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Possible to partition Bootcamp to SSD on custom fusion drive?

Can anyone advise me on installing Bootcamp on the SSD partition of a custom fusion drive for Mac Mini. I'm not sure how best to get achieve the partitioning of the disks and from what I've read it may be impossible to install bootcamp on the SSD of the fusion drive as it will be directed to the HDD according to how Bootcamp assistant partitioned the fusion drive. What I would like to do is split the fusion drive in half and have Bootcamp installed on the SSD the same way OS X would be, but from what I've read the Bootcamp partition can only installed on the HDD and impossible to partition to the SSD, or at least without having to install both OS on the SSD then split the HDD in two.


I've created a fusion drive with a 250gb SSD and the original 500gb samsung HDD, OS X is installed, backed up and I have Winclone copy of Windows 8.1 ready, I also use Paragon file system drivers for reading/writing between both systems if that is any help to how it could be partitioned.

Can anyone verify that this is it is indeed impossible to install both OS to the SSD in this manner or is it possible to partition the fusion drive as I would like to have it?

Any other suggestions as to how best install both OS is welcome.

Mac Mini 2012 i5-3210M 2.5GHz

4GB RAM

Fusion Drive - 250GB Crucial BX100 SSD/Apple HDD from Samsung

Yosemite 10.10.2

Mac mini (Late 2012), OS X Yosemite (10.10.2), Win8.1 Bootcamp Fusion Drive

Posted on Mar 2, 2015 8:35 PM

Reply
34 replies

Mar 3, 2015 1:50 AM in response to brianx87

It is definitely possible to install Windows on the SSD part using BCA and CLI commands. Apple provides an undocumented command called diskutil cs resizestack which is used in the regular Fusion drive partitioning, which has an option to choose an underlying physical drive for partitioning.


In Apple's standard Fusion drive implementation, typically, two drives are used, the first one is always (and must be) a SSD (or a faster storage device), while the second-to-nth are slower mechanical HDDs/SSDs as the necessary. There is no specific restriction whether to choose the SSD or HDD when trying to Bootcamp the Mac, but Apple puts a small 120GB SSD, and considers it too small to be split, and forces the larger 1TB+ HDDs to be used for BC. This compromises performance of Windows OS.

This is the man page of the command used

diskutil cs resizestack

Usage: diskutil coreStorage resizeStack

lvUUID|MountPoint|DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode [pvUUID] size

[part1Format part1Name part1Size part2Format part2Name part2Size

part3Format part3Name part3Size ...]

Resize both a logical volume and one of its underlying physical volumes in a

single operation. A single physical volume is always chosen for the underlying

shrink or grow, even if the logical volume's logical volume group is backed by

more than one physical volume. If you do not specify a particular physical

volume, then one is chosen for you. Note that if this is a grow operation,

this verb is limited by the physical volume's partition's room to grow.

Specifying zero as the size asks for an "automatic" grow-to-fill operation.

If this is a shrink operation, you can optionally request that new partitions

be created in the newly-formed free space gap in the partition map.

Again, note that this only resizes one of the underlying physical volumes; if

you need more sophistication in managing your topology, you should use the

separate physical and logical volume resize verbs.

Example: diskutil coreStorage resizeStack

11111111-2222-3333-4444-555555555555 10g JHFS+ New 1g


Notice the highlighted part. The underlined part shows where BCA chooses the HDD rather than the SSD. If you have a larger SSD, you should use that.


Winclone is useful when you have an existing Windows installation, and want to preserve it, rather than a clean fresh install.


Please see Can't create Windows partition on roll-your-own Fusion drive as an example of this.


You can post the details of your current Fusion drive setup using the following Terminal commands. For "sudo" commands, enter your password when prompted, which will not be echoed back to you. You may be warned about sudo's improper use and potential data loss.


diskutil list

diskutil cs list

sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0

sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk1

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

sudo fdisk /dev/disk1

Mar 3, 2015 7:07 AM in response to Loner T

Thanks for the quick reply and the good news! I tried the following command according to the same input in the thread you linked and came back with the following error. I tried making the BC partition 20/40/125/400g sizes with the same error returned but would like it OS X and BC to have an even split of the SSD/HDD respectively.


