Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

football751

macrumors newbie
Aug 2, 2004
23
0
College Station, TX
Just wanted to post up that I succeeded in creating a fusion drive in my Mid 2010 MBP 15" last night.

My setup:
Optical Bay Adapter: Bought off ebay from nimitz**
HDD: Western Digital Scorpio Black 500GB
SSD: Samsung 830 Series 128GB
SuperDrive Enclosure: Bought off ebay from nimitz**

First thing I did was redownload ML 10.8.2 and recreate my bootable USB install HDD. While doing this I made sure my Time Machine backup was current.

Then I installed the optical bay adapter. It's metal and seems very well made: the drive fits great and the adapter fit perfectly in my MBP. I kept the HDD in the stock location and put the SSD in the adapter.

Once I had this done, I used the FD guide from Macworld, which I found to be very thorough. I just followed along and everything went according to plan.

After I made the FD I installed OS X with no issues and had it transfer my TM backup over. That was it, and I now have ~640GB of FD space.

First impression: excellent. Safari, System Preferences, Mail, etc. now open with one bounce, whereas before it would take 3-4, maybe 5 bounces. iPhoto now opens in about 1/2 the time it used to. I haven't tried to force it to move files between the drives, but I can tell the applications are definitely on the SSD. I've never used a laptop with a traditional SSD setup before, so I can't compare it to that, but compared to my 7200 RPM HDD it is much, much faster at everyday tasks. Overall I am very happy with the setup, and would recommend it for anyone who doesn't want to/care enough to deal with organizing files on separate SSD and HDD partitions. Not that that's overly difficult, but this is just so easy.

One issue I'm having is that while I was able to restore from TM during the initial setup, and Migration Assistant can still see my old TM backup, Time Machine itself does not see them. I can select the drive in System Preferences, but when I open TM it just shows my current state. I'd like for it to just continue backing up from where it left off before I created the FD. Is this possible? And if so, how? If it's not, and I need to start fresh, how do I access my old backups? When I try to manually open the backups on the drive it says "this volume is unavailable" or something similar.
 

football751

macrumors newbie
Aug 2, 2004
23
0
College Station, TX
Well I managed to get my old TM backups associated with my new Fusion Drive. Not sure what the issue was, or exactly how I fixed it. I removed all Backup disks from TM preferences, then ran Cocktail to clear the cache, rotate the logs, and repair disk permissions. Then did a reboot and plugged in my TM disk. This time when I selected it, it asked for my encryption password. Still showed "oldest backup" as "none," but when i opened TM I could browse and restore from all my backups. After I did a backup, it then correctly showed that my last backup was in August 2012.

One odd thing is that even though it associated my now-FD-enabled MBP with the backups of my non-FD MBP, the first FD backup still appeared to be a complete backup (based on its size), and not just an incremental backup. I assume this has to do with the new FD.
 

topgunn

macrumors 68000
Nov 5, 2004
1,555
2,059
Houston
Well, it is one month ago today that I setup my 27" iMac with a "fusion drive" per the instructions I found here. I have had zero problems and my performance doesn't seemed to have dropped at all from the manually tiered solution I was using before (i.e. I managed my own files between the SSD and HDD).
 

emir

macrumors 6502a
Apr 5, 2008
610
4
Istanbul
I just setup my fusion drive and restored form time machine on my 2010 MBP 15". Everything looking good and smooth right now.
 

mogens

macrumors regular
Jan 24, 2010
174
27
14 days now late 2009 iMac i7, 2TB HDD, samsung830 256 GB. Everything runs fast and boottime has improved to 14 sec. :)..
I wonder what will happen if the HDD gets a hardware fail and dies, will I still be able to format the SSD and start over with a new HDD?
 

emir

macrumors 6502a
Apr 5, 2008
610
4
Istanbul
Just done a shut down/ boot time test. It takes 22 seconds to shut down (10.8.2 late shutdown problem) and it takes only 29 seconds to open! It took 1 minutes and 45 seconds before the fusion drive! That is amazing!
 

topgunn

macrumors 68000
Nov 5, 2004
1,555
2,059
Houston
I wonder what will happen if the HDD gets a hardware fail and dies, will I still be able to format the SSD and start over with a new HDD?
The SSD will be fine. Like you said, just reformat, create a new fusion drive, and move on.
 

