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DIY Fusion Drive on Early 2011 MacBook Pro

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paul117

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 17, 2012
127
0
Hello guys,
I have an early 2011 MacBook Pro 15" 2.0ghz model, I got a data doubler for my MBP and I've installed my sea gate momentus XT 500gb hdd into it and put my 120gb Kingston Hyperx ssd into the primary hdd spot, I've wiped both drives (backup done first) and setup using diskutil command line... Line I've used is
"Diskutil cs create fusiondrive disk0 disk1" this successfully creates the fusion drive, then I enter this commend
"Diskutil cs createvolume (UUID) Jhfs+ Macintosh HD 100%" this goes through its process till about 60% then I get one of 2 errors (if in recovery) "error -69780: Unable to Create a new CoreStorage Logical Volume" if in OS X using my backup disk I get this error "an error has occurred rediscovering the disk" when this happens under OS X disk utility sees the Macintosh HD volume but it is unmounted... When trying to mount it dick utility (GUI) hangs then gives me an error basically saying there is a problem and to try verifying the disk.... This hangs the whole computer... If I try to erase it gives me an error saying something about being unable to contact LVM, I tried taking both drives out and connecting them via external hdd to my Mac mini server and the MMS read the drives as the fusion drive and I was able to format the disk and mount it..... Now I put the drives back into my laptop I can no longer boot mountain lion..... Not through USB not through my backup and not my MMS using netinstall...
Please help me?? What am I doing wrong I have followed 2 different tutorials and no luck.

Thanks in advance
 
Last edited:
Pretty sure that with the early 2011 cMBP-15 and maybe even later 2011 cMBP-15s you need a SATA-II drive in the optical port as they will not reliably support SATA III even if you technically have a SATA III interface there. I believe that the 2011 cMBP-13 will run a SATA III drive reliably, but only at SATA II speeds, unless it has a SATA III controller in which case you're fine.

This is based on findings from OWC who have documented the problem on their website (see the section about their data doubler).
 
Paul117,

You are having problems because of a few things. The first is your implementation of the Fusion Drive. You SHOULD NOT use the Seagate Momentus XT as part of Fusion Drive because it itself contains a 4GB SSD buffer, which may be used by the CoreStorage setup causing problems for CS. Rather you need a regular drive. The Fusion Drive specs (from what I've read) only allow ONE SSD and ONE HD drive on ONE partition to be setup for it to work. You have two SSDs in that make-up so you must change it.

Secondly I would use only a select brand of HDs and SSDs for the Fusion Drive (a la Samsung & OCZ only), because of the problems I have experienced both on a Hackintosh and real Mac in creating the drive. From what I understand the chipset you are using (early 2011 15" MBP) is problematic - I tried using an Intel 520 240GB and it failed miserably on both setups. I have discovered that if you use say a 240GB OCZ Agility 3 & say a 500GB/1TB SATA 3 Hitachi HD however it shouldn't be a problem.
Thirdly to get your system back up and running (inc. Fusion) I would suggest the following:

1) Change your SSD and HD to the above drives I mentioned (as they work).
2) If you have a backup, USB boot from your backup drive on your laptop using Option key.

3) Download Recovery Disk Assistant for your OS and create a USB Installation stick.

4) Boot up with the stick, and using Terminal, Secure Erase and then format your drives so that no key exists on them (creating the -69780 error). https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4074706?start=0&tstart=0 Note SSDs will take about 2 minutes to erase while HDs take a few hours.

5) After erasing, reboot your system from the stick and install OSX onto your SSD. This is to ensure that the Recovery HD partition is on your SSD (which is essential!).

From here on you have two options. If you want your system back to normal, boot up with your USB backup and clone it to your SSD. If you want Fusion, continue with the Terminal input using the USB Recovery stick to create your two Fusion Drives.

Once OSX is installed, reboot into Recovery HD on your SSD and run Terminal, running 'diskutil list' to check your drive positions. You will be wanting to create the Fusion Drive on part of the SSD but retaining Recovery HD so that you have a recovery partition (which cannot be part of Fusion). This is something like 'diskutil cs create FUSION disk0s2 disk1s2' (without the quotes).

Once that is done, run diskutil cs list to check the CoreStorage volume and UUID. You want to make note of the the LVG (Logical Volume Group) UUID and then type (replacing the your-LVG-UUID below with your LVG number)

diskutil cs createVolume your-LVG-UUID jhfs+ "Macintosh Fusion" 100%

This will create your Fusion drive (if it all works out without errors). You can then quit Terminal and continue to install OSX and migrate your backup drive to the Fusion Drive, and finally have a fully working FD system.
 