OSX-Recovery:~ brianx87$ diskutil cs resizeStack 06E3F0E9-E108-40B2-B6C3-2E64F102179B 58D1E10A-08B1-4792-A04C-734C9DD2AC38 742g fat32 BOOTCAMP 125g

The Core Storage Logical Volume UUID is 06E3F0E9-E108-40B2-B6C3-2E64F102179B

Started CoreStorage operation

Checking prerequisites for resizing Logical-Physical volume stack

Error: -69742: The requested size change for the target disk or a related disk is too small; please try a different disk or partition, or make a larger change

OSX-Recovery:~ brianx87$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *250.1 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_CoreStorage 249.7 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_Boot Boot OS X 134.2 MB disk0s3

/dev/disk1

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk1

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1

2: Apple_CoreStorage 499.2 GB disk1s2

3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.1 MB disk1s3

/dev/disk2

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: Apple_HFS Minibase *742.4 GB disk2

Logical Volume on disk0s2, disk1s2

06E3F0E9-E108-40B2-B6C3-2E64F102179B

Unencrypted Fusion Drive

/dev/disk3

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *750.2 GB disk3

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk3s1

2: Apple_HFS Backup Library 674.8 GB disk3s2

3: Apple_HFS TimeMachine Minibase 49.9 GB disk3s3

4: Apple_HFS OSX Yosemite 24.3 GB disk3s4

5: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk3s5

OSX-Recovery:~ brianx87$ diskutil cs list

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)

|

+-- Logical Volume Group 6696174C-9545-404C-9023-14E5D1C6D825

=========================================================

Name: [Fusion]

Status: Online

Size: 748963364864 B (749.0 GB)

Free Space: 122880 B (122.9 KB)

|

+-< Physical Volume 3D176755-54F6-400D-9C29-61D29025197D

| ----------------------------------------------------

| Index: 0

| Disk: disk0s2

| Status: Online

| Size: 249715376128 B (249.7 GB)

|

+-< Physical Volume 58D1E10A-08B1-4792-A04C-734C9DD2AC38

| ----------------------------------------------------

| Index: 1

| Disk: disk1s2

| Status: Online

| Size: 499247988736 B (499.2 GB)

|

+-> Logical Volume Family 4736D236-D014-4696-A180-B8093CC21778

----------------------------------------------------------

Encryption Status: Unlocked

Encryption Type: None

Conversion Status: NoConversion

Conversion Direction: -none-

Has Encrypted Extents: No

Fully Secure: No

Passphrase Required: No

|

+-> Logical Volume 06E3F0E9-E108-40B2-B6C3-2E64F102179B

---------------------------------------------------

Disk: disk2

Status: Online

Size (Total): 742403211264 B (742.4 GB)

Conversion Progress: -none-

Revertible: No

LV Name: Minibase

Volume Name: Minibase

Content Hint: Apple_HFS

OSX-Recovery:~ brianx87$ sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0

Password:

gpt show: /dev/disk0: mediasize=250059350016; sectorsize=512; blocks=488397168

gpt show: /dev/disk0: PMBR at sector 0

gpt show: /dev/disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: /dev/disk0: Sec GPT at sector 488397167

start size index contents

0 1 PMBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 487725344 2 GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

488134984 262144 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

488397128 7

488397135 32 Sec GPT table

488397167 1 Sec GPT header

OSX-Recovery:~ brianx87$ sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk1

gpt show: /dev/disk1: mediasize=500107862016; sectorsize=512; blocks=976773168

gpt show: /dev/disk1: PMBR at sector 0

gpt show: /dev/disk1: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: /dev/disk1: Sec GPT at sector 976773167

start size index contents

0 1 PMBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 975093728 2 GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