Richdmoore

macrumors 68000
Jul 24, 2007
1,956
355
Troutdale, OR
OWC is saying a stock 10.8.2 (without being the new mini) will not create a fusion drive, rather just a core storage merged drive without fusion functionality. I really hope it is not true......

http://blog.macsales.com/15617-creating-your-own-fusion-drive


Thread below:

Ron Miller
November 28, 2012 at 11:47 am
Thanks for the write-up! I’m curious, however, about the statement that this will only work with the diskutil on the new Mac Minis. There are other write-ups floating around where people have created fusion drives on older macs.

I’m curious because I would really like to install a fusion drive on my 2011 Mac Mini.

Reply
OWC Chris S.
November 29, 2012 at 11:25 am
According to our techs, when using any version of Disk Utility other than the one that came with the 2012 Mac mini, it will appear as though you have a Fusion Drive, but it will not behave as such. You would be essentially creating a standard Core Storage volume rather than Fusion. Effectively, once the SSD fills, you’re running at HDD speed for good; there is no 4GB migration or smart movement of data. That migration, of course is what Fusion is all about.

This all may change once 10.8.3 comes out. Until then, your best bet is a HDD/SSD combination with the relocated Home folder. It’ll allow you a little more flexibility in what files go where anyway (especially useful when working with larger files).

Reply
Ron Miller
November 29, 2012 at 11:56 am
Thanks for the response. On at least one website, the author did some detailed analysis showing that data did in fact automatically migrate from the SSD to the HDD and vice-versa. Do you know exactly what didn’t seem to be working with the older mac fusion drive? Is it the 4GB write cache that does not work properly?

Reply
OWC Chris S.
November 29, 2012 at 12:53 pm
As far as the source of the technology (Apple), Fusion is only available on the 2012 Mac mini and upcoming iMacs. Support for any other models is chance, at best.

Reply
 

hfg

macrumors 68040
Dec 1, 2006
3,621
312
Cedar Rapids, IA. USA
OWC is saying a stock 10.8.2 (without being the new mini) will not create a fusion drive, rather just a core storage merged drive without fusion functionality. I really hope it is not true......

http://blog.macsales.com/15617-creating-your-own-fusion-drive


Thread below:

Reply
OWC Chris S.
November 29, 2012 at 11:25 am
According to our techs, when using any version of Disk Utility other than the one that came with the 2012 Mac mini, it will appear as though you have a Fusion Drive, but it will not behave as such. You would be essentially creating a standard Core Storage volume rather than Fusion. Effectively, once the SSD fills, you’re running at HDD speed for good; there is no 4GB migration or smart movement of data. That migration, of course is what Fusion is all about.

This all may change once 10.8.3 comes out. Until then, your best bet is a HDD/SSD combination with the relocated Home folder. It’ll allow you a little more flexibility in what files go where anyway (especially useful when working with larger files).

But ... the DIY Fusion doesn't use Disk Utility to create the Fusion drive, it uses the underlying Terminal Unix commands which aren't available in the existing GUI Disk Utility other than that supplied with the 2012 machines. I think there are several articles available where adequate testing was done to show that the Fusion functionality was working properly in a DIY fusion.

I wonder if they are thinking of simple spanning of 2 drives with Disk Utility, which indeed wouldn't offer any Fusion functionality?

There may also be liability concerns on advising their customers to perform modifications at the Unix level where they can really screw up things, so they only offer methods available from the GUI OS X interface. Although, after seeing their video on how "easy" it was to install their RAM upgrade in a 21.5" 2012 iMac, I think a lot of customers may think twice about opening up their new iMac that way. I was very disappointed to see that the display required cutting through adhesive all the way around the perimeter of the iMac screen to get it open. That would certainly void any warranty you had because it would be difficult to hide ... not to mention how to re-seal it closed afterwards.
 
