Fusion Drive Question

[ajstraith]

I know Apple’s fusion drive is basically a hybrid drive with a 32-128GB flash memory with a 1-3TB normal HD. My question is, why does PC manufacturers only use like 8GB flash memory? Seagates 1-2TB Firecuda has 8GB of flash storage. I’ve checked and I can’t find other brands with hybrids. Does Apple have some sort of patent on this design or is the software an issue (maybe Windows 10 can’t support it?). I’d like to see if anyone knows. I’m going to be upgrading a free computer my sister gave me and that’s the cheapest and best option. Thanks and have a good day!

 

[BayouTiger]

It's a bit more complicated than the hybrid drives. Apple has software in CoreStorage that manages it. If you make a homemade Fusion drive with a command line you get the sum of the two parts available. That would not be the case if it was being used just as transient cache to speed up operation. I created one in mob LaCie Little Big Disk just to see how it would work and it was fine but not particularly great for an external application.

I think they can be made in other 'nix OS's but not certain of it. Most have extended file systems that may offer better flexibility anyway.

 

[danielwsmithee]

I know Apple’s fusion drive is basically a hybrid drive with a 32-128GB flash memory with a 1-3TB normal HD. My question is, why does PC manufacturers only use like 8GB flash memory? Seagates 1-2TB Firecuda has 8GB of flash storage. I’ve checked and I can’t find other brands with hybrids. Does Apple have some sort of patent on this design or is the software an issue (maybe Windows 10 can’t support it?). I’d like to see if anyone knows. I’m going to be upgrading a free computer my sister gave me and that’s the cheapest and best option. Thanks and have a good day!

There are really a couple reasons for this.

An Apple Fusion Drive is not the same thing as for example Hybrid Drive (SSHD). Seagate uses the flash memory as cache so if you have a 1TB HD with a 8GB Flash Cache you only have a total capacity as 1TB. Apple on other uses core storage to implement a storage tier you end up with a total capacity for a 1TB HD + 32GB SSD of 1032GB.

With Apple solution you use a complete HD and a complete SSD, and fuse them together in software. For a Hybrid drive they combined together in hardware and controller firmware and are inseparable.

The other part to this is that many of the OLD HD manufacturers struggle to be able to purchase Flash at a reasonable price. So they limit the amount of flash on the device to keep the costs down. For a while they thought SSHDs were going to be very popular but the price of Flash dropped very quickly and people went straight to SSDs.

You will notice that the FireCuda performs OK for reads, but has horrible sequential write performance. Just something to keep in mind. This is purely a side effect of using such a small flash cache size.

Personally If I was upgrading a desktop, and wanting to keep the budget down. I'd get an SSD to use as the Boot Volume then use a standard 7200RPM as the Data Volume.

You will also notice that each HD manufacturer provides differing levels of performance as well:

• WD Black - High Performance 7200 RPM
• WD Blue - Lower Cost/ Higher Capacity
• WD Green - Optimized for lower power usage. (Dynamic spindle speed from 5400 RPM to 7200RPM)
• WD Red - Optimized and tested for use in a NAS or RAID.

 

[ajstraith]

There are really a couple reasons for this.

An Apple Fusion Drive is not the same thing as for example Hybrid Drive (SSHD). Seagate uses the flash memory as cache so if you have a 1TB HD with a 8GB Flash Cache you only have a total capacity as 1TB. Apple on other uses core storage to implement a storage tier you end up with a total capacity for a 1TB HD + 32GB SSD of 1032GB.

With Apple solution you use a complete HD and a complete SSD, and fuse them together in software. For a Hybrid drive they combined together in hardware and controller firmware and are inseparable.

The other part to this is that many of the OLD HD manufacturers struggle to be able to purchase Flash at a reasonable price. So they limit the amount of flash on the device to keep the costs down. For a while they thought SSHDs were going to be very popular but the price of Flash dropped very quickly and people went straight to SSDs.

You will notice that the FireCuda performs OK for reads, but has horrible sequential write performance. Just something to keep in mind. This is purely a side effect of using such a small flash cache size.

Personally If I was upgrading a desktop, and wanting to keep the budget down. I'd get an SSD to use as the Boot Volume then use a standard 7200RPM as the Data Volume.

You will also notice that each HD manufacturer provides differing levels of performance as well:

• WD Black - High Performance 7200 RPM
• WD Blue - Lower Cost/ Higher Capacity
• WD Green - Optimized for lower power usage. (Dynamic spindle speed from 5400 RPM to 7200RPM)
• WD Red - Optimized and tested for use in a NAS or RAID.

I thought about just adding a ssd, but im trying to stay under $100 on this otherwise I might as well add the thunderbolt SSD for my iMac. And I do a lot of video editing so I’ll need storage. Right now with all my video and photos I’ve got 500GB of storage used in my iMac. Which is why I’m considering the hybrid option because it’s faster then my super slow iMac. I’ll be making my choice soon so I’ll see what happens!

Thanks for the explanation though. I was curious on why Apple is the only one who makes a Fusion drive. Now I know!

 

[danielwsmithee]

I thought about just adding a ssd, but im trying to stay under $100 on this otherwise I might as well add the thunderbolt SSD for my iMac. And I do a lot of video editing so I’ll need storage. Right now with all my video and photos I’ve got 500GB of storage used in my iMac. Which is why I’m considering the hybrid option because it’s faster then my super slow iMac. I’ll be making my choice soon so I’ll see what happens!

Thanks for the explanation though. I was curious on why Apple is the only one who makes a Fusion drive. Now I know!

No problem and good luck. For my ~$100 I'd go with a $50 120GB SSD from Crucial and a $50 for a 1TB WD Black.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

Tell us more about the Mac you're getting.
Which one?
What year made?
What size display?