Anyone with a Fusion Drive updated to Big Sur?

[Geoff777]

Has anyone with a Fusion Drive updated to Big Sur?
If so, how did it go?
I'm nervous to do it.... when I "upgraded" to Catalina it bricked my 2017 iMac.
I had to take it to an Apple repairer and, two days later I got it back
They said that in layman's terms, the Fusion Drive had split and had to be rebuilt.
Fortunately they fixed it, it didn't cost too much and I had a back-up. But the iMac has never been quite the same since - Finder is slow (to the extent I often get a beachball when I try to open a Finder window, only for a second or two but still too long). The machine has never felt as "snappy" since and I'm wondering if it was to do with the split drive.
So, nervous! 😱
I'd love to hear if any of you have done it without any trouble.

 

[patearrings]

If it's running slow anyway, then what do you have to lose? It should be covered by apple as if their own software bricks it, they will fix it. On top of that, a fusion drive "breaking" is no big deal. Here is a guide to remake it if that happens. It's a guide for people installing their own DIY fusion drives but i have done it before and it works perfectly.

Go for it, nothing to lose. Please report back with your results.

 

[Geoff777]

If it's running slow anyway, then what do you have to lose? It should be covered by apple as if their own software bricks it, they will fix it. On top of that, a fusion drive "breaking" is no big deal. Here is a guide to remake it if that happens. It's a guide for people installing their own DIY fusion drives but i have done it before and it works perfectly.

Go for it, nothing to lose. Please report back with your results.

Good point!
I've just read the "black screen" thread..... I might put it off a bit longer 😆

 

[patearrings]

Problem is, until you actually do it you will never know if it's going to work. It could be something specific to your machine which you wont know about until you try. I installing all the betas and bricked my machine about 9 times, yet here i am running the final release as smooth as butter. Whatever you decide, good luck!

 

[Geoff777]

Problem is, until you actually do it you will never know if it's going to work. It could be something specific to your machine which you wont know about until you try. I installing all the betas and bricked my machine about 9 times, yet here i am running the final release as smooth as butter. Whatever you decide, good luck!

You're right..... I think I'll give it a go - things aren't right as they are and as you pointed out, a new OS might fix things!
Thanks.

 

[Kwyji]

Updated to Big Sur on my 2017 iMac 27" with 2TBFusion drive. My normal bootdrive is an external 1TB Samsung X5 SSD and that one went fine. Then did the internal one (which I keep just as a backup boot drive), and had no issues whatsoever either.

 

[martint235]

I've also got a 2017 iMac 27" with a 2TB fusion drive, I've been using Big Sur since the betas and have no issues

 

[patearrings]

I would finally add that a lot of bugs i had in catalina are now gone in big sur and overall i find it WAY more reliable than catalina.

 

[Geoff777]

Thanks all, with a bit of Dutch courage, I did it.
BUT as usual (lately) Apple do like to make it a drama! After download, and I clicked update etc., screen went black.
After a few minutes I couldn't bear the stress and left to do something else.
Came back in and YAY, Apple logo and "29 minutes remaining".
When it got to 2 minutes remaining, left for a bit. Came back, black screen. 😱
Waited. Nothing. Couldn't tell if power was on and screen dimmed or fully off so plugged in iPad which didn't charge..... so, pressed power button and screen flashed up instantly! Why do they do that? I'm sure in updates gone by it would RESTART the machine to a desktop!

The System Preferences was open and the very first thing I tried to do was get rid of that butt ugly desktop picture..... pointer moved but finder was basically dead. Nothing could be clicked, dock didn't move. Force Quit didn't work.

Shut it down, counted to 10, restarted and..... all seems normal.
Finding my way around, Synology Drive Client didn't work but fixed it by switching wifi off (from Synology forum where lots of complaints!).

Thank you all for helping. 🍻

 

[patearrings]

Glad you went for it. i agree, apples updates are a lot more stressful than they used to be, but glad you got it working.

 

[Geoff777]

Will have a better idea in a few days.... some odd stuff going on already, e.g can't resize system preferences window!
I hope this isn't a general reduction of user control.... way too early to whine yet as I need to find my way around it.
I remember I whined like mad when they switched from MacOs 9 to X but it turned out to be a great move in the end!!

 

[goofysuperman]

I'm kind of in the same boat here. I'm on a Late-2014 iMac 5K 27" with 3TB Fusion Drive, still running Mojave because I didn't like how everyone complained about Catalina. When I did first install Mojave on my system, it bricked it. I had to take it in to Apple and they replaced the Fusion drive with a brand new one at no cost. Told me the new file partitions or something didn't jive well with the drive, but since it was a software issue and not something I did wrong, they repaired it free of charge, (Waaaay out of warranty lol) but I was without a machine for over 3 weeks.

