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MP 7,1 Original 2TB Apple SSD as Storage

MacBS

MacBS

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 3, 2024
10
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Hello everyone,
I just bought a 2019 Mac Pro, 16 cores, 192GB of RAM, and a 2TB original Apple SSD. I installed an OWC Accelsior 4M2 PCI card with four SSDs, which is more than enough for me and works very well. Could someone please tell me if I can use the original 2TB Apple SSD as storage without a bootable system?
Thanks everyone.
 
MacBS said:
Hello everyone,
I just bought a 2019 Mac Pro, 16 cores, 192GB of RAM, and a 2TB original Apple SSD. I installed an OWC Accelsior 4M2 PCI card with four SSDs, which is more than enough for me and works very well. Could someone please tell me if I can use the original 2TB Apple SSD as storage without a bootable system?
Thanks everyone.
Click to expand...

You still need a working macOS installed to the native storage, including Recovery, to manage the Mac Pro - could be a minimal one.

Without macOS installed inside the native storage, you won't even boot PCIe or external storage. If you erase it, you'll need to enter DFU and restore it using another Mac via Apple Configurator.
 
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Thanks for the reply,
Last question: Can my 2 TB SSD be partitioned into two,
leaving one bootable drive on 1 TB and the next 1 TB for storage?
Thank you.
 
MacBS said:
Thanks for the reply,
Last question: Can my 2 TB SSD be partitioned into two,
leaving one bootable drive on 1 TB and the next 1 TB for storage?
Thank you.
Click to expand...

You can't separate the modules, the array is made and managed internally by the T2, but you can always partition the 2TB.

You can make a 100GB macOS install and let 1.9TB for data.
 
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I do not see any good reason to create a separate storage partition on the 2TB original, unless you are going to use some other OS than macOS?
Bootcamp will let you install Windows, but not Linux/FreeBSD.

Speed
Creating a separate storage partition will not be faster.

Security
1. If the macOS partition should fail to boot in the future, you would still be forced to use DFU mode to try to revive it. Revive will let you reinstall macOS and keep your files.

2. Should revive fail, you would have to do a full restore in DFU mode. Just as you would if you replaced the original SSD modules.
And your files will not be restored.
 
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Thank you,
This solves my problem. I have another question, if I may.
I have an AMD Radeon Pro 580X installed. I'd like to know if this GPU
is sufficient for new systems to come, or what card model you think
would be a reasonable one, given that I develop websites with BBEdit,
Visual Studio Code, Photoshop, and Illustrator.
 
Regulus67 said:
I do not see any good reason to create a separate storage partition on the 2TB original, unless you are going to use some other OS than macOS?
Bootcamp will let you install Windows, but not Linux/FreeBSD.

Speed
Creating a separate storage partition will not be faster.

Security
1. If the macOS partition should fail to boot in the future, you would still be forced to use DFU mode to try to revive it. Revive will let you reinstall macOS and keep your files.

2. Should revive fail, you would have to do a full restore in DFU mode. Just as you would if you replaced the original SSD modules.
And your files will not be restored.
Click to expand...
 
Hello,
Yes, I'm using another system on the OWC Accelsior 4M2, which has four SSDs.
This shouldn't be a problem. I don't use Windows.
Thank you.
 
MacBS said:
... I have an AMD Radeon Pro 580X installed.
Click to expand...
MacBS said:
... I don't use Windows.
Click to expand...
You should read or watch Greg's advice on GPUs, if you plan to use non-MPX graphic cards.
MPX cards are better if you need additional Thunderbolt ports.

Upgrade Guide

And I believe you will get better answer in a new thread. The interest in Mac Pro Apple SSDs are probably miniscule on this forum.

edit:
Your display or displays that you are using, or planning to use, will probably dictate what graphic card is better for you.
 
Last edited:
tsialex said:
Without macOS installed inside the native storage, you won't even boot PCIe or external storage. If you erase it, you'll need to enter DFU and restore it using another Mac via Apple Configurator.
Click to expand...

Hmm, interesting, my internal is has no OS installed on it, not even a recovery partition by the looks of things:

Code: 
/dev/disk2 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk2s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk3         1.0 TB     disk2s2

When mounted the partition shows up as:

Code: 
/dev/disk3 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +1.0 TB     disk3
                                 Physical Store disk2s2
   1:                APFS Volume Internal                684.0 KB   disk3s1
 
mattspace said:
Hmm, interesting, my internal is has no OS installed on it, not even a recovery partition by the looks of things:

Code: 
/dev/disk2 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk2s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk3         1.0 TB     disk2s2

When mounted the partition shows up as:

Code: 
/dev/disk3 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +1.0 TB     disk3
                                 Physical Store disk2s2
   1:                APFS Volume Internal                684.0 KB   disk3s1
Click to expand...

