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1TB Fusion / 24GB SSD

twilexia said:
I think unless you are using the mac solely for websurfing and email you should go for the 2TB fusion at minimum. With 24GB SSD most if not all of that will be taken up by your OS, and the rest will be taken up by the applications you have installed, leaving you 0 SSD for your media files. As you're doing some PS work it just doesn't seem enough for your purposes.
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surely OS X isn't going to take 24 Gb of your HDD...
BTW you don't need the SSD portion of the Fusion Drive for media files, even with 128 Gb of available space.
OS and apps, you are looking for that.
loekf said:
I have a 2014 Retina with 1TB/128GB and those speeds are not far off mine. Maybe boot time is slightly faster.
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Hardly a surprise for me ....
Everyone here seem to know better than Apple how to build a Mac. We actually don't know if they tested the Fusion Drive logic and decided that 128 Gb was just overkill for a 1 Tb HDD.
I've yet to read a single review comparing the "old" 128 Gb solution to the new 24 Gb in real life.
But everyone have to complain here ....
 
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I have the 1tb fusion and everything is just about instant, even with multiple apps open running dual monitor setup.

For normal use doing things like Internet, Word, a little photo and video editing, schoolwork etc. I have no complaints. If I was going to be doing professional work often I'd have gotten the top tier or BTO. Otherwise I see this thing lasting me for at least the next 5-6 easy. Even still I can always add SSD through TB or USB3 or open it up, and of course RAM is easy fix when needed.
 
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AntnyMikal said:
I have the 1tb fusion and everything is just about instant, even with multiple apps open running dual monitor setup.

For normal use doing things like Internet, Word, a little photo and video editing, schoolwork etc. I have no complaints. If I was going to be doing professional work often I'd have gotten the top tier or BTO. Otherwise I see this thing lasting me for at least the next 5-6 easy. Even still I can always add SSD through TB or USB3 or open it up, and of course RAM is easy fix when needed.
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Thanks for the info!

Could you post the black magic speed test?

I've yet to see results for 1TB fusion.
 
Maybe later I could. I'm out and about right now posting on tapatalk. I'd have to download black magic and do it when I get home.


Max(IT) said:
BTW I would prefer a 256 Gb SSD and a 1 Tb external USB3 storage than a Fusion Drive.
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Honestly I could have maxed one out BTO, but I just don't need that kind of performance, and didn't want to pay the crazy prices for hiking up storage memory or RAM. So I just grabbed one at a store after playing with them, if I felt I needed more I was gonna take it back and get the next model or just BTO W/ 256ssd and add external drive. But honestly the computer is faster than I actually need as is, with the 24ssd fusion interns of real world use. Besides Black Friday deals all month I'm sure I can find some external SSD.
 
I received my 21.5 inch 2015 iMac yesterday (non-retina model) with fusion drive 24gb ssd / 1tb 5400 hd. I mainly use word, safari, itunes, outlook, and some of the other programs. The fusion drive feels as fast as my 2010 13 inch mbp with 256 gb ssd for the most part. I had to wait briefly for word to load the first time after installing office -- about four or five seconds for the app to open.

The 24gb ssd really helps with performance. If you told me the computer was a pure ssd, without looking at the specs, I would take you at your word.

Bottom line, use it for a couple days, see if you have any hang ups or unexpected slowdowns. If not, it's probably fine. If you find yourself waiting, replace it with a pure SSD or a larger fusion.
 
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AntnyMikal said:
Maybe later I could. I'm out and about right now posting on tapatalk. I'd have to download black magic and do it when I get home.



Honestly I could have maxed one out BTO, but I just don't need that kind of performance, and didn't want to pay the crazy prices for hiking up storage memory or RAM. So I just grabbed one at a store after playing with them, if I felt I needed more I was gonna take it back and get the next model or just BTO W/ 256ssd and add external drive. But honestly the computer is faster than I actually need as is, with the 24ssd fusion interns of real world use. Besides Black Friday deals all month I'm sure I can find some external SSD.
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Agree.
Maybe it's only me, but I can't stand with a spinner, even a Fusion Drive, in 2015.
SSD + external storage is the way to go.
 
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Golfer00ksu said:
Thanks for the info!

Could you post the black magic speed test?

I've yet to see results for 1TB fusion.
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Blackmagic is an almost useless test for fusion as fusion will always reserve 4gb of the 24gb for writes and I don't think black magic is going to do >4gb of writes. The 1tb fusion drive is superior to any regular hdd and should be more than adequate for the majority of iMac buyers (who are mostly just web surfers) who are buying it for the screen and form factor. If you're going to be doing working with any large files on a regular basis your 24gb ssd will be quickly overwhelmed.
 
Thanks for the info guys, there has been a lot of hysteria on this forum about the change. One guy said the operating system would take up most or ALL of the 24GB SSD. I didn't believe him.

I am pretty confident it will be fine for my use (programming IDEs, shell, Spotify, browsing, Skype). If I was doing a lot of photo or video work then I would be more inclined to go for larger sizes, so entire projects that I am currently working on can load quickly.

They have also changed the algorithm for Fusion so it is more 'picky'. It's not going to put things on there until you have opened them a few times and it probably has additional rules for different kinds of files.
 
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Obviously if you can afford and need SSD I'd go that route. Clearly it's faster, but I've used pure SSD machines and for general use they're not noticeably faster than fusions so it's not worth the extra money. And if you just can't live without SSD get external as it will cost much less than through Apple.

