MP 1,1-5,1 Mac Pro HighPoint SSD7101/SSD7103 Bootable Raid Array

[TimTower01]

Hi everyone,

sorry if this question was already answered in a reply on those numerous threads regarding those awesome (overpriced) cards.
I tried my best to read through these but maybe i slipped this information.

I want to know if it is possible to create a bootable Raid array using the HighPoint SSD7103 or preferrably the SSD7101 on a MacPro 5,1.

I know it is possible to create storage Raid volumes or use some software Raid hackery on HFS+ to get a bootable drive.

But is it possible to use hardware Raid on those cards and get into booting MacOS from the Raid volume?

Best regards
Tim

 

[tsialex]

Hi everyone,

sorry if this question was already answered in a reply on those numerous threads regarding those awesome (overpriced) cards.
I tried my best to read through these but maybe i slipped this information.

I want to know if it is possible to create a bootable Raid array using the HighPoint SSD7103 or preferrably the SSD7101 on a MacPro 5,1.

I know it is possible to create storage Raid volumes or use some software Raid hackery on HFS+ to get a bootable drive.

But is it possible to use hardware Raid on those cards and get into booting MacOS from the Raid volume?

Best regards
Tim

This question was discussed already numerous times, search is your friend…

Anyway, the last macOS version that officially supports boot from a RAID array is High Sierra.

Mojave require APFS for the main disk and don't boot from a RAID array since APFS RAID boot is not supported. You can hack it to do so, but with a gigantic problem if you force HFS+, Software Updates won't work anymore and at every update you will have to clone your array to a single APFS disk, do the updates with the single disk, then clone it back to the array.

Since it's insane to do the clone to and clone back at every update, most people use one blade as a boot disk and the other three as an array for data/scratch disk.

Edit: made clear HFS+/APFS/RAID requirements for Mojave.