Velocity solo x2 boot issue

Sorry, your post wasn't clear.

Are you trying to install a fresh copy of ML on the striped RAID? I would put the HD back in and run ML installer and then install that to the SSD. Once everything is complete, restart and make sure your SSD stripe is set as the startup disk. Then shut down and remove your HD and boot into your SSD ML install.

You must have not made the ML USB properly.

Also note that if you install ML on a RAID you will lose the Recovery partition as well as FileFault, fyi. So if you ever need to go into the recovery partition you will need to put in a ML install USB disk or DVD-R or make a new recovery partition on another disk (there are instructions available online).

pyzon said:

Yes a fresh install, Mac Pro came with lion which I upgraded to ml using the USB stick made from a download from the App Store of ml tHis works fine.

To use the ssd striped raid This what I followed:

.booted from USB stick and installed ml onto the striped array.(reason I booted from usb was because I had already tried this while already booted into ml)
.rebooted and got chime then nothing further.
.to get in I need to break the array or remove the PCIe card

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The way I did it was, I didn't even set up the RAID in ML.

I just:

1. Booted off ML (I made a DVD-R, Single Layer [It's possible to fit ML on a single layer disk, but USB is easier...needs to be 8GB])
2. Made the RAID0 via Disk Utility (2 Splices total)
3. Exited Disk Utility
4. Ran Mountain Lion install on that RAID0 partition. It gives a warning about the loss of the Recovery mode and FileVault (I don't mind)
5. Rebooted, no problems. Works perfectly.

You should make the USB again, here's a good guide.
http://9to5mac.com/2012/07/25/want-to-make-a-mountain-lion-usb-stick-or-sd-card-installer-heres-how/

Hm, you didn't mention you had a second SSD set up, there might have been some type of conflict with the second set up.

In any case, I'm glad you have it working now.

OS X doesn't care which partition it installs on, it's not that picky.

By the way, I enabled TRIM on my machine and it seems to run smoother, even though I'm using RAID0.

P.S. Once you get the newer Samsung SSD's, it doesn't make sense running RAID0 anymore on these machines. They're limited to SATA II.

SDAVE said:

1. Booted off ML (I made a DVD-R, Single Layer [It's possible to fit ML on a single layer

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How did you do this?

monkeybagel said:

How did you do this?

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http://www.hightechdad.com/2012/07/...lion-os-x-10-8-installation-dvd-or-usb-drive/

Carefully follow that and it's possible

I haven't had a problem, already installed to 3 machines with the same disk. Technically, ML is below a single layer disk, but Apple made their image bigger.

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pyzon said:

ok should probably be a bit more clear what I am doing.

I have two Intel 520 SSD 120GB, and one Apricorn Velocity X2 PCIe card

The X2 should provide SATA III speeds.

I've mounted one SSD onto the X2 and connected the other SSD via the 2nd Data adapter on the card and it's drawing power from the optical bay port 2.

I want to install Mountain Lion in a RAID 0 configuration of the two SSD's giving me a ML Boot Disk of 240GB.

I cannot get this to work, I am able to install ML on a single SSD on the PCIe Card which boots fine but this is not RAID 0 (single SSD).

When I boot from a USB stick with ML, I setup the RAID 0 in Disk Utility and install ML to the RAID 0. After a reboot of the MAC i get a chime and grey screen....so it's only working with a single SSD..no RAID..

I'm resorting to the DVD install now, shrunk the image to fit on a single Layer DVD and will try that approach now ...

Click to expand...

That is very weird. It might have to do with the Apricorn Velocity card. Maybe you can contact them? Regardless, they can't do much.