So I have been scared of upgrading to any new OS' again. I do like the features of Big Sur, and the fact that my iMac no longer works with Reminders on my iPad or iPhone it kinda bugs me haha. Also, I'm at the minimum of the compatibility list (2014 for iMac).

So I'd like to upgrade to Big Sur, but am worried about bricking the machine once again, and thinking I should stick with Mojave until I buy a new iMac. 😟

At least Mojave got a new incremental update this week and still gets all the new Safari and security patches as well! Can't knock Apple's support, that's for sure!

 

[Geoff777]

I'm kind of in the same boat here. I'm on a Late-2014 iMac 5K 27" with 3TB Fusion Drive, still running Mojave because I didn't like how everyone complained about Catalina. When I did first install Mojave on my system, it bricked it. I had to take it in to Apple and they replaced the Fusion drive with a brand new one at no cost. Told me the new file partitions or something didn't jive well with the drive, but since it was a software issue and not something I did wrong, they repaired it free of charge, (Waaaay out of warranty lol) but I was without a machine for over 3 weeks.

So I have been scared of upgrading to any new OS' again. I do like the features of Big Sur, and the fact that my iMac no longer works with Reminders on my iPad or iPhone it kinda bugs me haha. Also, I'm at the minimum of the compatibility list (2014 for iMac).

So I'd like to upgrade to Big Sur, but am worried about bricking the machine once again, and thinking I should stick with Mojave until I buy a new iMac. 😟

At least Mojave got a new incremental update this week and still gets all the new Safari and security patches as well! Can't knock Apple's support, that's for sure!

Yup, it is a worry! All I can say is because it was repaired last time it happened, I bit the bullet and it didn't brick anything this time!
I was extra cautious, unplugged everything, all drives, server, the lot! Only keyboard and mouse connected.
Made sure everything was shut down, no apps running, even background ones after restart.
Don't know if it helped but this time it worked!
When do you plan or hope to get a new iMac? If not too far away you might be better off waiting a bit?

 

[webbga]

Has anyone with a Fusion Drive updated to Big Sur?
If so, how did it go?
I'm nervous to do it.... when I "upgraded" to Catalina it bricked my 2017 iMac.
I had to take it to an Apple repairer and, two days later I got it back
They said that in layman's terms, the Fusion Drive had split and had to be rebuilt.
Fortunately they fixed it, it didn't cost too much and I had a back-up. But the iMac has never been quite the same since - Finder is slow (to the extent I often get a beachball when I try to open a Finder window, only for a second or two but still too long). The machine has never felt as "snappy" since and I'm wondering if it was to do with the split drive.
So, nervous! 😱
I'd love to hear if any of you have done it without any trouble.

I have a 27" late 2015 model with Fusion Drive and the install was clean. Everything is running Ok except that deleted messages get permanently deleted rather than go to the trash for mail systems other than iCloud. When I tried the initial install on the release date it would not download the software, but a lot of people were having difficulty that day. Next mornign everything was OK and I was able to download and install without problem.

 

[topkatbosk]

I have a 27" late 2015 model with Fusion Drive and the install was clean. Everything is running Ok except that deleted messages get permanently deleted rather than go to the trash for mail systems other than iCloud. When I tried the initial install on the release date it would not download the software, but a lot of people were having difficulty that day. Next mornign everything was OK and I was able to download and install without problem.

Is your iMac the 2tb fusion drive version?

 

[webbga]

Is your iMac the 2tb fusion drive version?

Yes it is.

 

[rocketman1]

Yes it is.

Hi .have just purchased imac 21.5 late2015 with (apparently a fusion drive) screen shows 2 drIve icons 1 25gb sad and 1tb drive. is el capitan is on smaller drive. when i try to download the big sur upgrade I get a message saying ther is no available space to install? I presume this is because the smaller drive is full.Question is how do i go about installing big sur on the bigger 1TB drive? as it is not visible. any help please. as gathered i am a relative newcomer to apple imac

 

[patearrings]

Hi .have just purchased imac 21.5 late2015 with (apparently a fusion drive) screen shows 2 drIve icons 1 25gb sad and 1tb drive. is el capitan is on smaller drive. when i try to download the big sur upgrade I get a message saying ther is no available space to install? I presume this is because the smaller drive is full.Question is how do i go about installing big sur on the bigger 1TB drive? as it is not visible. any help please. as gathered i am a relative newcomer to apple imac

If it is in a fusion configuration, you shouldn't see two separate drives IIRC although it's been a while since i had one.

Open TERMINAL and run "diskutil list" and screenshot it and post here. I will try to help if i can but i am rusty on it.