Personally I was going to BTO with SSD, but I just couldn't do it, for what apple wants I could get 2x more SSD else where and double the RAM up too.
As long as it isn't the regular HDD I think most will fare just fine. The 5100 is really baffling though, I mean even my old 2011 had 5400rpm, just laughable.
 
One other thing, the smaller the ssd is the shorter its life will be since ssds have a limited amount of write cycles. So it may have 5 times more write cycles compared to a 128 gb ssd which could possibly have 1/5 the expected life compared the the larger ssd.
 
blueeggs said:
One other thing, the smaller the ssd is the shorter its life will be since ssds have a limited amount of write cycles. So it may have 5 times more write cycles compared to a 128 gb ssd which could possibly have 1/5 the expected life compared the the larger ssd.
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I have not heard of this before? Is there more information you could provide or a source document? I am thinking of the 1TB Fusion drive as well.
 
blueeggs said:
One other thing, the smaller the ssd is the shorter its life will be since ssds have a limited amount of write cycles. So it may have 5 times more write cycles compared to a 128 gb ssd which could possibly have 1/5 the expected life compared the the larger ssd.
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Texas04 said:
I have not heard of this before? Is there more information you could provide or a source document? I am thinking of the 1TB Fusion drive as well.
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you can google it. It's just the way ssd tech works. Read cycles doesn't really shorten the life just write cycles. So the bigger the ssd the less it has to rewrite the data blocks.
 
Part of my concern about the 24GB was longevity of the machine for future -- what if I "suddenly decided" to do more video editing in 2 years time.

Somehow it slipped my mind that you can boot OS X from an external drive.

In 2017/2018 I can simply buy a 1TB SSD with Thunderbolt 2, set that as the boot/media drive and get some very fast speeds, easily enough for amateur video editing. I'm less concerned about the Fusion drive now!
 
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If I recall iFixit or OWC confirms the SSD for the fusion can be replaced as well or possibly updated. Even still I think the write cycle for SSD is somewhere in the hundreds of terabytes from a little reading I've done.
 
AntnyMikal said:
If I recall iFixit or OWC confirms the SSD for the fusion can be replaced as well or possibly updated. Even still I think the write cycle for SSD is somewhere in the hundreds of terabytes from a little reading I've done.
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Yes Im pretty sure that the fusion drive macs use the same slot as the ssd only model but has the hdd connection for the spinning drive. Its my understanding that that cannot be added later and is only available at the time of build. So you could open up the mac later and install 2.5 inch based ssd and update the other as well if you wanted to while you were in there.
 
TechZeke said:
This. I wouldn't getting anything less than these two options on a new computer in 2015. I love my 2011 iMac, but after having a cMBP and rMBP with pure SSD, I suffer everyday with the horribly slow 1TB HDD in my iMac.
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Uhh I have a 2010 i7 iMac with 256SSD and 3tb HDD. I made it a fusion drive via the "core storage" script and it freaking flies, so besides the ancient graphics card and wifi its truly amazing and boots in less than 15sec~

Those gen of iMacs have an extra SATA port on the motherboard, go to macsales.com and do yourself a favor man. Night and freakin' day performance.

Pro tip: How to create and disable a Fusion Drive ...
 
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PaulFitz said:
Part of my concern about the 24GB was longevity of the machine for future -- what if I "suddenly decided" to do more video editing in 2 years time.

Somehow it slipped my mind that you can boot OS X from an external drive.

In 2017/2018 I can simply buy a 1TB SSD with Thunderbolt 2, set that as the boot/media drive and get some very fast speeds, easily enough for amateur video editing. I'm less concerned about the Fusion drive now!
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In that amount of time you could always buy a 3tb SSD drive by then and just pop that in the place of the HDD. You can always enable or disable fusion drive but it is necessary to do a restore once you do that. From there always make your larger SSD Drive01 and you should be good to go. Not sure why so many folks are having issues with this.
 
blueeggs said:
One other thing, the smaller the ssd is the shorter its life will be since ssds have a limited amount of write cycles. So it may have 5 times more write cycles compared to a 128 gb ssd which could possibly have 1/5 the expected life compared the the larger ssd.
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A totally insignificant issue ... Even for a small SSD, expected life due to wear is way longer than expected life of your iMac.

For example, the 120GB Vertex 3 SSD has a write endurance rating of 3,000 cycles. If you write 50GB on the drive daily, the total number of days the drive will last before becoming unreliable is: (120 x 3,000)/50 = 7,200 days, which is about 20 years. If you write an average of 100GB a day, the drive would last about 10 years.

Most of us actually write much less than 50GB of data on our computer's host drive on a daily basis, and many days we don't write anything at all.
 
Max(IT) said:
A totally insignificant issue ... Even for a small SSD, expected life due to wear is way longer than expected life of your iMac.

For example, the 120GB Vertex 3 SSD has a write endurance rating of 3,000 cycles. If you write 50GB on the drive daily, the total number of days the drive will last before becoming unreliable is: (120 x 3,000)/50 = 7,200 days, which is about 20 years. If you write an average of 100GB a day, the drive would last about 10 years.

Most of us actually write much less than 50GB of data on our computer's host drive on a daily basis, and many days we don't write anything at all.
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I understand that. By those calculations the 24 Gb will last 1/5 that time. 4 or 2 years vs 20 or 10.
 
I received my 4k yesterday and I have to say I'm quite impressed with the 1tb fusion. Takes around 7seconds to get to log in and another 8 to desktop.

Access it quick to all the apps and photos.

I'm only using it for MS Office, internet and editing a few home videos and photos, and I've never filled more than 300gb so the SSD was a definite waste of money in comparison.

PS the Pic quality is really good!
 
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