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Real power users don't refer to themselves as power users.

Fine. Pick another *singular* word that refers to professionals, techies, CS types, and pretty much anyone beyond users who do not want to expend the effort of manually optimising how their computers work.
 
Fine. Pick another *singular* word that refers to professionals, techies, CS types, and pretty much anyone beyond users who do not want to expend the effort of manually optimising how their computers work.
My first computer, you had to specify the RAM address that you wanted the file to load into. I don't have to do that now.
I understand font caches, but I don't specify what data OS X puts in the font caches.
There are hundreds on things that OS does for me. And it does it a lot better than me. It can monitor things hundreds of times a second, and it can make much more accurate assessments than I can.

I don't have to manually optimise my computer. It keeps itself optimal. I would suggest that this is progress.

Computers have always been about doing the tedious drudgery for us. That's why they were invented. Fusion Drives can store your data more effectively and efficiently than you will ever manage. Fact.
That leaves us free to fold proteins, unify one theory of matter, or watch videos of cats. Which is what we want to have computers for. We don't want computers simply for the sake of keeping them in good order.

There may well be reasons why Fusion Drives are not suitable for all purposes. But "being in control" (a mythical notion at best) isn't one of them.
 
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There may well be reasons why Fusion Drives are not suitable for all purposes. But "being in control" (a mythical notion at best) isn't one of them.

You just contradicted yourself right there. Someone who has different needs than fusion very much does not want to yield control to fusion.

Fine, I will leave you lot to yell at yourselves for a change. Or tell each other how much you just LOVE whatever Apple tosses out for the fanboys.
 
You just contradicted yourself right there. Someone who has different needs than fusion very much does not want to yield control to fusion.

Fine, I will leave you lot to yell at yourselves for a change. Or tell each other how much you just LOVE whatever Apple tosses out for the fanboys.

It's not a contradiction (this is a contradiction)...

If your goal is the same as Fusion's goal (increase your system's overall speed through the use of an SSD in conjunction with a HDD), then the issue is indeed control. "I prefer to manage it myself."

If you want to run Bootcamp and Windows from an SSD (in an SSD + HDD system), then indeed, Fusion is not going to do the job, as things currently stand. That's not a matter of "control," it's a matter of having a configuration that can perform a specific task.
 
You just contradicted yourself right there. Someone who has different needs than fusion very much does not want to yield control to fusion.

Fine, I will leave you lot to yell at yourselves for a change. Or tell each other how much you just LOVE whatever Apple tosses out for the fanboys.

Funny. You're embarrassing yourself a bit here.

Being open-minded will allow you to become a bit more knowledgable too.
 
I'm not a fan of SSDs for desktops when used for critical applications. I know everyone is using them and the performance improvements are substantial. Strangely you don't hear it talked about much in these forums but there are issues that concern me about the current generation of SSD technology. Foremost is the problem of longevity. SSDs can be hit or miss depending on what you purchase. Unlike regular magnetic hard drives that tend to warn you when they are failing SSDs can fail without warning and when they do fail recovering data is often impossible. The data on traditional HDD magnetic drives can usually still be recovered.
In short, you can't live a normal life because you're afraid of ghosts. :eek:


Unlike traditional magnetic hard drives SSDs also can fail when they are not in use for long periods of inactivity. You can put aside your system for a few months and then turn it on to find out the SSD has simply failed during non-usage and your data is completely gone. Data stored on magnetic drives can be reliable for decades
Are you serious?!? Where exactly is your data research regarding the failure rates of SSD vs traditional HDDs.

I really hope your screen name is just a name and you don't actually make recommendations to people who view you as an authority because your info is crazy. In our offices and in my personal systems then we've had several old machines that weren't used for months/years boot to a dead HDD and nobody is ever surprised when that happens. These are devices with moving parts so the points of failure are high enough that relying on a single non-raid disk to be reliable anytime you demand is ridiculous.
 
