Will 10.13 Firmware for Mac Pro 5,1 Kill Yosemite Compatibility?

[nanaandbump]

Hi!

Im about to take the plunge and upgrade to High Sierra. I'm running an 09' Mac Pro 4,1 that has been flashed to 5,1 and is running Yosemite 10.10.5. I have made a bootable clone drive of this Yosemite system, because there are some apps I may need to use that are not compatible with High Sierra. So I will have my new / High Sierra system on a new drive, and a backup boot drive / Yosemite system.

My question is - will Yosemite still work with the Firmware update that is required for High Sierra? Or will I have to "downgrade" firmware (if one can do such a thing) in order to use Yosemite again?

Any help would be much appreciated! Let me know if I need to post additional info about my rig. (Forgive me if I posted this in the wrong spot - I was torn between this and the Mac Pro forum. . . )

Chase

 

[MSastre]

I did just the firmware update long ago on my Mac Pro 5,1 (still have not installed HS on it, but will), and the firmware update has not interfered with any of my other drives with older OSs on them. You should be GTG.

 

[nanaandbump]

Awesome! Thanks so much for the quick reply! Ill give it a shot.

 

[Jethro!]

May I ask how you flashed your MP 4,1 to 5,1? Still running 10.8.5 on my 2009 MP (because everything WORKS), but I'd like (better: need?) to upgrade to High Sierra at some point. Thx.

 

[toomanydatsuns]

May I ask how you flashed your MP 4,1 to 5,1? Still running 10.8.5 on my 2009 MP (because everything WORKS), but I'd like (better: need?) to upgrade to High Sierra at some point. Thx.

This should get you started:
http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,852.0.html

 

[h9826790]

AFAIK, the oldest OS tested with MP51.0085.B00 firmware is 10.6.7.

Someone said 10.6.4 doesn't work anymore. But it's possible to run the 10.6.7 installer, and then further update to 10.6.8.

And anything on or after 10.7.3 is definitely fine. (10.7.3 was the original OS shipped with the 2012 Mac Pro. And since High Sierra only official support 2012 cMP but not the easier model. Therefore, even the firmware update may kill 10.6 support. It won't kill 10.7.3. Otherwise, all the recovery disc shipped with the 2012 Mac Pro will become rubbish.)

 

[nanaandbump]

Hey Jethro,

Im afraid I did all of that stuff a few years ago, and I can't even remember what I had for lunch yesterday. . . I did the whole CPU upgrade thing on my own, which was terrifying, but worked fantastically! Rummaging through my personal notes from that upgrade, I found this:

"Actually I found the solution on Netkas.org. The site was down for a good portion of today and I wasn't abel to search their archives.

Apparently all you have to do is this:

Download the Mac Pro Firmware update 1.5 (MacProEFIUpdate.dmg) from Apple: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1321

With the downloaded .dmg on the desktop, double click to mount the image.

Run the Mac Pro 2009-2010 Firmware Tool. It will automatically locate the package and proceed to the next phase of reboot and power switch hold until the little light above the power button begins to flash or you hear a long beep.

There is no need to rename or replace anything. The Firmware Tool grabs the package and proceeds with the process with no 5570 error message.

Hope this helps other Mac Pro 2009 users who are attempting this firmware update."

That is the last note I have, so I'm guessing that was what worked for me. I checked that link at it seems to still work. I can't recall if I was on 10.8 or 10.9 at the time, or if that even matters. I know its a pain, but you may want to read through most of that netkas forum that toomanydatsuns recommended to make sure. Another thought is that perhaps with this new High Sierra firmware thing, you can skip all of that mess and just go straight to the newest firmware. I have no idea on that though, so please do some research there!

Also FYI in case you are worried about doing these upgrade, I have had amazing success with my 09 Mac Pro and OS 10.10.5. My computer runs just as well (actually quite a bit better) than it did the day I got it! Not bad for an almost 10 year old computer. . . I still plan on getting a lot more out of this rig as well, and would highly recommend doing some upgrades yourself!

Chase

 

[SketchyClown]

Firmware updates will not prevent you from installing an "older" OS version. You can always downgrade as far as the original version the machine came with.