975503368 1269760 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

976773128 7

976773135 32 Sec GPT table

976773167 1 Sec GPT header

OSX-Recovery:~ brianx87$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

Disk: /dev/disk0 geometry: 30401/255/63 [488397168 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 488397167] <Unknown ID>

2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

OSX-Recovery:~ brianx87$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk1

Disk: /dev/disk1 geometry: 60801/255/63 [976773168 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 976773167] <Unknown ID>

2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused


The commands I used to create the Fusion drive I found here as I noticed the recovery partition becomes unusable at some point so give these commands a try to see if the recovery remained intact and bootable, maybe a different command line should be run to setup the fusion drive?


sudo diskutil cs create Fusion disk0 disk1s2

sudo diskutil cs createVolume [UUID here] jhfs+ Minibase 100%

Mar 3, 2015 8:23 AM in response to brianx87

The first UUID is the LV which is 742GB. The second UUID is the HDD which is (disk1s2 - 499 GB).


The first size (742g) in your command should be the new size of the LV Minibase. Your are only reducing it by 7Gb (749GB - 742GB), which is incorrect. Also, the underlying physical volume being resized is the HDD, but you want the SSD here - 3D176755-54F6-400D-9C29-61D29025197D not the HDD - 58D1E10A-08B1-4792-A04C-734C9DD2AC38 .


diskutil cs resizeStack 06E3F0E9-E108-40B2-B6C3-2E64F102179B 58D1E10A-08B1-4792-A04C-734C9DD2AC38 742g fat32 BOOTCAMP 125g


The correct command should be


diskutil cs resizeStack 06E3F0E9-E108-40B2-B6C3-2E64F102179B 3D176755-54F6-400D-9C29-61D29025197D 624g fat32 BOOTCAMP 0g

The 0g should create a partition of the size you want (749 - 125 = 624Gb).


Please try again and paste the screen shot of the execution.

Mar 3, 2015 9:46 AM in response to Loner T

Ok that command has worked great, from what I understand is that there is now a BC partition on the SSD so from here is it possible to expand BCs size with the HDD?


The numbers have changed as I resized it a few times.

User uploaded file


Is there also a reason as to why the BC partition doesn't show on the Fusion drive in disk utility?


User uploaded file

Mar 3, 2015 10:13 AM in response to brianx87

brianx87 wrote:


Ok that command has worked great, from what I understand is that there is now a BC partition on the SSD so from here is it possible to expand BCs size with the HDD?

No. You cannot have Bootcamp volume span a SSD and HDD, both. Windows has no concept of a CoreStorage volume. You can partition the HDD and create a RAID set, but it does not make much sense to do it. RAID will make much more sense if you have two identical physical disks.


In DU, you are looking at the LVG (see the Type line). Can you click on the Bootcamp entry in the left pane? DU scale the right hand partition pane. Is there a scroll bar in the right hand pane?


Can you also post the output of sudo fdisk /dev/disk0?

Mar 3, 2015 10:23 AM in response to Loner T

That seems to be the impossibility which I was reading about but no mater, you've helped me create a sizeable SSD for my BC install for which I'm very thankful for so thank you for the help Loner T.


I'm not sure what you mean here? "DU scale the right hand partition pane. Is there a scroll bar in the right hand pane?"


User uploaded file

User uploaded file

Mar 3, 2015 11:27 AM in response to brianx87

brianx87 wrote:


That seems to be the impossibility which I was reading about but no mater, you've helped me create a sizeable SSD for my BC install


Use BCA and click on "USB installer..." (if it exists) and "Download software" and build your USB Installer (the 2012 Mini should let you use an external Optical Drive or just a single USB2 flash drive with both Windows software and BC drivers).


Once you have the USB2 stick (do not use a USB3 because Windows does not have drivers for USB3), click on the last option 'Install...' and plug in the USB2 and pick this partition on the SSD as the destination. Format it as NTFS when prompted. Your MBR is correct and ready for Windows.