Last edited:
Why do you think the the recovery HD partion is essentiel? You could always use the USB stick or an external drive if you need to repair etc. the drive.
 
Middleman-77 said:
You SHOULD NOT use the Seagate Momentus XT as part of Fusion Drive because it itself contains a 4GB SSD buffer, which may be used by the CoreStorage setup causing problems for CS. Rather you need a regular drive. The Fusion Drive specs (from what I've read) only allow ONE SSD and ONE HD drive on ONE partition to be setup for it to work. You have two SSDs in that make-up so you must change it.
Click to expand...

I am getting ready to create a Fusion Drive, and I have a Momentus XT. This is the first I'm hearing that this drive might be a problem.

AFAIK, the SSD in the drive is invisible to the system and not accessible directly over SATA. As long as thats true, I don't see the problem. CoreStorage treats it like any other drive, and it does its own caching internally.

Do you have any more information on this?
 
mikey8270 said:
I am getting ready to create a Fusion Drive, and I have a Momentus XT. This is the first I'm hearing that this drive might be a problem.

AFAIK, the SSD in the drive is invisible to the system and not accessible directly over SATA. As long as thats true, I don't see the problem. CoreStorage treats it like any other drive, and it does its own caching internally.

Do you have any more information on this?
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's just ridiculous fears from people who haven't done their research. OS X would never know that there was flash storage on the Momentus, as it's not even presented to the host system. Everything involving that is handled by the drive's internal controller. Should work fine in a Fusion Drive setup.

jW
 
The problem is not the Momentus XT. I think it's that you specified the size as 100% and not as and actual GB size, a few of the how-to guides I read when setting up mine said they had problems with the 100% command but everything worked ok with 1100GB or whatever the drives hold.
 
I, too, am having the same issues on a customers Early 2011 MBP 15" (2.0/16GB/500GB). I have tried everything from building the LVG via Target Disk Mode to my rMBP.

I can get the LVG and Volume created via Target Disk Mode to my rMBP, but once I try to boot to a Mountain Lion installer that is on a 8GB MBA Flash Drive, the system hangs and will not go past the grey screen with spinning gear.

This seems to an issue with the Early 2011 15" from what research I've done. I successfully built everything on my rMBP (with two LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt enclosures, 1 256GB Samsung 830 & 1TB Samsung) so I know the hard drives that I'm using are not the issue. I have tried downgrading the firmware and have been unsuccessful with that as well.

This seems to an issue with the chipset that is used in the Early 2011 and/or something in EFI.
 
MBP early 2011 15" 8.2 success create Fusion drive

I've successfully create Fusion drive on my MBP early 2011 8.2 flawlessly using a CD Caddy bought from eBay.
I've use the existing 750GB Toshiba stock apple HDD to use in the DVD bay and it work flawlessly.

Existing drive was a liteon 256GB SATA6 OEM SSD
DVD Bay Apple Stock Toshiba 750GB 5400rpm HDD
 
feins said:
I've successfully create Fusion drive on my MBP early 2011 8.2 flawlessly using a CD Caddy bought from eBay.
I've use the existing 750GB Toshiba stock apple HDD to use in the DVD bay and it work flawlessly.

Existing drive was a liteon 256GB SATA6 OEM SSD
DVD Bay Apple Stock Toshiba 750GB 5400rpm HDD
Click to expand...

Awesome! I just created my fusion drive using an OCZ Agility3 240GB SSD and Apple stock Hitachi 500GB 7200rpm HDD using the Data Doubler from OWC mac sales
 
Middleman-77 said:
Paul117,

You are having problems because of a few things. The first is your implementation of the Fusion Drive. You SHOULD NOT use the Seagate Momentus XT as part of Fusion Drive because it itself contains a 4GB SSD buffer, which may be used by the CoreStorage setup
Click to expand...


No.

The operating system has no control of the flash in the hybrid drive. It is maintained internally by the drive itself. The OS has no idea whether there is flash on the drive or not.

That said... because teh momentus XT is a SATA3 drive...

I suspect you've run into the SATA 3 optibay issues, this is the exact reason I'm not running a fusion setup in my machine (and bought a hybrid 750gb instead - I did a lot of research into this prior).

There's a page (google) from some guy who ended up making soem RF shielding for his optibay cable - apparently the wifi antenna interferes with the optibay cable.


