I think Apple should make the SSD standard, and have the Fusion Drive a BTO option for people that would benefit from it.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Defense Of The 2 TB Fusion Drive Option
- Thread starter archrider
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I think Apple should make the SSD standard, and have the Fusion Drive a BTO option for people that would benefit from it.
The iMac is the only Mac where the Fusion Drive is still an option.
And the iMac is the most popular desktop Mac Apple sells which implies it meets the most use-cases for desktop users running macOS. It does not require a leap of logic to presume those use-cases include the need for large amounts of storage for things like movies, music and photos that don't care how fast or slow your drive is since they stream the data off at a fixed speed well below what an HDD can provide, much less an SSD. So why force a customer to spend $700 more to have a 2TB SSD instead of a 2TB Fusion Drive just to hold their movies, music and photos? And even if Apple was more reasonable with their SSD pricing, it would still be hundreds more.
That could be an option, though I suppose Apple feels that having a starting price $700 higher (so an iMac with a 2TB SSD as "standard" and a 2TB Fusion Drive as a $700 discount) might drive away customers before they get to the configuration options to see the potential savings.
A 1TB SSD drive should be standard on all iMacs. They're dirt cheap without the 300% Apple mark up. It's time for people to stop making excuses for Apple ripping off customer. Stealing money from people is a crime in most jurisdictions, except Apple stores.
And it’s time for people to stop equating some of Apple’s (or any retailer’s) business practices as theft or a crime. If you’ve ever had anything stolen from you, I’m sure you weren’t given the option to not hand over your money. Go ahead and report your local Apple store to the police. Yes, their markup is high, but hardly criminal in nature. People can decide with their wallets, it’s really as simple as that.
Best defense I’ve seen of a fusion drive yet.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.
Well played.
Sure if you want to choke the performance a fair bit by going SATA. M.2 are a fair bit more expensive, especially the high-performance models Apple seems to favor.
Enough with the hyperbole. It's not like blue-shirted thugs march people into Apple Stores and force them at gunpoint to buy a Mac.
I'm not a fan of Fusion drives, but I think in certain situations they can make sense.
Do I think in 2020 that fusion drives are the default for iMacs (27") is ridiculous? Yes, absolutely but then Apple is also offering a 5400rpm spinning drive for its 21" iMac which is mind-boggling.
To summarize, there can be a use case for Fusion drives but Apple's marketing/reliance on such old technology makes little sense (other than a money grab). Across the iMac line, I'm spending a 1,000 dollars all the way up to 2,300 and I'll either get a slow spinning drive or a Fusion drive (unless I go the BTO route).
Do I think in 2020 that fusion drives are the default for iMacs (27") is ridiculous? Yes, absolutely but then Apple is also offering a 5400rpm spinning drive for its 21" iMac
which is mind-boggling.To summarize, there can be a use case for Fusion drives but Apple's marketing/reliance on such old technology makes little sense (other than a money grab). Across the iMac line, I'm spending a 1,000 dollars all the way up to 2,300 and I'll either get a slow spinning drive or a Fusion drive (unless I go the BTO route).
I don't think it is realistic to expect Apple to supply 1-2tb SSD drives in their iMacs, especially with the entry level models, while still keeping prices affordable. The iMac serves a lot of consumers, most of whom are not going to see using an external drive as a reasonable solution to a desktop computer coming with inadequate storage.
For the general consumer, they likely prize sheer storage volume over lightning-fast access, and I guess a fusion drive is the best compromise there is - you get the benefit of a lot of storage while still getting reasonably fast boot up times.
You really have to think about what the consumer would do, not what they should do.
For the general consumer, they likely prize sheer storage volume over lightning-fast access, and I guess a fusion drive is the best compromise there is - you get the benefit of a lot of storage while still getting reasonably fast boot up times.
You really have to think about what the consumer would do, not what they should do.