In short, you can't live a normal life because you're afraid of ghosts. :eek:



Are you serious?!? Where exactly is your data research regarding the failure rates of SSD vs traditional HDDs.

I really hope your screen name is just a name and you don't actually make recommendations to people who view you as an authority because your info is crazy. In our offices and in my personal systems then we've had several old machines that weren't used for months/years boot to a dead HDD and nobody is ever surprised when that happens. These are devices with moving parts so the points of failure are high enough that relying on a single non-raid disk to be reliable anytime you demand is ridiculous.

lol I would also like to see research saying SSD's are less reliable than traditional HD's
 
Added an intel 330 120Bg SSd to my 2012 i5 mini on friday night. Created my fusion drive using terminal and the OWC write up, have a CCC backup on an external drive. Internet recovery to install ML, used the migration assistant to return all apps, settings etc. Seems to be running well, and a lot faster than previously. I see the sense in wanting to keep the drives separate if you are that concerned about managing what files are on what drive, but my mini is the family computer with 4 users, so I decided to let the OS manage the data storage.
Hopefully it's doing that. 20 second boot and noticeably faster performance is a winner to start though.
 
Is there a reason why you would use migration assistant instead of just Carbon Copy Cloning to the new fusion drive?
 
Only that the write up on OWC for setting up the fusion drive said to do it that way. I was thinking I would run CCC from my external after creating the fusion then copy the image across (probably should have), but just kept following the write up and decided to give that method a go, it worked anyway.
 
You seem to have some serious misconceptions. Nobody is using single SSD's or single HDD's for data critical applications, most consultants recommend RAID 6 now for data critical applications. Nobody who is serious about data storage even recovers data off broken drives any more. They throw the drive out and rebuild the RAID. Furthermore very few consumers actually do data recovery as most don't want to pay the $400+ fees. And HDD disks do NOT progressivly fail with plenty of warning. Most HDD failures are catastrophic. The failure rate of SSD's is also an order of magnitude lower than HDD's due to the lack of moving parts.

So I'm not sure who you're speaking to with this information that SSD's can't be recovered and fail catastrophically. I suspect your target audience is imaginary.

If you want data security keep two copies of your data on unrelated systems, where one system is fail safe (ie technically three copies)

I back up my data to a linux based raid 5 network drive (synology NAS), which sends me a text if any drive fails. Meaning I have 3 copies of all the data over two systems. If the enclosure ever fails I can just boot up Unbuntu with the drives and restore the raid array (or just hot plug the drives into a new enclosure). If my computer ever fails I load the back up. If a drive ever fails I replace the drive.

I've tried numerous other systems (cloud, windows raid, time capsule, external drive back up) with plenty of near failures so this is how you want to do it. You want a fail safe with a fail safe that has easy contingency management.

Then again most people don't have truely critical data.


"So I'm not sure who you're speaking to with this information that SSD's can't be recovered and fail catastrophically. I suspect your target audience is imaginary."

Your assumptions about where I obtained that information is imaginary. I didn't speak with anyone. I obtained that information from a number of online articles and reports looking at the statistical failure rates of SSD's vs. HDs during the last few years. I would guess that this information might be upsetting to anyone relying on SSDs but this doesn't mean you have to avoid using SSDs completely but as I said you need to back up critical data. Running systems with data backup redundancy is a very good idea for both SSDs and HDs and especially for SSDs.

While the reliability of SSDs are improving there are still major issues they need to overcome compared to the matured HD magnetic drive technology. Let me ask you these questions... Data is recovered from magnetic drives all the time when they fail and very often magnetic drives give warning signs when they are in the process of failing. Can you recover data from a failed SSD? If you could how difficult is it? When is the last time you heard of a magnetic HD completely fail during non-usage? I don't know if I ever heard of that happening. It is also well known that when SSDs first started being marketed they were promoted as being much more reliable than standard HDs. We now know that both performance and reliability is much more dependent on the brand and model of the SSD and not on the fact that the drive is using SSD technology. Of course you could argue that this is also true of standard HDs but the the point is that choosing the right brand for performance and long term reliability is especially important when considering using SSDs.
 
