, I'll suggest avoiding bootcamp and the problematic HybridMBR disks it creates for a bare metal installation. See here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2250317

 

[BerndL]

Install BootCamp to a SATA SSD installed on one of the Mac Pro SATA2 bays, not with a PCIe SATA3 card.

Later on, when you learn the ropes, see the boot loop/hijacks that frequently happen with Windows Updates, you can try to complicate your config, not now.

Hi tsialex, I was kind of doubting that installing it onto the PCIe SATA would mean trouble. Thanks a lot for confirming this and for pulling me in the right direction

 

[BerndL]

I definitely second Alex's recommendation of just using a SATA drive bay. It requires no fancy configuration and it just works. If you need a very fast PCIe scratch disk for graphics work, video editing, or some other application, you can easily set that up as a second drive (I suggest NVMe in that case).

Before the Mac Pro 5,1 supported NVMe booting, and before the problem of Windows boot certificates bricking Macs was known, I had Windows in UEFI mode installed on an AHCI PCIe SSD. After the boot certificate problem was publicized here, I immediately switched Windows 10 to legacy BIOS mode on a SATA SSD mounted in one of the drive bays. As a Windows boot drive and for application launching, there was a very small (but noticeable) performance decrease, but the difference was not meaningful and would not impact 99% of users.

Use a SATA drive in one of the SATA2 drive bays. It will operate with no headaches.

You will need a 2.5" drive mounting bracket designed for the 2009–2012 Mac Pro, but these are very inexpensive and are easy to get from OWC or other sources.

Thanks a lot, Soba

 

[BerndL]

In addition, I'll suggest avoiding bootcamp and the problematic HybridMBR disks it creates for a bare metal installation. See here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2250317

Hi Dayo, Thanks a lot for detailed instructions, very much appreciated

 

[tsialex]

If you need a very fast PCIe scratch disk for graphics work, video editing, or some other application, you can easily set that up as a second drive (I suggest NVMe in that case).

Just to remember that when you install Windows via BootCamp/CSM/BIOS, NVMe drives are not recognized/not enumerated and completely ignored, even a secondary non-bootable scratch drive like you wrote.

 

[Dayo]

Just to remember that when you install Windows via BootCamp/CSM/BIOS, NVMe drives are not recognized/not enumerated and completely ignored, even a secondary non-bootable scratch drive like you wrote.

It is apparently possible to overcome this by manually setting the storage controller driver in Windows Device Manager to use "Standard NVM Express Controller". Have to say I haven't tried it myself though.

 

[Soba]

Just to remember that when you install Windows via BootCamp/CSM/BIOS, NVMe drives are not recognized/not enumerated and completely ignored, even a secondary non-bootable scratch drive like you wrote.

I’d forgotten about this. Thanks for helping us all keep so many details straight, Alex!

 

[Dayo]

Have to say I haven't tried it myself though.

So, after fiddling about in Device Manager and Disk Management, I am able to access an NVMe drive while running Legacy Windows 10. Not as boot drive, but as a data store.

Can't recollect the exact steps and I rebooted a couple of times on getting lost, but essentially involved attaching the NVMe stick, updating the driver for "Standard NVM Express Controller" under "Device Manager >> Storage Controller Driver" and then formatting as a simple volume under "Disk Management".

Caveat is that this is on a Windows box and not cMP but I expect that it should be the same outcome but I might be missing something of course.