Defense Of The 2 TB Fusion Drive Option

[gnasher729]

Yep. It’s insulting, really.

Did you know your Mac has 64 KB (yes, kilobytes) of L1 cache per core? That fills up really quickly as well.

It's not insulting. It's considerably faster than a pure spinning hard drive, and considerably cheaper than a pure SSD drive.
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I think it depends on how the computer is used. If someone has a huge collection of video's and does editing absolutely they would have a bad experience and a slow computer. I'm kind of embarrassed to say I don't use any kind of professional software. I was an Architect and used heavy duty CAD and 3D rendering software for about 25 years. Now it's a lot of surfing, Email and Text, some streaming, a few games that could be played on a phone 5 years ago. The kind of user I am these days a 3.7 Ghz with a 2 TB Fusion is overkill including speed wise.

If someone has a huge collection of videos, music, books and so on and plays them (as most people do, they buy or download videos and play them, they don't edit them), even the average hard drive is overkill speedwise. You need 3MB / second to play videos, 32 KB / second to play decent quality audio, and your hard drive has about 100 MB / second. Even a hard drive connected through USB 2 has over 30 MB / second.

 

[Lankyman]

I have two machines with SSD and the 2019 iMac 2TB Fusion Drive. I would buy an iMac with FD again without hesitation. It’s more than spritely for anything I’m ever likely to throw at it. I can highly recommend a FD Mac.

 

[Ubele]

For me -- and I'm not completely sure why -- I really value having a single disk volume to contend with. I like seeing one icon, backing up one volume, and not having to think through (or train my family) where files should be saved.

I do, too, but here's my biggest reason, which rarely gets mentioned in these threads: I have Apple's 2 TB Apple iCloud backup plan. For files to be backed up to iCloud, they have to be in the Documents folder. The Documents folder has to be on the system drive -- it can't be on an external drive. Files in Apple Music and Photos libraries don't count toward the iCloud 2 TB limit. All told, I have about 900 GB of stuff (excluding ripped DVDs, which I store on an external HDD, which I clone to another HDD for backup). Of that 900 GB, about 550 GB is in my Documents folder. The rest consists of apps, system files, and my Music and Photos libraries.

In order to make use of my 2 TB iCloud backup plan, I need a system drive capable of holding my apps, system files, and Documents folder. I could move my Music and Photos libraries to an external drive, which would mean that a 1 TB system drive would be fine. I was in the market for a 27" iMac a few months ago, and I was on a limited budget. The 1 TB SSD models were pricey, and I didn't want a 1 TB Fusion drive model because of the small SSD component. The 2 TB Fusion drive was the sweet spot for me in terms of price, giving me room to grow, and taking advantage of my iCloud plan. On the Refurbished store, I found a 2019 27" i5 model with a 2 TB Fusion drive and 8 GB of RAM for $1,700. I spent another $100 for 16 GB of RAM from Crucial. So for $1,800, I have a computer that's a big step up from both my 2012 i7 Mac mini with 16 GB of RAM and my 2015 13" i5 MacBook Pro with 8 GB of RAM.

As for the reliability of Fusion drives, several years ago, I replaced the stock HDDs with Fusion drives in both my wife's and my 2012 Mac minis. Both have received heavy use and are still going strong. One of my good friends has been using iMacs professionally (which means every day) since the first iMac model came out. His first ones had HDDs, and his last two have had Fusion drives. He's never had a drive fail. He keeps an iMac until it becomes annoyingly slow for the work he does, and then he upgrades to the newest model. So while a Fusion drive is statistically more likely to fail than a pure SSD -- and I have no idea what percentage of iMac Fusion drives fail versus what percentage of iMac SSDs fail during the useful life of the computer -- I had no hesitation buying an iMac with a Fusion drive, because my experience with Fusion drives has been good. If the Fusion drive fails during my iMac's useful lifespan, depending on costs at the time, I'll either pay a professional to replace it (probably with a 2 TB SSD) or boot from an external 2 TB SSD in a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure.