Here is another thing you can do, but bear with me, it might take some time (and in theory it SHOULD work). If you have the time, give this a try:

1. Take out all drives from the system, even the Velocity PCIe card.
2. Put the 2 SSD's in bay 1 and 2 (might have to use a SATA+Power cable, or if you have the 2.5" to 3.5" converter, you're good to go. Or use the 2 Optical SATA ports (2009 MP and up), or the 2 ODD SATA ports (If you have a 2008 Mac Pro)
3. Boot off your USB and launch Disk Utility
4. Erase all partitions (to start from scratch)
5. Make a RAID 0 (splices for each), make sure it shows 240GB Total and format your RAID0 as HFS+ (Journaled)
6. Install ML from your USB drive (it will give you an error regarding Recovery mode and Filevault, ignore that)
7. After you're done, boot into OS X and see if all's working fine.
8. Turn off system.
9. Reconfigure both your drives to the way you had it with the Velo x2, ie, one on the PCIe board and one in the Optical bay via the extra SATAIII port on the Velo x2 (I wouldn't mount it just now, just leave it hanging to see if it works).
10. Start your machine to see if it boots into OS X, if it does, you're golden. If it doesn't, I would suggest that you just buy a bigger SSD (like a Samsung 830/840 Pro 256GB/512GB) and use the Velo as a SATAIII connector for the single drive and use all the other ports for mass storage (ie HDD's, etc). You can definitely resell your Intel drives or re-use it in the system as RAID 0 in the Bays for other stuff.

Hope this works out. It's a possible solution.

pyzon said:

Cheers for that i wil give it a go, right now it's game time with the kids

Also do you think an ssd on the sata initial card would be faster then both in raid 0 on sata in? Assuming the sata ii raid in slot 1 and 2 works...

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Right on, kids come first

As far as your question, if you RAID 0 fast SSD drives on SATAIII, you're not really gaining much. A really good speedy SSD (like an 840 Pro 256GB) will be so fast that it will almost hit the SATAIII caps. RAID0 makes more sense on spinning media than SSD's. Also once you get to the 25-50MB difference, you won't notice it in day to day operations, unless you're moving massive files every day.

The reason I personally used RAID0 was to get the most out of the 80GB Inte SSD's (smaller SSD's are slower than their big brothers), but if I had a single SSD like the 840 Pro I would definitely get the Velo Single and use that as an OS drive. But for now, I'm more than happy with the performance.

Glad you got it working with 2 PCIe cards. I think going this route is probably the smartest. In the future you can just use 1 SSD.

It feels nice to get more life out of 5-6 year old hardware, doesn't it?

Does anyone currently have these cards stocked?

brentsg said:

Does anyone currently have these cards stocked?

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http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/887345-REG/Apricorn_vel_solo_x2_Velocity_Solo_X2_SSD.html

No tax outside of NY.
(I think they order from Apricorn)...seems to be a special order item now.

I'm sure you can find it if you dig around a bit.

pyzon said:

Got my second one in microcenter yesterday.

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Thanks for the tip. I've got 2 on hold at Microcenter now.

Do these have batteries?

GermanyChris said:

Do these have batteries?

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No, why would they need batteries?

brentsg said:

No, why would they need batteries?

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There is an issue shipping to APO/FPO and BH photo talks about the battery issue (battery's cannot be shipped here). Amazon won't send here at all and amazon.de doesn't have any..

GermanyChris said:

There is an issue shipping to APO/FPO and BH photo talks about the battery issue (battery's cannot be shipped here). Amazon won't send here at all and amazon.de doesn't have any..

Click to expand...

Give B&H a call.

pyzon said:

Well according to Apricorn they don't recommend Raid 0 using the VELO-X2 on a Mac Pro....they couldnt give me a specific reason as their main guy was out until next Wednesday. Either way the RAID0 with one SSD on the VELO2 and the other SSD in the optical bay SATA connection worked fine, just not when running between cards..(tried 3 SATA cables). I obtained another VELO-X2 and now happily running RAID0 across the two cards with INTEL 520's 120GB each.

Maybe I should've plugged for a single larger SSD and one VELO-X2...time will tell, I have a clone of the boot drive and doing a TM backup so if everything goes Tango Uniform I should be back in business reasonable quickly (although slower.. )

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Pyzon, could you tell me what your read/write numbers are running your 2 Intel 120GB SSDs in RAID0 using the VELO-X2 cards. I currently have the exact same SSD cards but have yet to purchase the VELO cards. I'd like to compare your numbers to my setup. Just wondering how quicker everything is.