2019 iMac Fusion drive - am I mad to consider one?

[cltd]

I wonder if the extra heat from the HDD had any influence on the GPU failure.

This was an issue with the previous iMac generation.

I don't think so. See iFixit teardown - HD is far from GPU.

 

[Juicy Box]

I don't think so. See iFixit teardown - HD is far from GPU.

I am pretty sure the 2013 is identical or at least close to the design of my Late 2012 27" iMac, and the GPU is not that much father from the HDD on the Late 2012 than the Mid 2011.

Also, the CPU, GPU, HDD utilize the same fan on the Late 2012, but on the Mid 2011, the CPU and HDD each had their own fan and GPU's heatsink utilized the optical drive fan, and there was still HDD heat related issues on that model.

I am not saying that the HDD had an impact on your iMac's GPU failing, but I don't see the extra heat from the HDD helping any.

 

[mainelyme]

Back in August I bought a base model 27" iMac out of desperation. It had the 1 TB fusion drive, which was awful. It would take close to a minute to open Outlook or Photos, and sometimes it would hang for no apparent reason, for several minutes at a time.

But ultimately it turned out to be a good decision, I think.

1. The base models are frequently discounted. I had Best Buy price match, giving me a $150 discount. Upgrade to an internal SSD and you will have no choice but to pay full price.
2. I ordered a 500 gb Samsung X5 external SSD from Amazon for $200. Now the computer feels every bit as fast as it should. I haven't bothered to velcro the unit to the back of my iMac...but I could.
3. I could have gone with a Mac mini, but there is no better monitor out there than the iMac's 5K display, not for under $5K. It is spectacular.
4. Now I have an extra 1 TB internal hard drive. I don't do anything with it yet...but I could.

I have only one issue with the computer, and that is that it doesn't appear to do memory swapping with the external boot disk. Sometimes my 8 gb fills up and the computer crashes, or it asks me to quit some applications. Someday I'll add another couple sticks of RAM, which is cheap and easy.

 

[throAU]

I would put more funds away for SSD. Funds may be tight, but the difference in cost between a 1TB fusion drive and 1TB SSD vs. the total expenditure for a 27" iMac is a small percentage increase. But the performance improvement will be significant!

Keep saving! Its worth it.

 

[cltd]

Back in August I bought a base model 27" iMac out of desperation. It had the 1 TB fusion drive, which was awful. It would take close to a minute to open Outlook or Photos, and sometimes it would hang for no apparent reason, for several minutes at a time.

But ultimately it turned out to be a good decision, I think.

1. The base models are frequently discounted. I had Best Buy price match, giving me a $150 discount. Upgrade to an internal SSD and you will have no choice but to pay full price.
2. I ordered a 500 gb Samsung X5 external SSD from Amazon for $200. Now the computer feels every bit as fast as it should. I haven't bothered to velcro the unit to the back of my iMac...but I could.
3. I could have gone with a Mac mini, but there is no better monitor out there than the iMac's 5K display, not for under $5K. It is spectacular.
4. Now I have an extra 1 TB internal hard drive. I don't do anything with it yet...but I could.

I have only one issue with the computer, and that is that it doesn't appear to do memory swapping with the external boot disk. Sometimes my 8 gb fills up and the computer crashes, or it asks me to quit some applications. Someday I'll add another couple sticks of RAM, which is cheap and easy.

Thank You for this post. This is my idea to go: 1. to buy base 27 iMac; 2. immediately buy external SSD and make it bootable main drive 3. use fusion drive as backup or just huge storage.

External SSD is much cheaper than upgrading BTO iMac to SSD tier.

Mac Mini is fine, but I would need to buy decent 4K monitor and eGPU.

Do not worry about swapping. You can upgrade ram anytime.

 

[George Dawes]

Having had 2 minis literally seize up due to the fusion drive I’d never ever buy another one ever again on any Mac

get as much ssd internal as you can, you won’t regret it