As for the minor speed advantage of SSDs over Fusion drives, I think too many people get hung up on specs rather than real-world usage (much like the pixel peepers in the photography forums I visit). If you're using a computer professionally in situations where time is money, and you really do need the fastest drive-access times possible, then I'm guessing you can justify the extra cost of an SSD. I use a Windows PC at work, but I prefer a Mac for my multimedia hobbies. For what I do, my new Fusion-drive iMac is much faster than my 2012 Mac mini or my 2015 MBP. Obviously, the processor, the amount of RAM, and the GPU also factor into the equation, but I doubt that getting an SSD rather than a Fusion drive would have made my iMac feel significantly faster.

Sorry for the long rant! If you have the money, then, by all means, go for an SSD over a Fusion drive. I would have, but I couldn't justify it financially. But I have to disagree with people who tell others to absolutely avoid Fusion drives because they're obsolete (in what way?), they're old technology (so what?), they're likely to fail ("statistically more likely" isn't the same as "likely"), or they're slow (do you need the slight extra speed of an SSD, and would you even notice it for what you do?). As SSDs continue to drop in price, I'm sure there will come a point when Apple stops offering Fusion drives -- but, for now, they're still a good option for people who want more drive space at a low cost.

 

[CWallace]

Fusion drives hit the market in response to Seagate's similar setup, the Solid State Hybrid Drive. (SSHD).

I bought one of those for my 2008 MacBook Pro back in the day. Worked pretty well for me.




I believe the main reason iMacs come with Fusion Drive is Apple believes that as a desktop users will store more data (primarily media) then a portable. It is also possible that the machine will have multiple users so the total data store will be higher. Pure SSD is expensive (even more so at Apple's markups) so a large HDD tied with a smaller SSD makes sense for many on price and performance reasons.

I do not agree with Apple lowering the 1TB cache to 24/32GB from 128GB (all the options should have the same 128GB SSD), but considering the Seatgate hybrid drives offer only 8GB of flash storage, it could be worse.

What really needs to end is the HDD-only option on the lowest-end 21.5" models. No iMac - and doubly so a 4K iMac - should offer only a spinner as a standard configuration.

 

[smirk]

I do, too, but here's my biggest reason, which rarely gets mentioned in these threads: I have Apple's 2 TB Apple iCloud backup plan. For files to be backed up to iCloud, they have to be in the Documents folder.

That's a good point. I don't use iCloud backups so I've never had to deal with that restriction.

As for the minor speed advantage of SSDs over Fusion drives, I think too many people get hung up on specs rather than real-world usage

I agree wholeheartedly with everything you wrote, except this. In my experience, there can be a real speed difference with a pure SSD over a fusion drive. Of course, everyone's perception is different, so a two second difference in app launch time (I'm making up that number) may seem insignificant to one person but unbearable to another. To me, NVMe vs SATA SSDs is where people might get hung up on specs rather than real-world usage; i.e., 3,000 MB/s versus 550 MB/s may show up in benchmarks but may be less detectable in actual use.

 

[archrider]

I wish someone could adequately explain to me why Apple would continue to sell probably their most popular computer with fusion drives that have mechanical discs in them. To ovoid them you have to special order. They are professional engineers that are smarter than I am and probably smarter than most of the critics that trash fusion drives. What is their motive to do that? They are selling All-in one computers so going with small SSD drives and a large external storage whether SSD or HDD defeats that purpose. They must still feel the fusion drive is still the best compromise for a self contained computer with a lot of storage at a reasonable price. People continually use exaggerated or overstated language when they are extreme about condemning the use of fusion drives.

 

[Lankyman]

Absolutley correct. If I was choosing again between an itsie small SSD or a 2TB FD I would make exactly the same choice again i.e. 2TB FD. They are a great option for your average Mac user. What's not to like.

 

[JimmyG]

I wish someone could adequately explain to me why Apple would continue to sell probably their most popular computer with fusion drives that have mechanical discs in them. To ovoid them you have to special order. They are professional engineers that are smarter than I am and probably smarter than most of the critics that trash fusion drives. What is their motive to do that? They are selling All-in one computers so going with small SSD drives and a large external storage whether SSD or HDD defeats that purpose. They must still feel the fusion drive is still the best compromise for a self contained computer with a lot of storage at a reasonable price. People continually use exaggerated or overstated language when they are extreme about condemning the use of fusion drives.