Last edited:

John.B

macrumors 601
Jan 15, 2008
4,192
705
Holocene Epoch
14 days now late 2009 iMac i7, 2TB HDD, samsung830 256 GB. Everything runs fast and boottime has improved to 14 sec. :)..
I wonder what will happen if the HDD gets a hardware fail and dies, will I still be able to format the SSD and start over with a new HDD?

Agree with topgunn above. As long as you have good backups, you'll be fine after a reformat/restore.

But ... the DIY Fusion doesn't use Disk Utility to create the Fusion drive, it uses the underlying Terminal Unix commands which aren't available in the existing GUI Disk Utility other than that supplied with the 2012 machines. I think there are several articles available where adequate testing was done to show that the Fusion functionality was working properly in a DIY fusion.
I hoping this gets fixed for everyone when 10.8.3 drops and Disk Utility gets updated with the Late 2012 codebase.
 

tisabmw

macrumors newbie
Dec 2, 2012
7
8
SF Bay Area
Error: 22: POSIX reports: Invalid argument

Thank you for the clearest instruction I have seen on this. However, i get the following message:

diskutil cs create Fusion disk3 disk0
Started CoreStorage operation
Unmounting disk3
Repartitioning disk3
Unmounting disk
Creating the partition map
Rediscovering disk3
Error: 22: POSIX reports: Invalid argument

Right drives. Both brand new, blank and re-formatted.

Ideas?

I had the same problem. I was using identifier 0. It worked without error when I used identifier 2.

/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *240.1 GB disk2
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk2s1
2: Apple_HFS Disk2 239.7 GB disk2s2
/dev/disk3
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.5 TB disk3
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk3s1
2: Apple_HFS Disk3 1.5 TB disk3s2

"diskutil cs create Fusion disk2s2 disk3s2"

This site was a great help as I am use to using terminal.
http://www.petralli.net/2012/10/ana...macs-with-an-ssd-and-a-traditional-hard-disk/
 

matthewadams

macrumors 6502
Dec 6, 2012
376
167
*** Update 2 ***

Ok, so I can now confirm that there is something hardware related that is causing the issue with the early 2011 15" MBP. It may possibly have something to do with the whole EFI SATA thing. Essentially, I created a fusion drive on another mac (my 2010 Macbook) via USB and was able to boot to that volume on both my iMac's (2008 and 2009) and my Macbook. The minute I attempt to boot that volume from the Macbook Pro, all boot attempts fail. The system can see the disks from the options menu, but it does not actually boot the drive. The minute I pull the drives out and stick them into another Mac, they boot just fine. So, for right now at least, if you have a early 2011 MBP 15", you may be out of luck trying to do this.

it seems to only affect the early 2011 MBP 15" with a 2,0ghz processor.
Apparently there is at least one user who got it working, though on a 2,2 ghz machine.

Update 1: According to this guy (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4568460?start=0&tstart=0 ) the whole thing also doesnt work in "Target Disc Mode" which could be a good thing, basically meaning that the whole EFI SATA mess doesnt account for the bug.
 
Last edited:

KnightWRX

macrumors Pentium
Jan 28, 2009
15,046
4
Quebec, Canada
But ... the DIY Fusion doesn't use Disk Utility to create the Fusion drive, it uses the underlying Terminal Unix commands which aren't available in the existing GUI Disk Utility other than that supplied with the 2012 machines.

diskutil is not a Unix command, it is in fact simply a command line interface to Disk Utility. If the code isn't there in 10.8.2, it's not there. If people have confirmed data migration and not just that files sit on extents on the SSD all the time anyway, then that's fine. Otherwise, maybe there is some truth than Fusion isn't quite Fusion, but merely a logical volume spanning a SSD and HHD.
 

randy98mtu

macrumors 65816
Mar 4, 2009
1,454
140
it seems to only affect the early 2011 MBP 15" with a 2,0ghz processor.
Apparently there is at least one user who got it working, though on a 2,2 ghz machine.

Update 1: According to this guy (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4568460?start=0&tstart=0 ) the whole thing also doesnt work in "Target Disc Mode" which could be a good thing, basically meaning that the whole EFI SATA mess doesnt account for the bug.

