256G SSD or 2T fusion drive?

[circatee]

Hmm, curious, what's the better method? Thanks...

I wouldn't do backups on two drives in the same case. If you have something like a broken power supply, both backups are gone simultaneously. And if you have a burglar visiting your home, you might lose computer and both backups.

 

[macmee]

Hmm, curious, what's the better method? Thanks...

Personally I just use a USB 3 mechanical drive for time machine, but if you want to be super safe I guess you could look into cloud backups:

• DollyDrive
• BackBlaze
• Mozy
• Carbonite
• JungleDisk

 

[639051]

Personally I just use a USB 3 mechanical drive for time machine, but if you want to be super safe I guess you could look into cloud backups:

• DollyDrive
• BackBlaze
• Mozy
• Carbonite
• JungleDisk

I've found that Arq + Amazon cloud storage is a really nice solution and you don't have to rely on clumsy backup clients (Arq is very lean). It supports encryption on the fly so you don't have to store stuff in a readable by amazon format.

 

[rfic]

thanks all for feedback, i pulled trigger for 256GB SSD and m390. right now i'm looking for a usb3.0 external SSD enclosure to use home dir. will report back how's the speed

my concern is 2TB internal hard drive maybe same or even worse than external SSD -- and i can expand external SSD easily considering SSD price drops quickly

 

[rfic]

i compared seagate hybrid ssd+hd vs. sandisk ssd as home dir with external drive (usb 3.0), almost can't tell speed difference.

so i decide to go with hybrid ssd+hd, which is much cheaper than ssd

i think 256G SSD is a better performance/price trade off compared to 2T fusion drive

just personal opinion

 

[MyopicPaideia]

I think you made a good choice. It all depends on use case. I am holding out for the USB-Type C update to dive into my first iMac. Right now I have the Quad i7 Mac mini in my signature with a 27" monitor. I replaced the 1TB HD with a 200GB SSD from OWC because I only run the core system and apps on it. All data is in an external RAID box. Between the iTunes movie and TV show collection for the home theater media library, family home video projects and photos, and iDevice backups (definitely NOT insignificant given the large storage capacities of those these days!) I've got over 10TB of stuff, backing up to three different Time Capsules.

For me (and I know I am nowhere near what some people have got, the audio and videophiles out there know what I am talking about!), the onboard storage is more of a moot point, because I know all my data is going to be external anyway, so I always just want the best performance rather than worrying about how much space its got. 256GB is a good choice for the home work station.

Laptops, iPads and iPhones, on the other hand, I always max out on storage, the piece of mind of not having to think about it during the life of the device is worth the extra outlay, and if you amortize it over the period of ownership, it is a small price to pay.

Just my two cents! I am jealous, I'm probably a good 6 months away from getting my own!

 

[maflynn]

so i decide to go with hybrid ssd+hd, which is much cheaper than ssd

Congrats, the 2TB offers a nicely sized SSD and Apple has Fusion tuned pretty well, so that performance has been great.

 

[brookter1]

Interesting discussion thank you, which helps with something I've been thinking of doing.

At the moment I have a 2011 27" iMac, which is fine, although if my wife asks, it's on its last legs and it needs replacing urgently, thank you.

It has a 256GB SSD and a 2TB internal hard drive -- and this is pre-Fusion, so they're not connected in any way. I do the file management and all the 'big data' (Win10 VM, iTunes and Photos libraries, for example) is on the HD. This is all backed up to 3 separate Time Machine drive (one of which is permanently kept offsite, swapped over once a week) and AirPort Extreme which is also used for backup. This all works quickly enough, given the age of the iMac.

I'll be getting a new iMac soon enough but this time I'll get a 512GB SSD (or 1TB if I can). I'll still want additional 'big' storage for the iTunes and Photos etc though.

My question is: compared to the internal HD I have now, how fast will an external USB 3 drive be? Can I expect much slower real world performance than the existing setup? Would a USB 3 SSD make much difference?

Thanks for any thoughts.... (I've seen plenty of comments about external drives, but not one comparing them to an internal HD.)