 

[jdoyle]

I have a 5k iMac with 1TB Fusion Drive running big sur. I had it installed and running fine for months and then a problem developed. Although the SSD and HD were still showing as a single drive I would get a problem when I had less than 100GB remaining. The system would think the HD was full. If I freed up space above 100Gb problem woudl go away. So I could only use 900GB of the 1TB. I had to do a reinitialisation of the fusion drive and used the Terminal Command to set it up as a fusion drive again. Since then I have had no issues.

 

[rocketman1]

If it is in a fusion configuration, you shouldn't see two separate drives IIRC although it's been a while since i had one.

Open TERMINAL and run "diskutil list" and screenshot it and post here. I will try to help if i can but i am rusty on it.

Hi Thanks please find screenshot attached

 

[rocketman1]

please find screenshot attached

If it is in a fusion configuration, you shouldn't see two separate drives IIRC although it's been a while since i had one.

Open TERMINAL and run "diskutil list" and screenshot it and post here. I will try to help if i can but i am rusty on it.

Hi try this screenshot which shows all info,sorry

 

[DaveFromCampbelltown]

Hi Thanks please find screenshot attached

It should show something like this --

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI ⁨EFI⁩                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS ⁨Container disk2⁩         121.1 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *2.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI ⁨EFI⁩                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS ⁨Container disk2⁩         1.8 TB     disk1s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data ⁨BOOTCAMP⁩                204.2 GB   disk1s3

/dev/disk2 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +1.9 TB     disk2
                                 Physical Stores disk0s2, disk1s2
   1:                APFS Volume ⁨Macintosh HD — Data⁩     381.7 GB   disk2s1
   2:                APFS Volume ⁨Preboot⁩                 824.6 MB   disk2s2
   3:                APFS Volume ⁨Recovery⁩                1.7 GB     disk2s3
   4:                APFS Volume ⁨VM⁩                      1.1 GB     disk2s4

The SSD is disk0 and the HDD is disk1. They are Fused into disk2 (synthesized). I also have Bootcamp installed so that is the extra volume you see on disk1.

You can restore the Fusion drive by going to this link and following the commands. While there you can install a fresh new macOS system directly from Apple.

 

[Sciuriware]

Has anyone with a Fusion Drive updated to Big Sur?
If so, how did it go?
I'm nervous to do it.... when I "upgraded" to Catalina it bricked my 2017 iMac.
I had to take it to an Apple repairer and, two days later I got it back
They said that in layman's terms, the Fusion Drive had split and had to be rebuilt.
Fortunately they fixed it, it didn't cost too much and I had a back-up. But the iMac has never been quite the same since - Finder is slow (to the extent I often get a beachball when I try to open a Finder window, only for a second or two but still too long). The machine has never felt as "snappy" since and I'm wondering if it was to do with the split drive.
So, nervous! 😱
I'd love to hear if any of you have done it without any trouble.

I just upgraded from Catalina on a 27' Late 2014, 3.3 Fusion drive.
Very smooth compared to my upgrade to Catalina in the past.
I waited till the bugs were out and now it runs satisfactory.
Of course it looks a bit different, I changed the look of my own applications so often ....
Hopefully I can upgrade to Monterey next year preparing for Silicon, because this machine is getting old.
Me too.
;JOOP!

 

[gandalf239]

I've a 2019 Retina 4k 21.5 iMac with a Fusion drive. It's been nothing but trouble since upgrading to Big Sur (and now Monterey). Every update (every point release of Big Sur) I had to erase and install. Upgrades always failed with the "updates could not be applied error." Oh, and the first install of Big Sur broke the Fusion drive's bond; I had to reset it. I also, after about a week or so, keep getting the out of space error (even when I have 100GB free!).

Near as I can figure, because Disk Utility doesn't show any problems, is that Apple never really fixed the Fusion Drive bug introduced when they initially rolled out APFS. I'm thinking that because the drives are "fused" that it's not doing any TRIM operations on the SSD portion, garbage accumulates, and there you have it...

Big Sur/Monterey Installer Error

 

[albertaka]

Hi gandalf. I am in the same boat: Catalia and the APFS ‘destroyed’ the fusion drive on my 4K machine too. As I saw it, APFS uses a different index system and while it should be easy to use ahybrid version on an HDD the don’t do it, maybe because of some security flags in APFS - while we suffer. That is not the kind of ‘social contract’ I want with Apple. I pay, they support me
And I have contacted support at that time, they played ingnorance.

I am wary. Afraid. I have an external Thunderbolt SSD now, starts up in 32 secs flat. I have stayed with Catalina Up till now. But Safari is now breaking down with the new security requirements. So I have to use Firefox.
But then I hear that external booting will be stopped in the future by M1 And maybe other OSes. Now should I buy a new one??? Reluctant. . .