In short, you can't live a normal life because you're afraid of ghosts. :eek:



Are you serious?!? Where exactly is your data research regarding the failure rates of SSD vs traditional HDDs.

I really hope your screen name is just a name and you don't actually make recommendations to people who view you as an authority because your info is crazy. In our offices and in my personal systems then we've had several old machines that weren't used for months/years boot to a dead HDD and nobody is ever surprised when that happens. These are devices with moving parts so the points of failure are high enough that relying on a single non-raid disk to be reliable anytime you demand is ridiculous.

I clearly posted my personal opinion about SSD's which is what I said "I am not a fan of SSDs". I didn't tell anyone not to use them or that they don't offer performance improvements. What I said was that most people don't realize that when SSDs completely fail they don't fail the same way that standard HDs do and you can't always simply repair the drive or recover the data the way you often can with standard magnetic based HDs. This knowledge is all over the internet and has been understood by hardware repair techs since SSDs first came out. There are numerous reports and statistical data on SSD failure rates and that information clearly shows that the reliability of SSDs has been no where near their reported theoretical estimated reliability that the manufacturers have promoted. There also is a huge difference in reliability between specific brands and models of SSDs.

The problem is that many computer users are naive and ignorant to these facts until they have one of their own SSDs fail with critical data on it and they have no backups because they haven't been made aware of the downside before. Insulting another poster or trying to attack their credibility for posting their opinion about a certain technology is usually the result of internal fear or specifically a fear brought about when that person has a previously unchallenged belief they have committed to that they feel has been contradicted.

My opinion about SSDs is simply an opinion. I gave my reasoning. In fact my focus on SSD reliability was brought about from many posts in other forums. When I have spare time I often read support forums and technical reports on computer hardware and software. I have been doing this for many years. I was reading this past year where an unusual number of people were having problems with SSD reliability and failures despite the fact that SSDs have been promoted as being much more reliable than traditional drives. Before I did my own research I didn't know that SSDs actually became less reliable with usage and that there are significant problems with data recovery once they appear to have partially or completely failed.

I have decades of experience as a professional in computer technical support, analysis and repair but that knowledge doesn't really matter here. My opinion shouldn't be a difficult one to process and you can take your own time and do your own research about SSD reliability and SSD data recovery if you choose. In my opinion the most important information for SSD users would be in regards to the reliability track record of specific brands and models. My purpose wasn't to instill fear in those choosing to use SSD technology but rather to provide information that is not discussed as much regarding it's potential shortcomings and the possible solutions to protect critical data.
 
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I hope my replies have helped clarify the original post about my opinion regarding SSDs.

for me it does. with ssd's reliable is the word and some such as samsung , intel, crucial are very good at not breaking. others like ocz have had a long history of turning into bricks.

my position on fusion drives is this. any samsung 810 830 or 840 at least 250gb with the oem apple hdd should work very nicely. also buy owc's 2nd drive kit and do it correctly .
 
for me it does. with ssd's reliable is the word and some such as samsung , intel, crucial are very good at not breaking. others like ocz have had a long history of turning into bricks.

SandForce-based drives have a history of turning into bricks, that's why OCZ' drives have this badge (as well as an Indilinx controller) now:
HmM2Exe.png


Intel is using the SandForce chips on their latest generation of drives, so I wouldn't be surprised to see those continue on the path of the Vertex 2/3. See Intel's forums for example.
 
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SandForce-based drives have a history of turning into bricks, that's why OCZ' drives have this badge (as well as an Indilinx controller) now:
Image

Intel is using the SandForce chips on their latest generation of drives, so I wouldn't be surprised to see those continue on the path of the Vertex 2/3. See Intel's forums for example.

yeah I was a big intel fanboy for ssds but now I push samsung and crucial. all the fusion setups I built work great . mostly samsung 5 or 6 and 2 with crucial.
 