I'm not sure what you mean here? "DU scale the right hand partition pane. Is there a scroll bar in the right hand pane?"


User uploaded file

If you click on the Fusion LVG, and click on Partition tab, the right-hand pane is not drawn to scale. It will have a scroll bar on the right edge of the right hand pane, that you can use to scroll down.

Mar 3, 2015 9:40 PM in response to Loner T

SMC reset didn't do anything from what I can see and now I can on longer access the HFS+ partitions on my disks using Paragon HFS+ driver through WIn8.1 which is a big issue for me, I require it to share audio production and music content between systems. Do you have any idea as to what would be causing the difference?


These are the commands I've ran, after which I installed a time machine backup followed by running the WIn8 installer from usb, formatting the BC partition then rebooting to OS X and installing a Winclone backup

dskutil cs create Fusion disk0 disks2

diskutil cs createVolume lvgUUID jhfs+ Minibase 100%

diskutil cs resizeStack lvgUUID disk0s2UUID 624g fat32 BOOTCAMP 125g

Mar 3, 2015 9:49 PM in response to Loner T

Here are the commands results again that you asked for previously.


OSX-Recovery:~ brianx87$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *250.1 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_CoreStorage 130.8 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_Boot Boot OS X 134.2 MB disk0s5

4: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 118.9 GB disk0s4

/dev/disk1

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk1

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1

2: Apple_CoreStorage 499.8 GB disk1s2

3: Apple_Boot Boot OS X 134.2 MB disk1s3

/dev/disk2

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: Apple_HFS Minibase *624.0 GB disk2

Logical Volume on disk0s2, disk1s2

B58A4673-4194-4A1E-AFB6-B0042BE21374

Unencrypted Fusion Drive

/dev/disk3

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *750.2 GB disk3

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk3s1

2: Apple_HFS Backup Library 624.8 GB disk3s2

3: Apple_HFS TimeMachine Mini 99.9 GB disk3s3

4: Apple_HFS OSX Yosemite 24.3 GB disk3s4

5: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk3s5

OSX-Recovery:~ brianx87$ diskutil cs list

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)

|

+-- Logical Volume Group 17DB151E-02E1-4DAA-864E-2E74FF3699E0

=========================================================

Name: Fusion

Status: Online

Size: 630560129024 B (630.6 GB)

Free Space: 122880 B (122.9 KB)

|

+-< Physical Volume 7556CD29-C013-40BE-9A6E-D226E763FC7C

| ----------------------------------------------------

| Index: 0

| Disk: disk0s2

| Status: Online

| Size: 130796240896 B (130.8 GB)

|

+-< Physical Volume CF15B171-EC8D-4598-892D-70957F4AF5A7

| ----------------------------------------------------

| Index: 1

| Disk: disk1s2

| Status: Online

| Size: 499763888128 B (499.8 GB)

|

+-> Logical Volume Family F823AFC4-DB50-4478-9FE1-F7F5C8C183B4

----------------------------------------------------------

Encryption Status: Unlocked

Encryption Type: None

Conversion Status: NoConversion

Conversion Direction: -none-

Has Encrypted Extents: No

Fully Secure: No

Passphrase Required: No

|

+-> Logical Volume B58A4673-4194-4A1E-AFB6-B0042BE21374

---------------------------------------------------

Disk: disk2

Status: Online

Size (Total): 623999975424 B (624.0 GB)

Conversion Progress: -none-

Revertible: No

LV Name: Minibase

Volume Name: Minibase

Content Hint: Apple_HFS

OSX-Recovery:~ brianx87$ sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0

Password:

gpt show: /dev/disk0: mediasize=250059350016; sectorsize=512; blocks=488397168

gpt show: /dev/disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0

gpt show: /dev/disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: /dev/disk0: Sec GPT at sector 488397167

start size index contents

0 1 MBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 255461408 2 GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

