There are several factors that customers must be aware of before planning or preparing a bootable NVMe storage configuration using HighPoint U.2 NVMe RAID controllers.

Motherboard BIOS mode Support

The SSD7000 U.2 NVMe RAID controllers are not bootable. They trade boot support for broad platform compatibility. These models provide Legacy and Legacy/UEFI BIOS mode support, which ensures compatibility with the widest range of motherboards. 

SSD7500 models (SSD7580A and SSD7580B) are capable of hosting bootable Linux or Windows configurations. These RAID controllers were designed for use with current motherboard platforms, and only provide UEFI and UEFI/Legacy BIOS mode support.

Operating System Platforms

Not all operating systems can be booted from an SSD7000 series U.2 controller, even if that controller supports both RAID and Single-SSD boot modes.

The majority of Linux and Windows distributions impose no restrictions on boot devices. However, macOS 11.x and later can only boot from devices that utilize in-box driver support (native or embedded device drivers). 

In other words, macOS starting from 11.x, cannot boot from any device that requires third-party driver support (such as the SSD7000 and 7500 series).

The following tables summarize the boot-support capabilities of our SSD700 and SSD7500 Series U.2 NVMe RAID Controllers.

PCIe Gen3 (SSD7000 Series)

PCIe Gen4 (SSD7500 Series)