Interesting. Wondering if anyone has tried this on a MacBookPro8,3 (17") yet? I have an SSD in my drive bay and a HDD in the optical bay. I have been using them independently since I got the drive and just keeping the SSD to only OS and programs. Starting to think I should be putting perhaps the latest year of RAW images on it or something to see how it compares and if a Fusion would be any benefit.
 

hfg

macrumors 68040
Dec 1, 2006
3,621
312
Cedar Rapids, IA. USA
diskutil is not a Unix command, it is in fact simply a command line interface to Disk Utility. If the code isn't there in 10.8.2, it's not there. If people have confirmed data migration and not just that files sit on extents on the SSD all the time anyway, then that's fine. Otherwise, maybe there is some truth than Fusion isn't quite Fusion, but merely a logical volume spanning a SSD and HHD.

You are, of course, correct ... "diskutil" is not a native Unix command, but an Apple extension. I was trying to keep it simple in that post.

I was merely trying to point out that one had to use "Terminal" command line interfaces to enable Fusion rather than the user oriented GUI interface, and that a company such as OWC may not want to recommend to users that they drop to that level to perform operations that offer power, with little protection from really screwing things up.
 

Jjaro

macrumors regular
May 29, 2009
186
16
Yokosuka, Japan
Success! (But I don't know why...)

Hey all,

I have an early 2011 Macbook Pro, running OS X ML 10.8.2:

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro8,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.3 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 8 MB
Memory: 8 GB
Boot ROM Version: MBP81.0047.B27
SMC Version (system): 1.69f3
Serial Number (system): (Hid this)
Hardware UUID: (I hid this too)
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

Here are my two drives (Corsair SSD in main drive bay, and 1 TB Samsung in Optical Drive Bay):

Intel 6 Series Chipset:

Vendor: Intel
Product: 6 Series Chipset
Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 3 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.30 Supported

Corsair CSSD-F120GB2:

Capacity: 120.03 GB (120,034,123,776 bytes)
Model: Corsair CSSD-F120GB2
Revision: 2.000000
Serial Number: 11076503350003400000
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Medium Type: Solid State
TRIM Support: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
disk0s1:
Capacity: 209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)
BSD Name: disk0s1
Content: EFI
disk0s2:
Capacity: 119.69 GB (119,690,149,888 bytes)
BSD Name: disk0s2
Content: Apple_CoreStorage
Boot OS X:
Capacity: 134.2 MB (134,217,728 bytes)
BSD Name: disk0s3
Content: Apple_Boot
Volume UUID: DB092DB0-57DC-3D35-B3ED-0DD3E4B2216B

Intel 6 Series Chipset:

Vendor: Intel
Product: 6 Series Chipset
Link Speed: 3 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 3 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.30 Supported

SAMSUNG HM100UI:

Capacity: 1 TB (1,000,204,886,016 bytes)
Model: SAMSUNG HM100UI
Revision: 2AM10001
Serial Number: S2GHJ9CB103111
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk1
Rotational Rate: 5400
Medium Type: Rotational
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
disk1s1:
Capacity: 209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)
BSD Name: disk1s1
Content: EFI
disk1s2:
Capacity: 896.11 GB (896,113,139,712 bytes)
BSD Name: disk1s2
Content: Apple_CoreStorage
Boot OS X:
Capacity: 650 MB (650,006,528 bytes)
BSD Name: disk1s3
Content: Apple_Boot
Volume UUID: 5ED47930-BC09-3B93-826B-7FB5E7F40949
WINDOWS:
Capacity: 103.23 GB (103,231,258,624 bytes)
Available: 103.2 GB (103,203,602,432 bytes)
Writable: Yes
File System: MS-DOS FAT32
BSD Name: disk1s4
Mount Point: /Volumes/WINDOWS
Content: Microsoft Basic Data

And I followed these steps to create a Fusion Drive:

http://www.macworld.com/article/2014011/how-to-make-your-own-fusion-drive.html

And it worked! I have a partition layout:

/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *120.0 GB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_CoreStorage 119.7 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Boot OS X 134.2 MB disk0s3
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk1
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1
2: Apple_CoreStorage 896.1 GB disk1s2
3: Apple_Boot Boot OS X 650.0 MB disk1s3
4: Microsoft Basic Data WINDOWS 103.2 GB disk1s4
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD *1.0 TB disk2


Not sure what I did correctly, but as I said, it works so far.