Extremely bad idea. Like I wrote, you gonna need Apple Configurator to revive your Mac Pro…
 
tsialex said:
Extremely bad idea. Like I wrote, you gonna need Apple Configurator to revive your Mac Pro…
Click to expand...

I do have Recovery HD on one of my SATA internals, but I'll take it under advisement as a project. I really don't want to dick around with doing an OS install if there's a better option, like just copying a recovery partition.
 
tsialex said:
Once the NVRAM goes wrong, you can only boot from the T2, no PCIe/external storage.
Click to expand...

Ahh right, and after further examination, that Recovery HD (on a drive considered "internal") appears to be an old High Sierra era one...

I wonder what the best OS strategy is for making the emergency boot - Catalina, so it can always get back to the Machine's initial config, or is that likely to have issues by virtue of age...
 
Last edited:
mattspace said:
Ahh right, and after further examination, that Recovery HD (on a drive considered "internal") appears to be an old High Sierra era one...
Click to expand...

Whenever you have time, make a small macOS install to the T2 native storage.

"Anything that can go wrong will go wrong."
 
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mattspace said:
I wonder what the best OS strategy is for making the emergency boot - Catalina, so it can always get back to the Machine's initial config, or is that likely to have issues by virtue of age...
Click to expand...

I don't think that you can install Catalina via Apple Configurator.

Btw, Configurator is already pesky when doing what is designed to, imagine when trying to install a non supported macOS release to a still supported Mac.

Remember that is not just macOS that is gonna be installed, but Bridge-OS.
 
tsialex said:
I don't think that you can install Catalina via Apple Configurator.

Btw, Configurator is already pesky when doing what is designed to, imagine when trying to install a non supported macOS release to a still supported Mac.

Remember that is not just macOS that is gonna be installed, but Bridge-OS.
Click to expand...

I assume if I install an older version of macOS (Catalina was the original shipping OS for 2019s) to the internal now, it's not going to overwrite the newer BridgeOS in the process, right?

*starwars meme*

Is your concern about Configurator that it may have issues when dealing with a machine that has an OS version on it that predates the current versions that Configurator can install?
 
mattspace said:
I assume if I install an older version of macOS (Catalina was the original shipping OS for 2019s) to the internal now, it's not going to overwrite the newer BridgeOS in the process, right?
Click to expand...

Current bridgeOS will be re-installed by Configurator and I had several issues in the past trying to install unsupported macOS releases with Internet Recovery. Configurator does what it wants to do, not what you wanna do.

I don't remember a time that this process was smooth.

mattspace said:
*starwars meme*

Is your concern about Configurator that it may have issues when dealing with a machine that has an OS version on it that predates the current versions that Configurator can install?
Click to expand...

May have?!?
 
tsialex said:
Current bridgeOS will be re-installed by Configurator and I had several issues in the past trying to install unsupported macOS releases with Internet Recovery. Configurator does what it wants to do, not what you wanna do.
Click to expand...

Right, but I'm not using Configurator - what I'm going to do this week, is just run a standard OS install to the internal storage, to put a recovery partition on it What I want to do with that, is for it to be the most minimal macOS install possible.

I presume installing Catalina isn't going to hose my Ventura-era BridgeOS?
 
mattspace said:
Right, but I'm not using Configurator - what I'm going to do this week, is just run a standard OS install to the internal storage, to put a recovery partition on it What I want to do with that, is for it to be the most minimal macOS install possible.
Click to expand...

Since external boot is already enabled, should work. The issue is that if something goes wrong how you gonna recover from it.

mattspace said:
I presume installing Catalina isn't going to hose my Ventura-era BridgeOS?
Click to expand...

I'd get a Mac with Configurator and the USB-C cable that works ready.

There is zero documentation on the relation of versions of bridgeOS/iBridge and macOS releases. I tracked each new release of bridgeOS for a time, but stopped years ago.
 
Btw, I just looked my links of past bridgeOS versions from 2019/20 and Apple removed most of it.
 
Please do a report on how you do the install @mattspace

tsialex said:
Btw, I just looked my links of past bridgeOS versions from 2019/20 and Apple removed most of it.
Click to expand...

Do you think one could save a copy of the bridgeOS and use that upon a reinstall?
Or will Configurator fail if it doesn't connect to Apple's server and pull the latest bridgeOS?
 
Regulus67 said:
Do you think one could save a copy of the bridgeOS and use that upon a reinstall?
Click to expand...

You can always save the bridgeOS Restore IPSW file, but will be useless once the certificate is expired.

Regulus67 said:
Or will Configurator fail if it doesn't connect to Apple's server and pull the latest bridgeOS?
Click to expand...

Configurator always check the Apple's servers. There are other tools to restore it developed by 3rd party or stolen from Apple, but let's keep on topic.
 
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