I know this is a rather narrow opinion but my experience with OCZ drives was terrible, I had a vertex 2 and vertex 3 fail. They were also one of the last companies to add mac firmware updates and their RA procedures were terrible.

My Crucial drive is going strong. :)
 
I'm not a fan of SSDs for desktops when used for critical applications. I know everyone is using them and the performance improvements are substantial. Strangely you don't hear it talked about much in these forums but there are issues that concern me about the current generation of SSD technology. Foremost is the problem of longevity. SSDs can be hit or miss depending on what you purchase. Unlike regular magnetic hard drives that tend to warn you when they are failing SSDs can fail without warning and when they do fail recovering data is often impossible. The data on traditional HDD magnetic drives can usually still be recovered. Unlike traditional magnetic hard drives SSDs also can fail when they are not in use for long periods of inactivity. You can put aside your system for a few months and then turn it on to find out the SSD has simply failed during non-usage and your data is completely gone. Data stored on magnetic drives can be reliable for decades.

On the positive side...besides the improved performance what SSDs are really great for are on notebooks, smart pads, smart phones and other handheld devices where battery life is a concern and physical drops, movement, etc.. can impact the life of traditional magnetic disc technology.

My recommendation for anyone using SSDs in any configuration is to backup their system daily or as much as possible to a regular magnetic hard drive dedicated for backups. If you are using a dual SSD and traditional magnetic drive configuration store or backup critical data to the magnetic drive as much as possible and also use another external storage solution for frequent backups.

People talk about writing daily Gb and that it is negligible but a number of people never turn off hibernation and there goes as much write as your machine has memory. So how often does your machine go in hibernation or standby? Give me one of those older SSD's (Intel X25M G2 or Toshiba HG3 series) with 34nm technology. They are more robust than the new fangled stuff where the focus is on getting price down at the cost of longevity and reliability.
 
My 2 cents (about all it is worth too)...


I have had many platter drives fail, none of my 3 SSDs have failed.

Failure is inevitable but not a problem because I back my stuff up like a good boy.

I want a fusion drive for the increase in speed. If I used two drives and managed my data placement I would loose the gain in speed because I would micro manage it and my brain telling my finger where to click is slower than the performance increase.
 
"I have a Mac mini with 128gb SSD and the standard 500gb HDD - I have my apps and OS on the SSD and iTunes music folder (130gb) on the HDD. All my movies are on external drives.
What would be the benefit of restoring and creating my own fusion drive?"

Since you already have multiple drives, I'll assume that you're comfortable _managing_ multiple volumes on your desktop, and keeping track of "what goes where".

If you are indeed "comfortable with the way things are now", I would argue that a fusion drive will offer you nothing, really.

In fact, keeping your SSD "separate from" (i.e., "UNfused") your other drives probably yields slightly faster speeds than you would see if that 128gb SSD was part of a fusion setup.

Fusion is for folks who _don't_ want to think about "drive management".
I guess that has advantages for some, but not for me.

The BIG disadvantage of fusion is the "all your eggs in one basket" problem. If the fusion drive fails (either SSD or HDD), the entire drive is lost. You can't even "UN-fuse" the two drives to get data back (unless software is now out there that can scavenge "one side" of a failed fusion setup). The only option is to restore the entire thing from backup.

We haven't heard much about this yet -- but in time, we will.

I prefer smaller volumes, each dedicated to a specific purpose. I normally keep no less than -7- volumes mounted at all times, including
- SSD boot
- SSD data
- HDD boot (clone of above)
- HDD data (clone of above)
- HDD music (backed up to another external volume)
- HDD media (movies, etc.)
- HDD general (odds & ends)

That works for me.
I'm sure it would drive others crazy...
 
fisherman....

backup, backup , backup

the crazy ones do not back up.

in the dark ages... IBM VM370 and other systems we backed everything up daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly etc .........

old stuff but same need backup, backup I still backup all the time

fisherman.. keep fishing..........
 
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