255871048 262144 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

256133192 1976

256135168 232261632 4 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

488396800 335

488397135 32 Sec GPT table

488397167 1 Sec GPT header

OSX-Recovery:~ brianx87$ sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk1

gpt show: /dev/disk1: mediasize=500107862016; sectorsize=512; blocks=976773168

gpt show: /dev/disk1: PMBR at sector 0

gpt show: /dev/disk1: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: /dev/disk1: Sec GPT at sector 976773167

start size index contents

0 1 PMBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 976101344 2 GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

976510984 262144 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

976773128 7

976773135 32 Sec GPT table

976773167 1 Sec GPT header

OSX-Recovery:~ brianx87$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

Disk: /dev/disk0 geometry: 30401/255/63 [488397168 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 409639] <Unknown ID>

2: AC 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 409640 - 255461408] <Unknown ID>

3: AB 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 255871048 - 262144] Darwin Boot

4: 0B 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 256135168 - 232261632] Win95 FAT-32

OSX-Recovery:~ brianx87$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

Disk: /dev/disk0 geometry: 30401/255/63 [488397168 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 409639] <Unknown ID>

2: AC 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 409640 - 255461408] <Unknown ID>

3: AB 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 255871048 - 262144] Darwin Boot

4: 0B 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 256135168 - 232261632] Win95 FAT-32

OSX-Recovery:~ brianx87$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk1

Disk: /dev/disk1 geometry: 60801/255/63 [976773168 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 976773167] <Unknown ID>

2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

Mar 4, 2015 5:03 AM in response to brianx87

brianx87 wrote:


SMC reset didn't do anything from what I can see and now I can on longer access the HFS+ partitions on my disks using Paragon HFS+ driver through WIn8.1 which is a big issue for me, I require it to share audio production and music content between systems. Do you have any idea as to what would be causing the difference?


These are the commands I've ran, after which I installed a time machine backup followed by running the WIn8 installer from usb, formatting the BC partition then rebooting to OS X and installing a Winclone backup

dskutil cs create Fusion disk0 disks2

diskutil cs createVolume lvgUUID jhfs+ Minibase 100%

diskutil cs resizeStack lvgUUID disk0s2UUID 624g fat32 BOOTCAMP 125g

Did you have run these commands more than once, or are you documenting the steps to get this far? The native Apple HFS driver installed on Windows does not allow access to CS volumes (aka Fusion drives). If Paragon supports access to HFS+ and CS volumes both, you may want to ask them what is happening. I am not aware of Paragon HFS+ for Windows 10 supporting CS volumes? Has this ever worked in the past. If the MBR has been manipulated by Paragon, and the CS volume was made to 'look' like HFS+, that is very likely to break as soon as a new software upgrade from Apple arrives.


The outputs you have posted look as expected.

Mar 4, 2015 10:42 AM in response to Loner T

I destroyed and rebuilt the fusion drives a few times but also to document incase I made a mistake in the process, in some instances I formatted the drives from DU an used sudo on the CS volume command but the outcome always remained the same so how is it I'm not having the same results as yourself!


I can't find anything to suggest that Paragon supports CS volumes but you may be correct on that anyway so I've contacted their support to find out.


The outcome of the commands is directly after the fusion has been created and before OS X is installed so installing a fresh OS X wouldn't make a difference to the partition layout that's missing BC?

Mar 4, 2015 11:18 AM in response to brianx87

Usually, a disk slice is used in the following command.

diskutil cs create Fusion disk0 disks2

The command I have used is

diskutil cs create Fusion disk0s2 disks2

Using the full disk also includes the BC part and is a strange setup.


Notice the following in your diskutil cs list output

+-< Physical Volume 7556CD29-C013-40BE-9A6E-D226E763FC7C

| ----------------------------------------------------

| Index: 0

| Disk: disk0s2

| Status: Online

| Size: 130796240896 B (130.8 GB)

Possible to partition Bootcamp to SSD on custom fusion drive?

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