If you can find a SATA 2 hard drive, use that in the optibay and sell off the momentus XT, as it will not work reliably in your optibay, fusion drive setup or not.
 
feins said:
I've successfully create Fusion drive on my MBP early 2011 8.2 flawlessly using a CD Caddy bought from eBay.
I've use the existing 750GB Toshiba stock apple HDD to use in the DVD bay and it work flawlessly.

Existing drive was a liteon 256GB SATA6 OEM SSD
DVD Bay Apple Stock Toshiba 750GB 5400rpm HDD
Click to expand...

I have an MBP 8.2 with an 500GB @ 7200RPM and I'm thinking about trying a Fusion Drive solution. I am very concerned though with all the discussion around Fusion Drive and Early 2011 MBPs. Could you be more specific on the equipment you used, the procedure you followed and the utilities?

Thanks in advance.
 
dangello2002 said:
I have an MBP 8.2 with an 500GB @ 7200RPM and I'm thinking about trying a Fusion Drive solution. I am very concerned though with all the discussion around Fusion Drive and Early 2011 MBPs. Could you be more specific on the equipment you used, the procedure you followed and the utilities?

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
1st i was also a bit sceptical after reading so many had fail to create fusion drive on the MBP 15" Early 2011 but since im replaced the SSD from the day i bought the MBP and the 750GB HDD are left collecting dust why not just get a caddy and give it a go.

I've bought a OEM Liteon 256GB SSD LAT-256M2S long ago from ebay.
http://www.liteonssd.com/25q-sata-mlc-ssd/item/root/25q-m2s-mlc.html

The Apple Stock Toshiba 750GB 5400rpm drive was removed and install to a caddy install into the DVD bay.

by following the article and understand the concept and that's it.
http://www.macworld.com/article/2014011/how-to-make-your-own-fusion-drive.html
Below are the step i toke each step completed without any error.

diskutil list (list my device, my case its dev/disk1 and dev/disk2)
diskutil coreStorage create disk1 disk2 (this will fuse disk1 and disk2 together)
diskutil coreStorage create myLogicalVolGroup disk1 disk2 (this create the Logic Group and will create the UUID)
diskutil coreStorage createVolume "place ur UUID created just now" size% (This is to create the Logic Volume and the size, for me i just create 100%)

Done and ready to restore from TimeMachine

Actually just 4 step and everything are ready where just restore back from TimeMachine and that's it. whole process just toke about 1 1/2hr with 170GB of data restore from TimeMachine using Firewire 800.:D
 
feins said:
1st i was also a bit sceptical after reading so many had fail to create fusion drive on the MBP 15" Early 2011 but since im replaced the SSD from the day i bought the MBP and the 750GB HDD are left collecting dust why not just get a caddy and give it a go.

I've bought a OEM Liteon 256GB SSD LAT-256M2S long ago from ebay.
http://www.liteonssd.com/25q-sata-mlc-ssd/item/root/25q-m2s-mlc.html

The Apple Stock Toshiba 750GB 5400rpm drive was removed and install to a caddy install into the DVD bay.

by following the article and understand the concept and that's it.
http://www.macworld.com/article/2014011/how-to-make-your-own-fusion-drive.html
Below are the step i toke each step completed without any error.

diskutil list (list my device, my case its dev/disk1 and dev/disk2)
diskutil coreStorage create disk1 disk2 (this will fuse disk1 and disk2 together)
diskutil coreStorage create myLogicalVolGroup disk1 disk2 (this create the Logic Group and will create the UUID)
diskutil coreStorage createVolume "place ur UUID created just now" size% (This is to create the Logic Volume and the size, for me i just create 100%)

Done and ready to restore from TimeMachine

Actually just 4 step and everything are ready where just restore back from TimeMachine and that's it. whole process just toke about 1 1/2hr with 170GB of data restore from TimeMachine using Firewire 800.:D
Click to expand...

That sounds great! I think I'll give it a try and, in case it fails, I'll just go into a dual hard drive configuration with the OS+Apps in the SSD and the rest in the HDD. Thank you so much for your clear and coherent reply! Cheers!
 
dangello2002 said:
That sounds great! I think I'll give it a try and, in case it fails, I'll just go into a dual hard drive configuration with the OS+Apps in the SSD and the rest in the HDD. Thank you so much for your clear and coherent reply! Cheers!
Click to expand...

Ooh just forgot that need to boot mountain lion 10.8.2 vua USB flash drive. You can create a bootable mountain lion installation via a 8gb flash drive using this http://liondiskmaker.com/ just download the latest mountain lion n create it to a USB flash. Boot using the USB flash n from there launch terminal to create ur fusion drive.
 
feins said:
Ooh just forgot that need to boot mountain lion 10.8.2 vua USB flash drive. You can create a bootable mountain lion installation via a 8gb flash drive using this http://liondiskmaker.com/ just download the latest mountain lion n create it to a USB flash. Boot using the USB flash n from there launch terminal to create ur fusion drive.
Click to expand...

