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Fusion Drive or SSD?
- Thread starter jordynicholls
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Plenty of threads on this topic, so best to poke around. My summary is:
1. Current Fusion owners are pretty much happy with their drives
2. People who have never owned one, say they suck, badly: Slow, break, noisy, hot, etc.
3. People who have owned them never experience #2
4. Read speeds are comparable to SSD, but write speeds about half of that. Then again, if you're routinely pushing around massive volumes of data, and you exceed the cache, you'll be back to spinner speeds.
5. Nobody is advocating this as an optimal solution, but with SSD prices still high and capacities low, it's a bridge technology.
Again, tons of threads on this. But the short of it is: Those who have owned Fusion drives are pretty much happy with them, and those who have never owned them believe that they will catch your home or office on fire.
1. Current Fusion owners are pretty much happy with their drives
2. People who have never owned one, say they suck, badly: Slow, break, noisy, hot, etc.
3. People who have owned them never experience #2
4. Read speeds are comparable to SSD, but write speeds about half of that. Then again, if you're routinely pushing around massive volumes of data, and you exceed the cache, you'll be back to spinner speeds.
5. Nobody is advocating this as an optimal solution, but with SSD prices still high and capacities low, it's a bridge technology.
Again, tons of threads on this. But the short of it is: Those who have owned Fusion drives are pretty much happy with them, and those who have never owned them believe that they will catch your home or office on fire.
Well, that's quite dichotomy of choices.
The 2TB Fusion drive offers 128GB of flash storage, and 2 TB of hard drive storage. So if your short and long term plans include data utilization higher then 256GB of storage, then the Fusion drive makes sense. If you think you can easily live within the 256GB of storage then go for the SSD.
Personally, I went with the Fusion drive because I grew tired of using external drives for my data needs when I used a MBP (with 256GB SSD)
by the way, I'm happy with the performance of my 2TB Fusion drive.
The 2TB Fusion drive offers 128GB of flash storage, and 2 TB of hard drive storage. So if your short and long term plans include data utilization higher then 256GB of storage, then the Fusion drive makes sense. If you think you can easily live within the 256GB of storage then go for the SSD.
Personally, I went with the Fusion drive because I grew tired of using external drives for my data needs when I used a MBP (with 256GB SSD)
by the way, I'm happy with the performance of my 2TB Fusion drive.
Thanks for the response.
I've been use to 128GB of storage on my Macbook, and use a external hard-drive for all my media. Reason of thinking of the fusion drive is so I can actually store my media on the machine.
On the fusion drive can I choose specifically if a file is stored on the SSD part or the HDD part?
I've been use to 128GB of storage on my Macbook, and use a external hard-drive for all my media. Reason of thinking of the fusion drive is so I can actually store my media on the machine.
On the fusion drive can I choose specifically if a file is stored on the SSD part or the HDD part?
This is a topic where you'll most likely get quite some opinionated statements.
Personally, I think for most people the FD would be the better choice, but "it depends"™.
Pro SSD: Uses a little less energy and therefore heat, you'll only have 1 instead of 2 drives that could fail and its going to be a tiny bit quieter (most people can't even hear it though). Not depending on whether Apple's FD algorithm works close enough to your actual use case. Last but not least, you'll get twice the amount of storage with SSD speeds.
Pro FD: Much more storage. No need to manually manage what goes on the SSD and what to an HDD. Only feasible option to optimize SSD usage on a file level rather than application level (and therefore significantly more space efficient) In most cases no need for external storage for normal usage. And as a little extra, you get an internal SATA port that could be used
Either way, none of these solutions is a valid excuse for not doing backups.
Personally, I think for most people the FD would be the better choice, but "it depends"™.
Pro SSD: Uses a little less energy and therefore heat, you'll only have 1 instead of 2 drives that could fail and its going to be a tiny bit quieter (most people can't even hear it though). Not depending on whether Apple's FD algorithm works close enough to your actual use case. Last but not least, you'll get twice the amount of storage with SSD speeds.
Pro FD: Much more storage. No need to manually manage what goes on the SSD and what to an HDD. Only feasible option to optimize SSD usage on a file level rather than application level (and therefore significantly more space efficient) In most cases no need for external storage for normal usage. And as a little extra, you get an internal SATA port that could be used
Either way, none of these solutions is a valid excuse for not doing backups.