As I see it...the folks in Cupertino are anything but misinformed or uneducated as to the actual needs of their users and I think that their current lineup/offerings reflect a great understanding of fulfilling their user-base needs.

Case in point...in shopping for my i9 iMac, 2TB SSD, Vega 48 it took me some time to recognize that my personal hardware/data-handling needs to use FCPX and DaVinci Resolve for 4K/6K HDR editing/production were heavier-than-most. For that specific-case need, it took me some time and homework to understand and accept that that volume of data handling required a robust machine (read: $$$). Conversely, had I not been in need of such heavy-lifting (read: doing 1080 video or no video at all, say) a 2/3TB Fusion Drive would have been screaming-fast enough for that purpose.

I "get" that many folks here would like to see inexpensively-priced SSD iMacs but the reality I see in the marketplace is that equivalent-speed non-Apple-supplied SSDs fetch equally premium prices (a Samsung T5 is not an X5). Perhaps in a few more years the pricing of fast SSD storage will come down, but it is not so today.

Fact-of-the-matter is (well, as I weigh things) Fusion Drives are already more-than-sufficient and even overkill for the vast majority of users doing nothing data-heavier than email, video consumption, photo-editing, social media and small business applications...how nice (I feel) that they have a multitude of choices to get into using a goregeous 5K (or even 4K) display at various price points. (That Apple were to publish which of their "most popular computer" iMacs sell most, methinks they would be the low-to-mid-range models and not what I bought!)

As for folks wanting a fast internal SSD (Windows or Mac, for that matter), today, they'll need to get out their wallets and leave their tissue boxes behind...well, IMHO.

My 2¢ worth,

 

[Infinite Vortex]

I wish someone could adequately explain to me why Apple would continue to sell probably their most popular computer with fusion drives that have mechanical discs in them. To ovoid them you have to special order. They are professional engineers that are smarter than I am and probably smarter than most of the critics that trash fusion drives. What is their motive to do that? They are selling All-in one computers so going with small SSD drives and a large external storage whether SSD or HDD defeats that purpose. They must still feel the fusion drive is still the best compromise for a self contained computer with a lot of storage at a reasonable price. People continually use exaggerated or overstated language when they are extreme about condemning the use of fusion drives.

It's not just one thing but actually mixture of a number of factors. It comes down to which angle you look at things and from whose perspective.

For the most part its economics. On Apple part it enables them to offer larger storage sizes at a much more affordable price point. On the flip side it enables them to charge their typical premium on SSD only "upgrades".

One needs to consider what an average iMac buyer would do with 2TB and higher and in what way they would use it. While putting 2TB onto an HDD takes significantly longer… the experience of viewing of say an HD movies doesn't change between HDD and SSD. Playing music doesn't seem to matter either, even if the source is the internet.

From a pure aesthetic perspective isn't it better to not have cables everywhere nor the need of plugging a crap ton of extras in… right?

From the buyer's perspective it makes for a more affordable Apple computer. I don't know anyone who likes to spend more money than they have to and Fusion does allow for that without HDD only (the fact HDD still exists is straight out greed IMHO - its abusive to the bottom end). Outside of it simply being cheaper it's, at least for the most part, a simpler and cleaner solution as having multiple volumes does take more management on the part of someone.

It is my impression that in 2019 one also needs to consider that Apple's push is more towards the iOS model with a single local storage plus cloud storage. Making it easy to avoid iCloud is not in Apple game plan in 2020 and moving forward as they want you to subscribe to the higher storage plans.

There are a plenty of way this can be looked at but I don't mind Fusion in of itself. I wouldn't ever buy, recommend nor use it myself as there is no gain but that doesn't mean it doesn't work well for others. I just wished Apple stopped being so greedy and offered better and more varied option especially at the bottom and top ends. Why aren't there 8TB+ Fusion options available?

 

[smirk]

I just wished Apple stopped being so greedy and offered better and more varied option especially at the bottom and top ends. Why aren't there 8TB+ Fusion options available?

Well, as long as we're wishing, I wish Apple put an NVMe slot in the iMac with an access hatch in the back, and a GUI fusion management front end. That way you could add your own extra storage and easily fuse it together with the existing storage.

