fusion drive life time

[al404]

hi i'm interest in a new mac mini and the main reason is fusion drive, what i'm a little concern about is his life time

i heard that SSD has more limited write times than standard hard disk
i'm going to use mac mini for every day work, i write little file most of them 10Kb but i save them often during the day

is SSD will fail wil fusion drive still work?

 

[opinio]

hi i'm interest in a new mac mini and the main reason is fusion drive, what i'm a little concern about is his life time

i heard that SSD has more limited write times than standard hard disk
i'm going to use mac mini for every day work, i write little file most of them 10Kb but i save them often during the day

is SSD will fail wil fusion drive still work?

If the SSD fails you will lose all data (subject to using some technical method to retrieve lost data). You need to replace the SSD and re-fuse it with a HDD. It is reformatted by Core Storage in that process.

The limited write times on an SSD are not as limited as you think though. The SSD will likely become smaller (relative to your storage capacity needs) long before the SSD fails for you concern.

A fusion drive or SSD is a must I think. Just make sure Time Machine or SuperDuper is running regularly. I have Time Machine running as per OSX and have Super Duper backing up a complete disk image per night. I also back up all that as well.

 

[al404]

i do backups but the problem would be replacement time, even if i also have a macbook

do you know if is possible to carbon copy clone my actual hard drive on an USB disk to restore on new mac mini, booting from usb disk

i usually do it this way if i need to change my mac, but i'm not sure if could be a problem on fusion drive

 

[opinio]

i do backups but the problem would be replacement time, even if i also have a macbook

do you know if is possible to carbon copy clone my actual hard drive on an USB disk to restore on new mac mini, booting from usb disk

i usually do it this way if i need to change my mac, but i'm not sure if could be a problem on fusion drive

I usually rebuild.

You mean you want to clone your hard drive from your Macbook to your Mac mini?

You can obviously boot from a USB drive, but I am not sure if the MacBook OS will work. It would also depend on how old your OS is. I have run my Mac minis from the OS from my Macbook Airs in a USB boot drive but not on a permanent basis. Also that was with a 2011, not 2012 mini.

If you want your old OS stuff from the MacBook just use the migration tool after you do the fresh install on your new Mac mini?

Also, if you are worried about replacing a drive you can run it from USB3.0, T-bolt or eSata (with the Lacie T-bolt esata hub).

You can also create a fusion with an external drive. I don't do that but enough people on the forum have done it.

 

[gnasher729]

hi i'm interest in a new mac mini and the main reason is fusion drive, what i'm a little concern about is his life time

i heard that SSD has more limited write times than standard hard disk
i'm going to use mac mini for every day work, i write little file most of them 10Kb but i save them often during the day

is SSD will fail wil fusion drive still work?

1. Don't worry about life times. SSD drives don't last forever, and hard drives don't last forever. You just make sure you have a backup and get on with your life.

2. If either the SSD part or the hard drive part fails, the Fusion Drive will stop working. That's why you have a backup.

3. If you worry about the time to get running again, buy an external drive, preferably USB3, and make a bootable backup. Worst case, you boot from the external drive and go on working immediately. Obviously a bit slower.

 

[al404]

i'm a bit warried because when i did a research on SSD for my macbook, that i use as alternative machine, al data are a copy of my iMac, i found out tha SSD reliability is quite low

i end up with a samsung 830, that with intel seems the most reliably

i'm not talking about 5, 10 years but about a loto of people experiencing failure on SSD within 6 - 12 month

actually i have 2 backups time machine + copy on an other disk
i use synk that just copy modify, new and deleted files not the all thing each time

if carbon copy can clone my disk on regular basis without starting over each time could be a good solution

my problem with restoring from TM is that i'm web developer and i did modify apache, php and add mysql
restoring from TM wont bring that back

since a while i don't store my data on my primary HDD but use external ones, tring to keep the minimum on it

on my iMac i have 300Gb used
i did not know that thunderbolt or USB3 SSD could reach a very good speed
i don't really car about fusion disk and his management of data

for me it may be also preferred to chose where i should store my staff

do you thing performance of external thundebolth, usb 3 SSD with os x on it is noticeable vs internal fusion drive?

