MP 1,1-5,1 Innie: A fix for PCI drives seen as external

[misanthrophy]

@cdf

I have 4x 6TB HDD's in my 4 bays of the cMP. I configured them in RAID5 using SoftRAID.

Unfortunately my Raid pops up in Finder as an external drive, even though the drives are inside the 4 bays.

In SoftRAID forum, they said, this is an issue of Apple since 10.12 (I am using 10.13.6). Is there a way to force my Mac to see the RAID as internal?

 

[cdf]

@cdf

I have 4x 6TB HDD's in my 4 bays of the cMP. I configured them in RAID5 using SoftRAID.

Unfortunately my Raid pops up in Finder as an external drive, even though the drives are inside the 4 bays.

In SoftRAID forum, they said, this is an issue of Apple since 10.12 (I am using 10.13.6). Is there a way to force my Mac to see the RAID as internal?

Hmm. If it were a hardware RAID, then I would be pretty confident in saying that we could fix this issue by extending Innie. However, as a software RAID, I'm not so sure... If you want, PM me an IOReg. Use the IORegistryExplorer tool (available here), open it, then save the output, and send it to me. I'll be able to tell you if its possible.

 

[misanthrophy]

Hmm. If it were a hardware RAID, then I would be pretty confident in saying that we could fix this issue by extending Innie. However, as a software RAID, I'm not so sure... If you want, PM me an IOReg. Use the IORegistryExplorer tool (available here), open it, then save the output, and send it to me. I'll be able to tell you if its possible.

Send you a PM

 

[cdf]

Send you a PM

OK. I just had a look. Unfortunately, it appears that the issue can't be fixed in the same way as for PCI drives. I'm not sure how it could be fixed...

 

[misanthrophy]

OK. I just had a look. Unfortunately, it appears that the issue can't be fixed in the same way as for PCI drives...

Okay, do you think it is possible at all, or no chance? Just to know if it is worth waiting, or just deal with it, haha.

 

[cdf]

Okay, do you think it is possible at all, or no chance? Just to know if it is worth waiting, or just deal with it, haha.

There's always a chance, and I'll keep this in mind for future updates of Innie.

 

[misanthrophy]

thx a lot. <3

 

[flowrider]

I've been refraining from giving an opinion on this thread. But, what's the big deal? Internal, External who cares? What magical power does a drive labeled as internal have over a drive recognized as external? The reason for this thread escapes me

Lou

 

[bookemdano]

I've been refraining from giving an opinion on this thread. But, what's the big deal? Internal, External who cares? What magical power does a drive labeled as internal have over a drive recognized as external? The reason for this thread escapes me

Lou

You should have kept refraining. I simply don't understand why your post was necessary or helpful. If you don't care about this problem then simply move on. Obviously other people care about it and appreciate that someone not only made an effort to solve it but also to share it with the community. What have you contributed lately?

 

[flowrider]

^^^^Your post contributed absolutely nothing except to personally attack me

My Post asked a couple of questions!

Lou

 

[cdf]

I've been refraining from giving an opinion on this thread. But, what's the big deal? Internal, External who cares? What magical power does a drive labeled as internal have over a drive recognized as external? The reason for this thread escapes me

Lou

Many people embrace Apple products because of their beauty, both in hardware and software. For them, the appeal of something as small as having macOS properly recognize hard drives is big deal. For others, it comes down to pure functionality—as long as "it just works."

However, having macOS properly recognize hard drives is actually important for making things work. Although, you may not have encountered them, there are at least two situations in which incorrectly recognized drives affect functionality: 1) performing a clean installation of macOS (from another installation that sees the target drives as external) and 2) setting up Windows through Boot Camp. The first situation was particularly frustrating earlier this year for many people trying install High Sierra from scratch on new drives; the installer would simply refuse to proceed, popping up a message about a missing firmware partition. Just yesterday, this situation claimed a victim on our forum (see here). The second situation was deemed such a deal-breaker that OWC, a popular source of Mac upgrades (please refrain from bashing the company—it's beside the point), recently dedicated resources to develop a kernel extension, not unlike the one in this thread, for their PCI drives (see here). (In fact, here is what actually sparked this thread.)

So you see, the issue is kind of a big deal.

 

[bookemdano]

^^^^Your post contributed absolutely nothing except to personally attack me

My Post asked a couple of questions!