 

[CWallace]

I wish someone could adequately explain to me why Apple would continue to sell probably their most popular computer with fusion drives that have mechanical discs in them.

As others have noted, it is to lower the price point of the machine while still offering storage of sufficient speed for things like music, videos and pictures. The 128GB SSD partition (for the 2TB/3TB configurations) is large enough for the OS and the most-often-used applications where the random-access speed benefits most. For streaming music and video, it's not necessary. Photos would benefit more from an SSD (since they're not streamed in the traditional sense), but if you are just viewing them and not actively editing them, an HDD should be sufficient.

I just wished Apple stopped being so greedy and offered better and more varied option especially at the bottom and top ends. Why aren't there 8TB+ Fusion options available?

I am guessing Apple feels that the majority of users who would need more than 3TB are probably already using SANs or multi-drive enclosures since they would likely have multiple backup strategies to protect that amount of data. At 2-3TB, there are one-disk external options at attractive prices from WD, Seagate and others to use as a Time Machine backup.

 

[satchmo]

Frankly, I don't think many are knocking the 2TB Fusion drive...given it has a 128GB SSD.

A more lively debate would be 'in defence of the 1TB Fusion Drive'

 

[archrider]

I can't defend the 1TB Fusion Drive.

 

[Brian Y]

The problem is that there is no actual benefit to ordering a 2TB fusion drive.

Let's take an example - the base 27" iMac upgraded to a 2TB Fusion is £180. For £90, you get a 256GB Storage drive, and plenty of money to buy a decent hard drive, probably 4TB if you shop around.

Unless you absolutely have to have EVERYTHING on the same volume, SSD + HDD is better than fusion drive in pretty much every way.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

If you want an all-in-one, a (2 TB) fusion drive makes sense.

If you want to hang stuff off an AIO, why?

 

[Lankyman]

The problem is that there is no actual benefit to ordering a 2TB fusion drive.

Let's take an example - the base 27" iMac upgraded to a 2TB Fusion is £180. For £90, you get a 256GB Storage drive, and plenty of money to buy a decent hard drive, probably 4TB if you shop around.

Unless you absolutely have to have EVERYTHING on the same volume, SSD + HDD is better than fusion drive in pretty much every way.

It's an AIO not a Mini/Pro/PC. You don't by an AIO to then start adding peripherals. It smacks of "I bought the wrong product for my needs, I didn't research this before I made my purchase".

 

[Ubele]

The problem is that there is no actual benefit to ordering a 2TB fusion drive.

Yes, there is. See my post above. If you have Apple’s 2 TB iCloud storage plan, and you have more than a certain amount of files (which need to be stored in the Documents folder on your system drive), and you don’t want the slow 1 TB Fusion drive, and you can’t justify spending the extra money for a 1 or 2 TB SSD, then the 2 TB Fusion drive is a good option.

 

[Juicy Box]

Yes, there is. See my post above. If you have Apple’s 2 TB iCloud storage plan, and you have more than a certain amount of files (which need to be stored in the Documents folder on your system drive), and you don’t want the slow 1 TB Fusion drive, and you can’t justify spending the extra money for a 1 or 2 TB SSD, then the 2 TB Fusion drive is a good option.

I am not disagreeing with your post, as I can understand multiple benefits of a Fusion Drive with the 128GB SSD, but there are probably other solutions for your situation with the iCloud storage.

If you would get a decent sized internal SSD instead of a Fusion Drive, and and a larger external storage source such as HDD or SSD, you can create your own Fusion Drive with the fast internal SSD and the external drive using Disk Utility.

Downsides to this would be needing an external drive for your system drive, which many people wouldn't like this, and also having to create a Fusion Drive, while not difficult, might intimidate some people.

The same could be done internally too, if one wanted to open their iMac.

 

[Ubele]

I am not disagreeing with your post, as I can understand multiple benefits of a Fusion Drive with the 128GB SSD, but there are probably other solutions for your situation with the iCloud storage.

If you would get a decent sized internal SSD instead of a Fusion Drive, and and a larger external storage source such as HDD or SSD, you can create your own Fusion Drive with the fast internal SSD and the external drive using Disk Utility.

Downsides to this would be needing an external drive for your system drive, which many people wouldn't like this, and also having to create a Fusion Drive, while not difficult, might intimidate some people.