Two questions:

Is is possible to see if my computer is really using the "Fusion Drive" as it is intended? As in, properly copying over files to the SSD?

Any idea what I did properly to make it work?! I just followed the instructions, not thing fancy.
 

mogens

macrumors regular
Jan 24, 2010
174
27
Looks like a typical DIY fusion drive. If it works like the FUD that comes with the new macs, no one knows.
Maybe there's somekind of secret sauce in the hardware setup used by apple, special firmware etc.
You could run " iostat disk0 disk1 1" , but I don't think that's will give the proof of a working fusiondrive.
How much data did you put on your drive? You need to exceed the size of your SSD, to see the FUD work.
 

jasonw76

macrumors newbie
May 27, 2011
15
-2
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
I did my DIY Fusion in my 2011 iMac with a 120GB OWC SSD Electra 6G and I also replaced the 500GB drive with a 3TB Seagate 7200 drive. I did the install with the OWC SSD kit, at first I was nervous but once completed I felt very comfortable and recommend you do install while watching the video on the OWC site.

In order to manage the fan speed because of the internal temp sensor on the 500GB drive I purchased HDD Fan Control (http://www.hddfancontrol.com).

After a week I am very happy with the speed and overall performance.

Load up time is surprisingly still slower then my 13" MBP 2011 which has a SSD installed, but much faster then before (21 sec).
 

Xace

macrumors newbie
Nov 22, 2012
22
0
Hey all,

I have an early 2011 Macbook Pro, running OS X ML 10.8.2:

Thank you for your report. Please let us know if you encounter any problem with your setup. Let's see if there are more successes with the 2.2 and 2.3 Ghz Early 2011 versions.
 

bikemd

macrumors newbie
Jul 3, 2012
16
0
Calgary, AB, Canada
I created a Fusion Drive with my Late 2009 27" iMac yesterday. I have a 2TB Seagate HDD as well as a Samsung 830 256GB SSD (in the optical bay) inside the unit which I "fused" following the instructions given in Macworld.

http://www.macworld.com/article/2014011/how-to-make-your-own-fusion-drive.html

Everything went smoothly with the process and now I have a volume that has 2.2TB in space. I am still in the process getting my previous files all restored using Time Machine. The "Fusion drive" seems to "work" but I have no idea if there is any easy way to test if this set-up is working the way a Fusion Drive is supposed to? ie. smartly rearranging all my files on the SSD/HDD.
 

mogens

macrumors regular
Jan 24, 2010
174
27
" but I have no idea if there is any easy way to test if this set-up is working the way a Fusion Drive is supposed to? ie. smartly rearranging all my files on the SSD/HDD.[/QUOTE]

I have exactly the same setup and wonder the same. We need to compare the DIY fusiondrive with a "real" apple fusiondrive using the same cloned harddrive setup doing the same operations, to be shure they work the same way. My FUD seems snappy , but I' m not getting the speeds seen on the 2012 mac mini. Maybe because my drive is three quarter full?
 

hfg

macrumors 68040
Dec 1, 2006
3,621
312
Cedar Rapids, IA. USA
It will be very difficult to actually see what-is-where since it is being maintained at the block level. Several links have been provided to blogs where the author did laboriously attempt to prove that the data movement of a DIY Fusion was actually occurring.

If your data is small enough to be totally on the SSD, you will likely see expected SSD speeds with most DiskTest type programs. If you are actually using the hard disk, your DiskTest speeds will probably be skewed since the written data will be cached to the SSD and then moved to the Hard Disk and will only return to the SSD when the Fusion OS determines that it should be promoted.

It may take a considerable amount of time for the Fusion drive to actually settle into the optimum mix for your computing habits.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.