HP EliteBook Hackintosh 10.13 (MacOS High Sierra): APFS to (JHFS+) SSD RAID0 Best Practices + The Solution ?

Posted in Hackintosh, Troubleshoot

Has it already been 72+ hours ago that I posted this a picture on my FB timeline about a mysterious blue envelop? So … what have I been doing all the time, enjoy its contents?

Thus lets start with answering that

What exactly was in the envelope? And why I overpaid for it?!

As I’m well aware it can be held through ebay for at least 50% cheaper.

SSD

https://hddcaddy.com/en/content/6-what-is-hdd-caddy

Costs: $30 incl. shipping

that I paid $30 incl. shipping for. And probably could have purchased.

Seems so so what have I been doing all this time?! Well not working. Trying to not get overly

HP EliteBook with MacOS 10.13 High Sierra @ APFS

I didn’t get the memo, nor watched any Keynotes speeches on a new filesystem. Thus didn’t even know until a week ago (when prepping for this migration) that I had Apple’s newest file system running at my beloved Hackintosh. But cause I was all psyched up with a further speed increase of 50-100% with my budget hardware.

HP EliteBook (2570P) Hardware Overview

Brand: Hewlett Packard (HP)
Model: EliteBook 2570P 12.5″ Ultraportable
First announced: May 2012
Chipset: 4th Generation Mobile Intel Ivy Bridge (QM77)
CPU*: upto Intel Core i7-3540M
RAM: upto 16GB DDR3-1600 SODIMM
GPU: Intel HD4000 (max. resolution 2560x1440pixels)
Physical: 27 x 305 x 299 mm @ 1.63KG

*) that’s what the official spec sheet mentions. The chipset supports upto upto Intel Core i7-3840QM (clue). However that does entail voltage / bus speed modding to cope with the TDP / power. So

My specific Hackintosh configuration

Ordered mine second hand (instead of reburhished at 1st Chrismas day 2017)

CPU: i5-3320M 2.5GHz (3.5Ghz maximum)
RAM: 2×4=8GB RAM
HDD: Seagate Momentus 500GB 5400rpm SATA harddisk

January 2017: HP 2570P upgrades

Replaced the HDD with a Samsung EVO 850-series SATA3 SSD of 500GB. Why not a newer a SSD with a newer mSATA, M.2 or PCI-e nvme interface? Because this is a laptop from 2012. Price paid (for a brand new one): @ Bol.com

February 2017: HP 2570P upgrades

The HSDPA showed up under network properties, however the Intel ‘Centrino’ didn’t.

To answer the question

What was in the blue envelope?

HP EliteBook 2570P compatible HDD Caddy

A HDD ‘caddy’ which fits in the space that’s left-over after sliding out the DVD-/+RW ODD (Optical Disk Drive). And put a 2nd Samsung EVO 850-series 500GB SATA3 SSD in. Which opens up the potential for RAID0.

The reason thats exciting is .. that you might remember I had the 3rd generation predecessor of the HP 2570P in 2016: HP 2560P. The perfect laptop from every angle, except max. 802.11n 150Mbit WiFi (due to HP whitelock BIOS).

Windows RAID0 Setup

BIOS preparation

Power on the computer
Press ‘ESC’-key for boot menu
Press ‘F10’-key to enter BIOS
Navigate to System Conguration menu
Device setup; chang
Check the “CTRL-I” below it.

You might also like: Top 5 Patchmanagement Cloud Software solutions for IT system managers to Patch and Deploy Apps

That right there was my first problem. As I could select RAID instead of AHCI, but didn’t see the “CTRL-I” checkbox below it. Not even after a reboot. Solution: go to System Configuration -> “Set security level”. And just make everything viewable. Then it will show.

MacOS High Sierra / Hackintosh Setup

Prerequisites: > 8GB USB pendrive with MacOS 10.13 High Sierra install (with Clover)
Time required: a lot … if you have trouble following instructions

APFS or … not?

RAID0 setup

From terminal execute:

diskutil appleRAID APFS disk0 disk1

Clone 1x APFS HDD to APFS RAID0 SSDs

Using Carbon Copy Cloner

Install from Scratch?

APFS Troubleshooting

APFS error: 108

APFS error: cannnot create

APFS error:

JHFS+ (Journaled HFS) RAID0 setup

Although this was substantially easier, it still took me 3 full blown migrations (and even more installations) before I had figured this one out. And it all clicked for me when I saw this 16-minute video.

Prerequisites

A working MacOS through eSATA / USB connected HDD / SSD. And Clover Configurator.

RAID0 HFS setup

Didn’t even know it was possible through DiskUtility’s RAID assistant.

Search for “Disk Utility” in Spotlight and run it.
…

Copy APFS contents to RAID0 HFS

Yes, this is actually possible all thanks to ‘CCC’.

Copy & customize EFI

diskutil list

Pay close attention to it’s output! Mine might not be the same as yours!

XXX

diskutil mount /dev/disk0s1

diskutil mount /dev/disk1s2

(Best Practices) Appendix

Through literally 36+ hours of Googling for answers, I’ve come accross quite some useful resources, that I will include below to use at your own disgression.