No. You have basically no control what happens on a hardware level. All you can see is a virtual partition and the OS takes care of shifting files between the HDD and SSD.
The main reason of why to have a FD rather than an HDD is that you don't have to care about these things. You can actually split those partitions and then have a 128GB SSD as well as a 2TB HDD, but unless you have a good reason to do so, I wouldn't advise it.
that was my exact logic as well.
Nope, you have no control, unless you split the fusion drive from the logical partition to the physical layout. Personally, I'd like some more info on what is being stored on the flash portion of the drive, but that seems limited at best.
I was in a similar situation a few weeks back I ended up getting the 256GB SSD, and picked up a Samsung 500GB SSD external USB 3.0 for $200... Totaling 756GB of SSD sapce.
This worked out cheaper than getting apples 512GB SSD, and gave me an external option with more storage and portability, where I save all my projects, games, photos, Music library etc... I had a laptop 320GB HDD fail on me slowly, and upgraded it to a SSD about 2-3 years back during SSD infancy, and wow! After that I decided never to use a HDD again, I consider them as outdated as floppy disks now lol.
I had a 256GB in my laptop and managed well, always leaving 60GB to spare. I'm a heavy CAD/Graphic designer and photographer, with lots of programs, I have windows 10 installed on my current iMac with 114Gb to spare. 512GB would have been nice though. I've never used a fusion drive so cannot compare, nor have anything against them. Just prefer pure SSD vs a hybrid option. Plus with the limited space i'm more conscious about what I store, how I save my projects, how i adapt my workflow, when I back-up etc...
This worked out cheaper than getting apples 512GB SSD, and gave me an external option with more storage and portability, where I save all my projects, games, photos, Music library etc... I had a laptop 320GB HDD fail on me slowly, and upgraded it to a SSD about 2-3 years back during SSD infancy, and wow! After that I decided never to use a HDD again, I consider them as outdated as floppy disks now lol.
I had a 256GB in my laptop and managed well, always leaving 60GB to spare. I'm a heavy CAD/Graphic designer and photographer, with lots of programs, I have windows 10 installed on my current iMac with 114Gb to spare. 512GB would have been nice though. I've never used a fusion drive so cannot compare, nor have anything against them. Just prefer pure SSD vs a hybrid option. Plus with the limited space i'm more conscious about what I store, how I save my projects, how i adapt my workflow, when I back-up etc...
What type of work do you do on the machine?
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The 2TB pricing seems like a huge rip-off to me. Fusion software is built into OSX. All new machines have this capability, so additional cost only comes from hardware....which is relativity cheap.
I am a Fusion owner (21.5" model, 1TB FD), and it is great for my uses. If I were spending money on a new 27" iMac, I would go with the 256 SSD and an external for mass storage. My very targeted use and the silly pricing of the full SSD on a 21.5" model were the only reasons why I went with the Fusion. It works very well for me, but I only use a handful of Adobe applications, a Web browser, and Spotify. The bulk of the TB drive is for media cold storage.
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Get the 2TB fusion drive. I went out of my way to make a DIY fusion drive on my Mac Pro after years of manually managing files and symlinks between my 128GB SSD and a 2TB HDD. I'd never, ever, go back.
If you get the 2TB fusion drive and you absolutely hate it (which I doubt you will...), you can always break the link between them (after backing up your system, of course). Then you'd have the same 128GB SSD + HDD system you have now, except it'd be all internal.
But you are paying $300 for what amounts to about $100 worth of hardware.
I can't justify that markup. Maybe others can.
Depending on configuration and region, 256GB SSD and 2TB FD actually cost the same.
$300 for a 256GB SSD? They would both be ridiculously ovepriced at that point. Apple would lose me.
The answer is it depends.
If you are using Windows and bootcamp, get an SSD. Otherwise your Windows partition will be on an ordinary HDD.
If you just use OS X it depends how much stuff you have and where you'd want to keep it.
One option would be to get an internal SSD and spending a hundred on an external 1 or 2TB USB 3 hard drive.
But that would depend entirely how you use files and whether you are happy to work with 2 drives or 1.
Upgrading to a 512GB SSD could be the best all round solution. Enough space for the average user and there would be no slowdown.
Then you can get the external HDD if you need more space.
But then again plenty of people are happy with a fusion drive and there is less fuss.
There is no easy answer and it depends on how you want to organise your files.
