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Booting Catalina from RAID Zero in MAC Pro 2019

I plan to install 2 SSD's (via PCIE slots and configured as RAID Zero) in my 2019 Mac Pro. Can I boot Catilina from this RAiD Zero? I know I have to allow it to boot from an external drive, but will it work if it is RAID Zero?

Posted on Jan 30, 2020 2:21 AM

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any insights here?


Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support


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Posted on Jan 30, 2020 9:38 AM

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Question marked as Helpful

Jan 30, 2020 6:37 AM in response to innes163

Macs do not like to boot from any RAID drives, and the Installer does not want to Install on one.


The speedup you get from a RAID when the drives are already SSD drives is very, very small. And that speedup is seen when reading the second and subsequent blocks from exactly the same large file. MacOS is built from thousands of tiny files.

Jan 30, 2020 7:30 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Many thanks.


I was looking for a 4TB SSD as I have large photo collection etc and am having issues with running of a different drive from OSX. So I was looking to RAID together two 2TB SSDs to give enough space to run everything on one drive. Not finding any M2 4 TB SAD’s yet! But looks like this will not work without significant work around.


Thanks again.



Jan 30, 2020 7:56 AM in response to innes163

You should be able to boot from a small, fast SSD drive for system-like functions, and place your large files on other larger drives.


The Mac has always supported lots of drives, not just "the one drive". Lots of Video editors have been using a multi-drive setup like this for a long time. Source on one drive, Destination on a different drive, libraries or scratch (If used) on its own drive, give better performance because your workflow is not waiting for previous I/O to complete before proceeding.


If you can think of a more pointed question that would help you understand how to do this, please post it.

Jan 30, 2020 8:16 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks. Again I appreciate your help with this.


I have tried on a number of occasions to put my photos collection on to an "external" drive. However it is also linked to my iCloud account and I have never got it to work properly. I though have another look and post another question if I cannot find a solution.


For now I will try with a single 2TB SSD running OSX and my Photos library with everything else on other discs. I can just squeeze this in to 2TB at the moment.

Booting Catalina from RAID Zero in MAC Pro 2019

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