TLDR: Help a decidedly non-power user decide between 2TB Fusion, 512 SSD, or 1TB SSD
So I am about to squeeze the trigger on a new 27" and am stuck at the storage options.
Will be replacing a 2008 24" iMac with a 3.06 GHz C2Duo(!) - over the years, I maxed it with 6GB of RAM and replaced the HDD with a 1TB SSD. It is even now still a mostly usable machine for my purposes - email, web, MS Office, VPN to work, large photo library, very light gaming. Sadly, it's stuck at El Capitan, and so I suppose it's finally time to upgrade.
Obviously I tend to keep my machines a long time, and I want to get another 7-10 years out of the new machine. I plan to get the top end 27" and add 32GB aftermarket RAM to get to 40 GB total. I might upgrade to the i9, but will probably keep the 580X. My big question is what to do about storage.
Probably "easiest" would be to suck up the $500 charge and get the 1TB SSD. That seems like a huge price increase considering the actual component cost to apple so I almost want to not do it to spite those SOBs. At >$1000, the 2TB is out of the question.
There's the somewhat more reasonable $100 upcharge to switch to the 512GB SSD, but but 512 might still be just a little too small and doesn't leave much in the way of future proofing (I have more than that now on my current SSD, but suspect that includes a lot of junk built up over the years).
I could just keep the stock 2TB since it'll have the "large" 128GB SSD Fusion Drive & might be enough for me. I figure with 40GB of RAM I won't be doing a whole lot of swapping, so it'll really just be load times for less often used stuff.
I suppose a 4th option is to crack the case and stick an after market SSD in there for a lot less... but even though I've cracked an iMac case many times before, I am not wild about the idea with a brand new machine.
How realistic/usable is it to consider an external SSD to supplement any of the above options? How much faster would an external SSD feel than an internal spinner? For those who have larger fusion drives... how does that compare to all SSD storage in everyday usage? Thoughts/advice?
It would be crushing to wait 11 years, spend $2500, and wind up with a computer that feels slower than my 2008 machine b/c I'd be going retrograde from SSD back to HDD.
So I am about to squeeze the trigger on a new 27" and am stuck at the storage options.
Will be replacing a 2008 24" iMac with a 3.06 GHz C2Duo(!) - over the years, I maxed it with 6GB of RAM and replaced the HDD with a 1TB SSD. It is even now still a mostly usable machine for my purposes - email, web, MS Office, VPN to work, large photo library, very light gaming. Sadly, it's stuck at El Capitan, and so I suppose it's finally time to upgrade.
Obviously I tend to keep my machines a long time, and I want to get another 7-10 years out of the new machine. I plan to get the top end 27" and add 32GB aftermarket RAM to get to 40 GB total. I might upgrade to the i9, but will probably keep the 580X. My big question is what to do about storage.
Probably "easiest" would be to suck up the $500 charge and get the 1TB SSD. That seems like a huge price increase considering the actual component cost to apple so I almost want to not do it to spite those SOBs. At >$1000, the 2TB is out of the question.
There's the somewhat more reasonable $100 upcharge to switch to the 512GB SSD, but but 512 might still be just a little too small and doesn't leave much in the way of future proofing (I have more than that now on my current SSD, but suspect that includes a lot of junk built up over the years).
I could just keep the stock 2TB since it'll have the "large" 128GB SSD Fusion Drive & might be enough for me. I figure with 40GB of RAM I won't be doing a whole lot of swapping, so it'll really just be load times for less often used stuff.
I suppose a 4th option is to crack the case and stick an after market SSD in there for a lot less... but even though I've cracked an iMac case many times before, I am not wild about the idea with a brand new machine.
How realistic/usable is it to consider an external SSD to supplement any of the above options? How much faster would an external SSD feel than an internal spinner? For those who have larger fusion drives... how does that compare to all SSD storage in everyday usage? Thoughts/advice?
It would be crushing to wait 11 years, spend $2500, and wind up with a computer that feels slower than my 2008 machine b/c I'd be going retrograde from SSD back to HDD.
