SOLVED Making new internal pcie ssd my default macintosh HD

[gordysun]

Looking for help to get my machine to recognise my new pcie ssd to display as macintosh hd, rather than mounted drive (Mac Pro 3,1, os x catalina). I made the original spinning platter hard drive my back, that the one showing up on the desktop with the macintosh hard drive icon. also in system profiler. It's probably a bit of OCD but i would just feel better if my main drive was not displayed and interpreted as external, especially in system profiler.
Any help appreciated.
Gordon

 

[TonyAguila]

Looking for help to get my machine to recognise my new pcie ssd to display as macintosh hd, rather than mounted drive (Mac Pro 3,1, os x catalina). I made the original spinning platter hard drive my back, that the one showing up on the desktop with the macintosh hard drive icon. also in system profiler. It's probably a bit of OCD but i would just feel better if my main drive was not displayed and interpreted as external, especially in system profiler.
Any help appreciated.
Gordon

I had one of those, the 3,1 Pro, then I replaced it with the 5,1. I don’t know if my solution will apply to yours, but I ended up getting a couple of SSD PCI cards, so all four of my original bays were still usable. When I upgraded to the 2018 Mac mini, I simply pulled out all the drives (SSDs and HDs), loaded them in a couple of Thunderbolt external cases, and life went on like nothing really happened. I mothballed the MP, just waiting for the opportunity to bring it over to an Apple Store for recycling. If I remember right, it had 64 gibibytes of RAM and a metal graphics card to support Mojave. I think it was Mojave. Been a while.

Anyway, to get back on topic, the SSDs on the PCI carriers behaved no differently from any internal Macintosh HD. All my other four hard drives had all data, no system. Aside from the metal graphics card, I think those PCI SSD cards will work fine in a MP3,1. Those PCI cards were from OWC.

 

[gordysun]

Thank you Tony
I'm having fun here alright with upgrading the old machine - first time trying this stuff - learning loads - wifi card installed, new ssd in place and memory upgraded - just waiting on new graphics card now.
To confirm yes i have the new sad installed and working fine on the pie card sonnet tech. see attached
My query is really just about how the new cards show p in the system profiler and on the desktop i.e. as removable drives, while the old spinning hd drive Now called backup) is still being referred to as the main drive i.e. using the macintosh hd icon while the new SSD which i am booted in is shown in the orange external drive icon. Not a big issue in the grand scheme of things, just curious about it and if i have missed a trick with the swapping over of the drives. The old spinning drive is still in the the first of the 4 sata hard drive trays.
Anyway, thanks again for replying.

 

[gordysun]

sorry for the typos above, autocorrect is changing ssd to sad and pcie to pie lol

 

[TonyAguila]

sorry for the typos above, autocorrect is changing ssd to sad and pcie to pie lol

That’s ssd—oops! Sad. Autocorrect is the bane of my existence, being intimately involved in the publishing industry.

Anyway, if you go to Computer in Finder (⇧⌘C) and select view options (⌘J), your current startup volume, regardless of name, should be on top as Startup Volume, with the metallic drive icon, be it a hard drive or SSD.

By the way, if memory serves right, what is the latest version OS that your MP3,1 can run? Before I changed over to the 5,1, it was running El Capitan.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hi,

It sounds like it is giving the SSDs the orange external drive icon, because they are connected via the Sonnet Temp SSD PCIe card and not directly to the built-in SATA bus connectors. That is also why it shows the original drive at mount point / and the SSDs at mount points /Volumes.

It is actually showing the Startup Drive correctly as Gordons SSD, since it is shown at top in the Finder Desktop view. The other two are then listed alphabetically. The gray hard drive icon is just generic for internal bus connected drives and not specific for Macintosh HD or Startup Drive.

You won't be able to change the System Info information, unless you move the SSDs to the built-in SATA drive connectors. You can change the icon by opening the Get Info window of the BackUp drive, click the generic drive icon, copy, then paste over the orange drive icon in the Get info window of the other drives.

C

 

[gordysun]

That’s ssd—oops! Sad. Autocorrect is the bane of my existence, being intimately involved in the publishing industry.

Anyway, if you go to Computer in Finder (⇧⌘C) and select view options (⌘J), your current startup volume, regardless of name, should be on top as Startup Volume, with the metallic drive icon, be it a hard drive or SSD.

By the way, if memory serves right, what is the latest version OS that your MP3,1 can run? Before I changed over to the 5,1, it was running El Capitan.

Thank you Tony, Yes El Capitan.