 

[bent christian]

My question is: compared to the internal HD I have now, how fast will an external USB 3 drive be? Can I expect much slower real world performance than the existing setup? Would a USB 3 SSD make much difference?

Thanks for any thoughts.... (I've seen plenty of comments about external drives, but not one comparing them to an internal HD.)

USB 3.0 will top out around 400MB/Sec write, 430MB/Sec read. Slightly less than SATA 3 speeds. You probably won't notice much difference between SATA 3 and USB 3.0 in actual use.

 

[brookter1]

USB 3.0 will top out around 400MB/Sec write, 430MB/Sec read. Slightly less than SATA 3 speeds. You probably won't notice much difference between SATA 3 and USB 3.0 in actual use.

Thank you for such a quick reply -- so getting an external SDD wouldn't actually make much of a difference because it's the interface that's the limiting factor?

 

[bent christian]

Thank you for such a quick reply -- so getting an external SDD wouldn't actually make much of a difference because it's the interface that's the limiting factor?

A HDD will never reach these speeds. You will need an SSD to get there. Single 7200RPM disk drives hit, what, something around 150MB/Sec? There is also quite a bit of latency involved in spinning drives. The main advantage of SSD over HDD is the much lower seek time in solid state drive technology.

 

[brookter1]

A HDD will never reach these speeds. You will need an SSD to get there. Single 7200RPM disk drives hit, what, something around 150MB/Sec? There is also duite a bit of latency involved in spinning drives. The main advantage of SSD over HDD is the much lower seek time in solid state drive technology.

I see, thank you. So the 'near equivalent to what I have now' is SSD + USB 3.

Thanks!

 

[flyinmac]

I would personally only opt for configurations that use one physical drive per volume.

Bonding a SSD and a Hard Drive together to for a single volume doubles your potential for lost data / drive problems.

If one of the two drives fail, or the link between them is broken, then both drives will lose the data stored on them if they are bonded together to form a fusion drive.

I prefer to just use a SSD for storing the OS and program files. I store all data that changes frequently on a traditional hard drive.

And of course, backups are important no matter which route you go.

But the fact that one drive can cause data loss from both drives, is reason enough not to span a volume across two drives.

In a separate volume configuration, the data on either drive is still safe if another drive fails.

 

[Phil A.]

I would personally only opt for configurations that use one physical drive per volume.

Bonding a SSD and a Hard Drive together to for a single volume doubles your potential for lost data / drive problems.

If one of the two drives fail, or the link between them is broken, then both drives will lose the data stored on them if they are bonded together to form a fusion drive.

I prefer to just use a SSD for storing the OS and program files. I store all data that changes frequently on a traditional hard drive.

And of course, backups are important no matter which route you go.

But the fact that one drive can cause data loss from both drives, is reason enough not to span a volume across two drives.

In a separate volume configuration, the data on either drive is still safe if another drive fails.

I understand your point, but would tend to disagree - even if you split the drives, you're still going to lose a lot of stuff if one fails!

Personally, I don't consider local storage to be permanent as there are too many things that can cause it to be lost so the additional risk of having a fusion drive doesn't concern me: What does concern me is making sure I have a robust backup strategy for when the worst happens and my data disappears

 

[rfic]

I would personally only opt for configurations that use one physical drive per volume.

Bonding a SSD and a Hard Drive together to for a single volume doubles your potential for lost data / drive problems.

If one of the two drives fail, or the link between them is broken, then both drives will lose the data stored on them if they are bonded together to form a fusion drive.

I prefer to just use a SSD for storing the OS and program files. I store all data that changes frequently on a traditional hard drive.

And of course, backups are important no matter which route you go.

But the fact that one drive can cause data loss from both drives, is reason enough not to span a volume across two drives.

In a separate volume configuration, the data on either drive is still safe if another drive fails.

Well, I do use one physical disk for home folder -- it is a hybrid disk, which includes 8g ssd and 1T hdd, which is claimed to be much faster than regular hdd