The same could be done internally too, if one wanted to open their iMac.

Thanks — I didn’t know that it was possible to create a Fusion drive with an external drive. Has that always been the case? When I researched creating Fusion drives for my wife’s and my Mac minis several years ago, I never saw a mention of anyone doing that.

 

[Juicy Box]

Has that always been the case?

Yeah, AFAIK, this has always been the case.

Most things that can be done with an internal drive can also be done with an external drive as well.

I have done some less common things with external drives.

15 years ago, I was using iPods as boot drives from my Macs.

You can use external drives for a SW RAID. I have recently experimented to see if it is possible to use two different interfaces for a SW RAID0, in this case it was a USB 3 SSD and a TB1 SSD. It worked fine

There are certain limitations for external drives like the lack of TRIM for USB drives, although TB drives can have TRIM. I had an issue were firmware wouldn't install on an external drive to enable me to use the High Sierra installer on a Mid 2011 iMac, but this was also the case for a non-apple internal drive too.

When I researched creating Fusion drives for my wife’s and my Mac minis several years ago, I never saw a mention of anyone doing that.

I found a couple with a quick search, but there were few of people that were urging against it. Mostly for lame reasons though like, "if one drive fails, you lose everything!", and "if your external drive accidentally gets disconnected, your Fusion Drive will wipe!"......

I don't think a lot of them are true/realistic, and if you are keeping a back up, you don't have anything to worry about.

There are lots of things that could be done to mitigate potential problems. Actually, you could just use the internal HDD as your cloned back up if anything fails.

Here is a good how-to for external Fusion Drives:

DIY Fusion Drives — The Right Way

A commoner’s guide on how to set up your own Fusion Drive with an SSD + HDD pairing, and give your aging Mac a youthful speed boost (or add kick ass external disks that outperform regular external…

medium.com

 

[Ubele]

Here is a good how-to for external Fusion Drives:

DIY Fusion Drives — The Right Way

A commoner’s guide on how to set up your own Fusion Drive with an SSD + HDD pairing, and give your aging Mac a youthful speed boost (or add kick ass external disks that outperform regular external…

medium.com

Thanks for the link and the other information! I'm on the verge of creating my fourth (and most likely final) Fusion drive, for a 2012 i5 Mac mini that my dad gave me. I ordered the data-doubler kit and extra RAM from OWC last week, and it arrived this morning. I'd consider the external Fusion drive option now, but my original plan was to make this both a media server and a backup computer for my wife's 2012 i7 Mac mini, in case hers fails at some point and we don't get her a new computer immediately. Hers has a 1.2 TB Fusion drive, whereas the i5 mini currently has the stock 500 GB HDD. I have a spare 1 TB HDD, and I ordered a 120 GB SSD.

In a weird way, it's kind of fun opening a mini and getting "under the hood." When I did it the first time, it was a white-knuckle affair, but the next two were easy. I still miss upgrading my 2000 Power Mac G4, but don't get me started on that. I long ago gave up hope that Apple would make another fully upgradable mid-range tower. For now, I'm loving my 2019 iMac, 2 TB Fusion drive and all.

 

[gnasher729]

I wish someone could adequately explain to me why Apple would continue to sell probably their most popular computer with fusion drives that have mechanical discs in them.

Because they are excellent value for money for many, many customers.

 

[PieTunes]

Because they are excellent value for money for many, many customers.

I tend to agree. I know that a large segment of consumers probably need the 1-2TB of storage and the economical way for Apple to offer it is via Fusion or straight HDD. I personally wish Apple's Fusion drives had a larger SSD component to make it "easier" for consumers in terms of speed and whatnot, even though it would dip into Apple's bottom line a little bit.

 

[dogslobber]

It’s 2020 and iMacs still have fusion drives where there’s of the universe ditched spinners along time ago. They’re slow and dead tech. Apple shows its colors as a charlatan by gouging the customer of their money with bait and switch tactics. The longer they sell fusion crap the more pathetic a company they are.

 

[AustinIllini]

It's a shame I have to BTO an iMac to get something with a legitimate SSD without a platter.

Apple needs to address that this year. There's no room for the fusion drives in the 20s