The original spinning hard drive (grey icon) is reading as local volume (makes sense - its on the first bay of the original data bays) and my new pcie SSD is reading as startup volume but with orange mounted drive icon. Is it because the new sad is installed on the pie slot rather than one of the original 4 bays. I only went with pcie as i heard it would deliver faster read / write speeds but i could be wrong on that. Interestingly, my second ssd (clone of my old macbook pro drive with snow leopard) on the same sonnettech pcie card is described as removable.

I'll get there.

First world problems eh!

 

[gordysun]

Hi,

It sounds like it is giving the SSDs the orange external drive icon, because they are connected via the Sonnet Temp SSD PCIe card and not directly to the built-in SATA bus connectors. That is also why it shows the original drive at mount point / and the SSDs at mount points /Volumes.

It is actually showing the Startup Drive correctly as Gordons SSD, since it is shown at top in the Finder Desktop view. The other two are then listed alphabetically. The gray hard drive icon is just generic for internal bus connected drives and not specific for Macintosh HD or Startup Drive.

You won't be able to change the System Info information, unless you move the SSDs to the built-in SATA drive connectors. You can change the icon by opening the Get Info window of the BackUp drive, click the generic drive icon, copy, then paste over the orange drive icon in the Get info window of the other drives.

C

Cheers C,
I was just coming around to thinking that maybe being the reason. I will pop the ssds or at least the Main one into the second bay nd see what happens. To be honest, i only decided to got with the Sonnet Temp SSD PCIe card as i was getting advice that r/w speeds would be better than installing on the built-in SATA bus connectors. But maybe that isn't true and i just wasted money on that Sonnet Temp SSD PCIe card, but it's all learning.

Or i might just get over the fact the icon is orange and not be so OCD about it lol

Thanks a mill for the information. This forum is fantastic. Helping newbies like myself. Really appreciate it.

 

[TonyAguila]

Thank you Tony, Yes El Capitan.

The original spinning hard drive (grey icon) is reading as local volume (makes sense - its on the first bay of the original data bays) and my new pcie SSD is reading as startup volume but with orange mounted drive icon. Is it because the new sad is installed on the pie slot rather than one of the original 4 bays. I only went with pcie as i heard it would deliver faster read / write speeds but i could be wrong on that. Interestingly, my second ssd (clone of my old macbook pro drive with snow leopard) on the same sonnettech pcie card is described as removable.

I'll get there.

First world problems eh!

Gordy, can you try setting the view to list view and Group By > Kind? Not sure if the OS version makes a difference, but what I have is:

Both Macintosh HD and Monterey HD are system volumes. Notice also the different icon for Time Machine drives. The rest, even though they are a combination of APFS volumes on HDs and SSDs, they all have the orange attached drive icons. All of the external drives, HDs and SSDs, are Thunderbolt 3 connected.

 

[gordysun]

Thanks again for coming back with suggestions. Tried that - no luck but honestly it's not something I'm going to get stuck on to much. The machine works and that's all that really matters. My only concern was that with it being read as external drive it wouldn't be as fast and also you could easily eject it by accident but I'm working away here on it now and the "eject" option is not coming up any more (for some reason) so it's all good.

My theory for the sad being read as a external drive, and I think ianother person on the forum mentioned it too, is because i have the new ssd drives connected via PCIe cards, rather than directly to the built-in SATA bus connectors (original 4 bays), which i suspect your two drives are.

I've done a quick change of the drive icons, purely to appease my OCD lol and let it go. Thanks for all your time and help. You're a gent. Best and thanks again Tony.

Gordon

 

[TonyAguila]

Thanks again for coming back with suggestions. Tried that - no luck but honestly it's not something I'm going to get stuck on to much. The machine works and that's all that really matters. My only concern was that with it being read as external drive it wouldn't be as fast and also you could easily eject it by accident but I'm working away here on it now and the "eject" option is not coming up any more (for some reason) so it's all good.

My theory for the sad being read as a external drive, and I think ianother person on the forum mentioned it too, is because i have the new ssd drives connected via PCIe cards, rather than directly to the built-in SATA bus connectors (original 4 bays), which i suspect your two drives are.

I've done a quick change of the drive icons, purely to appease my OCD lol and let it go. Thanks for all your time and help. You're a gent. Best and thanks again Tony.

Gordon

I guarantee, try as you might, you will not be able to eject the volume that is running the system. The only way is to physically disconnect the drive from the Mac while running. So, don’t worry about it. Cheers!