Yes, that part is straight forward! I was more concerned about the hardware configuration and the terminal commands, to be honest. Thanks!
 
Does anyone know if FusionDrive plays nice with bootcamp?
I'm waiting for my Data Doubler and a 120GB Mercury Extreme SSD in the mail, and am gathering info to be ready for it.
Basically, I want to get the best performance out of that SSD and the stock 7200rpm 500GB that came on my early 2011 15".
I've narrowed my choices down to 2:
1. Use fusion drive, then install bootcamp using the helper, just like I would with a single drive setup.
2. Install OSX and Windows on the SSD and use the HDD for storage.

Now, with 2, I would ideally have the HDD in a format accessible for both OSX and Win, so that both OSs could share the files stored in there (music, videos, downloads, etc.) HFS and NTFS are out of the question since they would probably require additional drivers, and I want things to work nicely and natively. That leaves exFAT as the only viable, efficient option (to my knowledge.)
Any thoughts?
 
Win8 don't play nice with fusion drive yet. As win8 don't play nice withthe new hsf+v4 as you won't see the Mac partition.
 
Anyone experiencing lower battery life?? Im not sure how the mechanism for the fusion drive works but is there alot of file swapping? I hear my HDD booting up alot even if im just browsing the web. My battery life has taken a significant hit.. I loose about 1% every 2 to 3 min with a dim screen and just browsing the web, and of course I hear the HDD booting up all the time.
 
wickedny5 said:
Anyone experiencing lower battery life?? Im not sure how the mechanism for the fusion drive works but is there alot of file swapping? I hear my HDD booting up alot even if im just browsing the web. My battery life has taken a significant hit.. I loose about 1% every 2 to 3 min with a dim screen and just browsing the web, and of course I hear the HDD booting up all the time.
Click to expand...

Well, the fact that you're running 2 drives instead of one means you're gonna be using more juice. There IS an option somewhere to make the drives spin down when inactive, but I can't recall where it is. However, if you want to manually tell your HDD to shut down for a while, just unmount it from the disk utility (keep in mind that to access it again you'll have to mount it again through disk util)

----------
feins said:
Win8 don't play nice with fusion drive yet. As win8 don't play nice withthe new hsf+v4 as you won't see the Mac partition.
Click to expand...

I see, so then I suppose I'll make two partitions on the SSD and use the HDD as shared media space. Do you think exFAT would be a good format for this?
 
iVikD said:
Well, the fact that you're running 2 drives instead of one means you're gonna be using more juice. There IS an option somewhere to make the drives spin down when inactive, but I can't recall where it is. However, if you want to manually tell your HDD to shut down for a while, just unmount it from the disk utility (keep in mind that to access it again you'll have to mount it again through disk util)
Click to expand...

I've had this setup (SSD main bay HDD in optical bay) since 2011 and never seen such a hit in battery life, I do keep the the option on for the hard drive spin down. What im not sure about is the mechanism for the Fusion drive, before the only time my HDD would spin up was when i opened my iPhoto, iMovie and iTunes as in I only kept media in my HDD and would point those apps to create Libraries in the HDD. Now with the Fusion Drive it seems that the HDD is being used for many other things and causing it to spin up all the time. Looks like im going to have to go back to my old setup, hate being tied down to my charger all the time. As I type this battery percentage is dropping 1% around every 2 min.. just using Safari.
 
wickedny5 said:
I've had this setup (SSD main bay HDD in optical bay) since 2011 and never seen such a hit in battery life, I do keep the the option on for the hard drive spin down. What im not sure about is the mechanism for the Fusion drive, before the only time my HDD would spin up was when i opened my iPhoto, iMovie and iTunes as in I only kept media in my HDD and would point those apps to create Libraries in the HDD. Now with the Fusion Drive it seems that the HDD is being used for many other things and causing it to spin up all the time. Looks like im going to have to go back to my old setup, hate being tied down to my charger all the time. As I type this battery percentage is dropping 1% around every 2 min.. just using Safari.
Click to expand...

Ah so the drain started when you switched to Fusion. I don't have much experience on the subject, but if I'm not mistaken, the system is moving recently used files to the SSD for fast access, and them moving them back to the HDD for storage, which could account for it spinning up often. Even with this in mind, however, a 1% drop every couple of minutes is a bit steep.
 
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