Lou

If you were curious, you could have simply asked the questions without adding the dismissive "who cares?", since that's a stupid question anyway--three pages in this thread (if you bothered to read them) show that some of us do care.

Understand that not everything that "escapes" you is not a "big deal" to someone else.

 

[flowrider]

OK, I've been officially chastised

Lou

 

[Catzjes]

After the install of Mojave GM my NVME SSD shows internal again, it was showing external on Mojave beta switching to and from HS with SIP enabled
I will report later when I switch OS back to HS

EDIT state changes are bold

Mojave GS install
NVME shows internal

Mojave reboot
NVME shows internal

switch to HS
NVME shows external

HS reboot
NVME shows external

switch to Mojave
NVME shows internal

Mojave reboot
NVME shows external

Mojave shutdown/power up
NVME shows external

Mojave reboot
NVME shows external

Back to square one....

 

[cdf]

Yes, what is happening, unfortunately, is that by switching between operating systems, unsigned kexts get blocked by SIP (an annoyance with the HDMIaudio kext as well). I don't know if there is a way to prevent this without disabling SIP altogether. Once the kexts are blocked, SIP needs to be disabled and the kexts reinstalled.

 

[fireedo]

so, newbie here, I mean, for the first time I finally have a real Mac, a 2009 Mac Pro, and for now my OS have installed with High Sierra 10.13.6 in my 1Tb mechanical hard drive and I have a PCIe NVME ssd. So, if I want to use my NVME ssd, first I have to clone my existing installation to the NVME ssd and then install lilu.kext to the NVME ssd to make my nvme drive recognise as an internal drive, is that correct?

 

[cdf]

So, if I want to use my NVME ssd, first I have to clone my existing installation to the NVME ssd and then install lilu.kext to the NVME ssd to make my nvme drive recognise as an internal drive, is that correct?

Let me try to clear things up a bit. With the current version of macOS, your drive will work natively, and with firmware 140.0.0.0.0 (which will be released very soon with 10.14.1), it will also boot natively. However, macOS will see your drive as an external one (the issue is mostly cosmetic, though there are some practical implications). This is where Lilu and Innie come into play. If you want, follow the instructions in post #9, and your drive will be seen as internal.

 

[GSXB]

cMP 4.1/5.1 mojave 10.14.2 beta worked, nice one,

 

[MIKX]

I rather like the fact that my M.2 970 EVO drive being shown as EXTERNAL means I can instantly spot it on the Desktop.

Odd though that in EFI bootscreen it shows as INTERNAL.

 

[JedNZ]

Sideways to the topic, but I created this shortened M.2 2280 folder icon for my Fusion Drive (Samsung 960 EVO 500GB + WD 2TB Spinner). Makes me feel all warm inside when I see it on my Desktop, even if the system still thinks it's external.

 

[cdf]

Out of curiosity: has anybody tried Innie with a carrier board like the HighPoint 7101? It should work in principle, but I haven't received any feedback yet.

 

[GSXB]

Out of curiosity: has anybody tried Innie with a carrier board like the HighPoint 7101? It should work in principle, but I haven't received any feedback yet.

Lycom dt120 works fine

 

[h9826790]

It works for SATA SSD installed on a TempoSSD card.

This internal / external thing never bother me until I want to setup an account for my daughter on our family computer.

I want her account's desktop can show the external drive (e.g. SD cards / USB thumb drives), but not the boot drive (which is a SSD connected on the TempoSSD card) even she is not admin.

There was no such option natively in Finder. Now, with this fix, I can easily hide all "internal" drives and only shows the real external drives on her desktop.

Thanks cdf providing such a good tool for the community.

 

[PeterHolbrook]

I've just installed Innie along Lilu. I don't have any PCI M2 SSDs yet. In fact, no SSD at all, but I do have a USB 3.0 PCI card that I use to attach several external USB 3.0 devices to my Mac Pro 5,1 (running Mojave). I don't know if this was reported before, but, for what's it's worth, here goes: My external devices (and they are indeed external) still appear as external, which, in this case, is precisely what I want. I assume that PCI M2 SSDs, when I install them, will now appear as internal.

 

[cdf]

My external devices (and they are indeed external) still appear as external, which, in this case, is precisely what I want. I assume that PCI M2 SSDs, when I install them, will now appear as internal.

That's correct.