 

[nanaandbump]

Thanks everyone for the advice! I went for it and all seems golden. . . For now . . . For others that may be concerned, I was indeed still able to run Yosemite 10.10.5 after the firmware update on an 09 Mac Pro. Also 10.13.4 seems to be running well.
One thing I did struggle with was getting a new Samsung 860 Evo NVME PCIe drive to work as a system / boot disk with High Sierra. I have heard that others have been able to get this working, but I tried numerous different methods with no success. . . All is well though because I was able get the drive up and running as a regular / non-boot disk, and it is performing fantastically! Anywho, there is plenty of info floating around on trying to get that Samsung working as a boot drive, so no need to delve into it in this thread.
Thanks again folks!
Chase

 

[h9826790]

Thanks everyone for the advice! I went for it and all seems golden. . . For now . . . For others that may be concerned, I was indeed still able to run Yosemite 10.10.5 after the firmware update on an 09 Mac Pro. Also 10.13.4 seems to be running well.
One thing I did struggle with was getting a new Samsung 860 Evo NVME PCIe drive to work as a system / boot disk with High Sierra. I have heard that others have been able to get this working, but I tried numerous different methods with no success. . . All is well though because I was able get the drive up and running as a regular / non-boot disk, and it is performing fantastically! Anywho, there is plenty of info floating around on trying to get that Samsung working as a boot drive, so no need to delve into it in this thread.
Thanks again folks!
Chase

1) 860 Evo is a SATA SSD, not NVMe. If it's a real 860 Evo, it should be natively bootable without any work around.

2) If you are using a NVMe SSD, most likely you are running a 960 Evo, but not 860 Evo. In that case, the easiest way to make that bootable in High Sierra is to combine the 960 Evo with another SATA SSD, and form a fusion drive. Once the NVMe is combined with a bootable drive, the whole fusion drive will become bootable. By using a SATA SSD, you shouldn't able to feel the NVMe is slowed down too much (at least won't affect the system responsiveness).

 

[nanaandbump]

h9826790 you are right, it's a 960 Evo NVME, not an 860. My bad. I have heard people are having success with it by itself as a boot drive, not as a hybrid. Its ok though I have found a better use for it anyway!

 

[h9826790]

h9826790 you are right, it's a 960 Evo NVME, not an 860. My bad. I have heard people are having success with it by itself as a boot drive, not as a hybrid. Its ok though I have found a better use for it anyway!

Yes, you can use boot re-direction to boot from NVMe, however, you can't upgrade the OS. Every time you upgrade the OS, you must upgrade from a normal bootable drive and then clone the whole thing back to the NVMe. I personally don't think it's worth.

For boot drive, all you need is the low latency. So, pair it up with a SATA SSD won't affect the boot drive's performance.

And if you pair up a 1TB NVME with a 120GB SATA SSD. The whole fusion drive is pretty much the NVMe anyway. Even sequential speed won't be affected normally.

 

[syops]

Yes, you can use boot re-direction to boot from NVMe, however, you can't upgrade the OS. Every time you upgrade the OS, you must upgrade from a normal bootable drive and then clone the whole thing back to the NVMe. I personally don't think it's worth.

For boot drive, all you need is the low latency. So, pair it up with a SATA SSD won't affect the boot drive's performance.

And if you pair up a 1TB NVME with a 120GB SATA SSD. The whole fusion drive is pretty much the NVMe anyway. Even sequential speed won't be affected normally.

Borrowing firmware from the MP 6.1 the MP 4.1, 5.1 can boot and update normally using PCIe NVMe. 1.5 GB/s!!! ;-)

 

[h9826790]

Borrowing firmware from the MP 6.1 the MP 4.1, 5.1 can boot and update normally using PCIe NVMe. 1.5 GB/s!!! ;-)

View attachment 824329

What are you talking about? Borrowing DXE or firmware?

And that post was about boot re-direction, not firmware mod. 5,1 can boot from NVMe now with the official firmware 140.0.0.0.0, no need to borrow anything. And of course can perform OS update as well.