ASM1061-based PCIe cards, for OS X Mojave and Catalina

These days, ASM1061-based designs are, to my knowledge, the only affordable (i.e. <$100) PCIe cards for direct-attached eSATA storage on Macs. There has been no need for additional drivers, and they work seamlessly on vanilla OSX86 systems. Thunderbolt and USB-C are still quite expensive and flakey (on hacks).

The only issue is their behavior regarding port-multiplier-aware enclosures: only one disk is recognized (usually the one on the top bay), rendering the box useless.

This, however, can easily be fixed (on Sierra, onwards to High Sierra, Mojave and Catalina) by applying a AppleAHCIPort kext patch in Clover, as follows:

Find    --> 40600200
Replace --> 00000000
AppleAHCIPort

This can be implemented by including this kext patch on Clover’s config.plist:

	<key>KextsToPatch</key>
		<array>

<dict>
	<key>Comment</key>
	<string>ALPM IO Error AppleAHCIPort</string>
	<key>Disabled</key>
	<false/>
	<key>Find</key>
	<data>QGACAA==</data>
	<key>InfoPlistPatch</key>
	<false/>
	<key>Name</key>
	<string>AppleAHCIPort</string>
	<key>Replace</key>
	<data>AAAAAA==</data>
</dict>

</array>
</dict>

Don’t forget to use “10.14.x” (or a blank string) for Mojave, though, or it won’t work!

(thanks to vit9696 for this; more information can be found on insanelymac.com, toward the bottom of the page).