If you are using Windows and bootcamp, get an SSD. Otherwise your Windows partition will be on an ordinary HDD.
If you just use OS X it depends how much stuff you have and where you'd want to keep it.
One option would be to get an internal SSD and spending a hundred on an external 1 or 2TB USB 3 hard drive.
But that would depend entirely how you use files and whether you are happy to work with 2 drives or 1.
Upgrading to a 512GB SSD could be the best all round solution. Enough space for the average user and there would be no slowdown.
Then you can get the external HDD if you need more space.
But then again plenty of people are happy with a fusion drive and there is less fuss.
There is no easy answer and it depends on how you want to organise your files.
Ok then I'm not sure where you are taking this $300 figure from. As the original poster was asking about 2TB FD vs. 256GB SSD, he might likely refer to the current top tier model, for which those 2 are the baseline options.
Other than that, the fact that Apple is hugely overcharging for hardware upgrades isn't exactly news. But since most parts aren't feasibly upgradeable, it's do or die.
Fusion Drive (128GB SSD version) is super fast and a joy to use. But just a reminder it doesn't work in Bootcamp Windows. I am fine with it since I use windows exclusively for gaming and the HDD doesn't affect the gaming performance much.
As I said, it depends on what you compare it to. This is irrelevant if you want the M395 or M395X GPU or the 3.3GHz i5, then it isn't $300 but $0.
For any model that comes with a 1TB HDD the $300 might be accurate, but I wouldn't recommend not upgrading that one to anyone who isn't planning to use an external SSD.
Like all posters have mentioned, it does matter on personal use/requirements and what specs you choose to match the SSD.
What I can say is, the 256 GB SSD drive will be like an F1 car, quick and responsive. The Fusion will be like a really good minivan, hold what you need all in one and get you by comfortably. Also apples new PCI SSDs are insanely fast, and it's a joy to use. Photoshop CC opens so quick, I can't even see the opening image, and I have a handful of brushes, fonts etc...
I also couldn't afford a 512GB SSD AND the core i7 upgrade together, and needed more CPU grunt, so opted for 256GB, when I had enough cash aside got an external SSD which worked much better.
What I can say is, the 256 GB SSD drive will be like an F1 car, quick and responsive. The Fusion will be like a really good minivan, hold what you need all in one and get you by comfortably. Also apples new PCI SSDs are insanely fast, and it's a joy to use. Photoshop CC opens so quick, I can't even see the opening image, and I have a handful of brushes, fonts etc...
I also couldn't afford a 512GB SSD AND the core i7 upgrade together, and needed more CPU grunt, so opted for 256GB, when I had enough cash aside got an external SSD which worked much better.
The 2TB Fusion upgrade is only 200 for the 27" 5k iMac which is what the OP is looking at. The 256GB SSD is 100 dollars more then the base price. If you go with the M395 iMac model, that's only 300 dollars more then the M390 and for that price you get a 2TB Fusion drive and a better GPU.
I think the performance difference between a straight SSD and a Fusion drive is not anywhere near the difference between an F1 car and a (even the best) minivan. But you're right that an SSD is faster and smaller.
Having switched from a separate SSD+HDD setup to a DIY Fusion drive with the exact same drives, I can honestly say I've never noticed a performance difference in real-world use.
NOPE.
http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/imac?product=MK462LL/A&step=config
...in walks another benchmark theorist, who feels compelled to speak as an expert about a topic he has no actual knowledge of.
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The M390 model, I showed, its only 200 more, hence my screen shot.
I see that you're fairly worked up over the Fusion drive and apple's pricing. My suggestion then is to avoid it, since that isn't to suited to your needs.
Uhh... I've never done benchmark tests or looked at any. I've owned multiple HDDs and SSDs, i speak from experience. I'm no expert, that's true. But I do Notice and feel a difference, I've used fusions, not alot, but for the work I do. Its noticeable. and SSDs are the way forward, fusions are the best of both worlds, with a very small % dedicated to SSD.
The comparison is exaggerated, only since the Op is considering 256GB vs 2TB.
PS, just cause I'm new here and posted here first, its not because i'm a "theorist or expert." Just cause I like the support in this community, and was in the same situation 2 weeks ago, and 3 years ago... both times I never regretted an SSD or felt 256GB was small.
The Fusion drive works great for my usage, but $300 for $100 worth of hardware is not something I could justify. Perhaps, others can.
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