Precision T7610 Boot on NVMe support

Hi @bmcowboy ,

Thanks for your fully documented thread.

On your thread your boot experience are altered with version BIOS but the T7610 not have same BIOS.

At this time, with the lastest bios of T7610, i writing the Windows Bootloader on SATA drive (not onboard raid) and on second time Windows with full succes installer on the NVMe (Windows installer update existing bootloader with lastest installed os and won't create new bootloader partition on target disk), but at boot from the SATA drive, Windows 10 starting and ...... BSOD.

Do you have tested this solution on your T5600 with your BIOS A06 or newer ?

I testing clover bootloader tomorrow.

Regards

Hi @Enya 21X ,

Another thread here claimed different practice when using Samsung 960 Pro and 950 Pro. Not sure if same saturation applied to yours as well.

NVMe boot by Windows Bootloader needs CPU and motherboard support. It matched previous test results when I tried it on my T5600, and that's why I turn to the "Hackintosh" way. Now, with Clover bootloader, I'm able to multi-boot for Win10/VMware Server/Mac OS X from 3 different NVMe drives.

Hi @bmcowboy ,

That Works with clover, thanks!

After many months and waiting lower price on SSD, i cloned my RAID drive in to 1To PNY XLR8 CS3030 m.2 NVMe on GLOTREND PA10-RGB adapter with passive cooler.

On Windows 10 Read and Write speed are little lower than manufacturer specs, but on windows 7 cloned drive speeds are under 1600MB/s in read and write.

I have 2 PNY SSD in to CPU2 PCIe J and K slots, and one Kingston KC1000 in to CPU1 E slot, all works fine (KC1000 Windows 10 boot) .

For boot, i use clover bootloader in to SSD SATA drive (OCZ Agility 3 90GB) wired in ODD drive connector (2 on this motherboard).

For cloning, i have using dd command with usb live linux.

BIOS is up to date (A17)

Hi @Enya 21X ,

Congratulations! Wish you enjoy your machine with a totally new hard drive speed level.

May I clarify my understanding. Do you mean that Win7 on PNY CS3030 NVMe speed around 1600MB/s only? If so, it seems like the limitation of PCIe GEN2. Check out which PCIe slot the corresponding NVMe drive was installed to.

When referring to T7610 System Board Components, not all PCIe slot in GEN3. The PCIe-x16-wired-as-x4 slot next to the default GPU slot is in GEN2 only.

Besides, if you found any reply above being helpful, please consider marking it/them as solutions in order to benefit others with similar question. Thank you.

Hi @bmcowboy ,

The owner's manual have different identification than diagram in computer.

I'm using:

- ID13 (CPU2, PCIe 3.0 x16, J and K slots) for 2 PNY CS3030 SSD

- ID5 (CPU1, PCIe 3.0 x4, E slot) for KC1000 SSD.

PCIe ID3 slot is not usable beacause graphic card in to PCIe ID4 use 2 slots height.

Win 10 on these ports aren't limitation but with Win 7, for boot and data SSD (J and K slots), speeds are arround 1600MB/s in R/RW.

The KC1000 SSD have lower specs than PNY CS3030 speed

Enya, were you able to set up your system for RAID1 and still boot from a pair of NVMe drives (using Clover)?  If so, are you using a Dell RAID card?

I'd love to know how you configured all of this since I have been unable to accomplish it.

Hi @Guswah ,

As far as I know, Clover comes with EFI driver for a single NVMe drive only and still no driver for NVMe RAID at the moment. Tried using a HighPoint SSD7103 with Clover and not able to recognize it when all 4 NVMe drives in RAID1.

For Dell NVMe RAID cards like 5T20H (2 drives) or 6N9RH (4 drives) , they need PCI Express Switches support on motherboard to handle more than 1 device on a single x16 slot. Such support exit in T7810/T7820 but not T7610 series.

Why couldn't I simply put a pair of NVMe drives on adapter cards (that emulate a 2.5" SSD) and connect them via SAS to the PERC H710P card?

This seems like a mighty easy solution -- too good to be true, actually.  As long as the board recognizes the drives, then wouldn't this be a valid way to use NVMe in a RAID1 environment on an aging Dell Precision -- without the need for BIOS modding?

This is the kind of adapter I'm thinking about:

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-M-2-U-2-Adapter-SFF-8639/dp/B073W65QX6/ref=pd_bxgy_147_img_3/139-0382733-3486332?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B073W65QX6&pd_rd_r=d012b333-2aa2-4fa9-9b62-2bc49046334f&pd_rd_w=tLR0a&pd_rd_wg=tYkD0&pf_rd_p=479b6a22-70ae-47a0-9700-731033f96ce8&pf_rd_r=0Y18KTENZDRAJGQNSXJE&psc=1&refRID=0Y18KTENZDRAJGQNSXJE