 

[MJL]

What is your data worth to you and how much data do you have? If it is less than say 100-200 Gb then you can use a 256 Gb SSD and use the second internal HDD as the time machine. (what I try to convey get the bigger SSD and do not use it as a fusion drive)

 

[benwiggy]

i'm not talking about 5, 10 years but about a loto of people experiencing failure on SSD within 6 - 12 month

If people have a problem, they will complain about it on the internet. You can find people complaining about hard drives dying within a few months, too. Photoshop always crashes, OS X updates break your computer, monitors display everything in a funny colour; Western Digital drives are useless; Seagate drives are useless; Hitachi drives are useless; etc, etc, etc.

Sometimes, hardware fails. Despite rigorous quality testing in the factory, a few duff machines will be sold. That's why you have warrantees and consumer protection laws.

6 to 12 months on an SSD is way below spec. Either these drives have been in some environment -- too hot, too humid etc -- that accelerates failure, or they are defective units. But that makes them no different from mechanical drives.

Either way: you get them replaced and restore from your backup.

my problem with restoring from TM is that i'm web developer and i did modify apache, php and add mysql
restoring from TM wont bring that back

Why not? TM backups the whole drive.

 

[al404]

if you search internet for "ssd reliability" failure and longevity seems an issue

one of them
http://www.zdnet.com/ssd-infant-mortality-ii-7000003945/

 

[leman]

i'm not talking about 5, 10 years but about a loto of people experiencing failure on SSD within 6 - 12 month

If SSDs are expected to fail within 6 month why do some manufacturers grant them 5 year warranty? Doesn't seem like a good business ^^

P.S. It seems that some OCZ drives had serious reliability problems. In comparison, Intel ones appear to be more reliable than any HDD brand.

 

[al404]

when i did my research it depends from manufacture and models, intel and samsung seems to have a very low failure number of units

 

[opinio]

my problem with restoring from TM is that i'm web developer and i did modify apache, php and add mysql restoring from TM wont bring that back

Just buy SuperDuper for a few dollars and set it to do a complete back up of your Macintosh HD when ever or as much as you like. It can back up a complete image or copy the whole drive to another one. Also you can set it to do 'SmartUpdate' so it only backs up changed files.

 

[al404]

is superduper better of carbon copy cloner, in full clone?

 

[philipma1957]

is superduper better of carbon copy cloner, in full clone?

Having both is best. I have both paid versions. I use superduper 1 time a week with auto program.

Every once in a while it does not work after an osx update then I use CCC. If you think about it your info's value to you should determine what you want to spend to back it up.

 

[blanka]

Most people don't know that full clone is actually done very well with Disk Utility. Super Duper and CCC are usefull if you want to exclude folders or do incrementals.

 

[Fishrrman]

"fusion drive life time…"

… will be until EITHER of the internal drives (SSD or HDD) fails.

Then it's time for a drive replacement and a COMPLETE RESTORATION of all files.

At this time, I doubt there is any "data recovery" type software that can successfully attack and recover from a "half-unfused" (but still operable) drive. If anyone knows of such software, please reply.

I just don't "see the sense" of having two drives "fused into one". If you have two drives, you have the potential to "insulate yourself" from a crash of either drive by maintaining a bootable copy of the OS on BOTH drives. This makes recovery instantaneous if either drive develops a problem. One needs only to "switch-boot" to be back up and running in the matter of about 60 seconds.

With a 256gb SSD and a 1tb HDD, one can partition off 200-250gb of space on the HDD to use for a cloned backup, and still have an additional 700-800gb of storage space for whatever is necessary.

This will result on three "drive icons" on the desktop, but why should that be harder to manage than just one? I maintain 7 (or more) mounted volume icons at all times, and it's easy to keep track of "where things are"….