How crazy to buy an iMac with the 256GB drive.

[JinxVi]

HDD ➞ SATA SSD ➞ FUSION DRIVE ➞ NVMe SSD ➞ 3D NAND SSD

Each of these was a huge step forward in overall system performance for the Mac. I for one am not willing to make compromise on storage speed. And I'm old enough to remember typing out pages of source code printed in computer magazines as a kid. Storing simple ASCII puzzle games on Datasette was an innovation long before the advent of 8-inch floppy disks.

 

[WC7]

 

[WC7]

HDD ➞ SATA SSD ➞ FUSION DRIVE ➞ NVMe SSD ➞ 3D NAND SSD

Each of these was a huge step forward in overall system performance for the Mac. I for one am not willing to make compromise on storage speed. And I'm old enough to remember typing out pages of source code printed in computer magazines as a kid. Storing simple ASCII puzzle games on Datasette was an innovation long before the advent of 8-inch floppy disks.

View attachment 2329578

I remember using paper tape and a teletype machine. Sadly, I am that old.

 

[picpicmac]

Storing simple ASCII puzzle games on Datasette was an innovation long before the advent of 8-inch floppy disks.

The 8" floppy disk was introduced long before Commodore made that cassette storage device.

I started in the days of storing on cassette also (for a programmable calculator) and 8" floppy drives, and using a DEC paper terminal.

And I will stand by my assertion that hysterics over Apple internal SSD speeds are done to drive YouTube views and website hits.

In the real world use for almost all Apple users, the (internal SSD) sequential read and write SSD speeds for large block transfers are not of relevance.

The random read and write speeds of small data transfers is not meaningfully different among the various internal SSD implementations that Apple uses.

 

[Fishrrman]

WC7 wrote:
"I remember using paper tape and a teletype machine"

I used teletype, too, actually, radio-teletype (1971).
The encryption equipment is so old that it's now in "the crypto museum"...

 

[WC7]

WC7 wrote:
"I remember using paper tape and a teletype machine"

I used teletype, too, actually, radio-teletype (1971).
The encryption equipment is so old that it's now in "the crypto museum"...

Teletype and phone line to the GE-265 (1965) mainframe ... using the 'Dartmouth' time sharing system for high schools.

 

[Andrey84]

HDD ➞ SATA SSD ➞ FUSION DRIVE ➞ NVMe SSD ➞ 3D NAND SSD

Each of these was a huge step forward in overall system performance for the Mac. I for one am not willing to make compromise on storage speed. And I'm old enough to remember typing out pages of source code printed in computer magazines as a kid. Storing simple ASCII puzzle games on Datasette was an innovation long before the advent of 8-inch floppy disks.

1. Fusion Drive is worse than a full SATA SSD, so your order is wrong
2. As someone already said in this thread, a regular user probably won't notice any difference between a SATA SSD and any other SSD types you listed 95% of the time. 500 MB/s is PLENTY for 95% of regular user's tasks. Just don’t see these kinds of read speeds becoming a bottleneck.

However, I'm glad you're following the trends, and you're using the best hardware that's available, and that you personally feel the difference.

 

[JinxVi]

1. Fusion Drive is worse than a full SATA SSD, so your order is wrong

No, it's not. There is value in slower, but much larger and cheaper storage. And thanks to Fusion Drive you don't even need to manage it yourself. I wish something like that would still exist for Apple Silicon. Reliable storage is still an unsolved problem.

Dying SanDisk SSDs serve a painful reminder about storage reliability

2. As someone already said in this thread, a regular user probably won't notice any difference between SATA SSD and any other SSD types you listed 95% of the time. 500MB/s is PLENTY for 95% of regular user's tasks.

Maybe it was because of SATA 2 or general system performance, but my first SSD-equipped MBP didn't break any records. And it's not only about speed, 3D NAND also increased the lifetime while making larger SSDs cheaper. It's why soldered NAND chips aren't a huge problem. One could build fast, reliable, cheap and large storage with today's technologies, but nobody wants to offer something like that yet.

However, I'm glad you're following the trends and you're using the best hardware that's available and that you personally feel the difference.

I am not following the trends at all. I'm fixed on using Apple products and try to navigate within the offerings of a single company only. Whenever I look at non-Apple products, I'm deeply disappointed by their quality and have to send them back. But I'm also stingy and find a lot of Apple products overpriced and not useful enough. It's not even funny how spoiled I am.

 

[Andrey84]

No, it's not.

Yes, it is! SSD is much better than Fusion Drive, assuming the same size. We are not discussing the price here yet. Fusion drives were popular when SSDs were very expensive. FD were always meant as a stop-gap storage solution until SSDs became cheaper. This is why Fusion Drives are non-existent now. They were nightmare to repair, as FD consists of two hardware components and special system software, and all 3 components are mandatory for it to work.

Your order is definitely wrong. It’s HDD > Fusion Drive > SSD.

Perhaps you got confused, because you have special storage requirements which are above 2TB, and you believe that for you personally Fusion Drive is better due to price. However, I’m sure that 95% of Mac users consider 2TB enough, and at this size, even with the price accounted for, SSD beats FD hands down.

MBP didn't break any records.

I think you might be getting confused again. We are not talking about benchmarks. We are talking about the real-world speed. How long does it take to load/restart/update the system. How long does it take to open your professional application. How long does it take to open or copy a large file. SSDs did all of that roughly 2-3 times faster than HDDs. That was a real jump forward. All the next steps you listed added maybe 10% each in real-world performance, no more.

 

[JinxVi]

We are talking about the real-world speed. How long does it take to load/restart/update the system. How long does it take to open your professional application. How long does it take to open or copy a large file. SSDs did all of that roughly 2-3 times faster than HDDs.

Up to 3× faster under ideal conditions. Early SSDs were small, so the available free space was also always limited. You had to manually activate TRIM support after every OS X update. HFS+ wasn't made for SSDs either. All that improved over time.

That was a real jump forward. All the next steps you listed added maybe 10% each in real-world performance, no more.

The M1 brought at least a 2× real-world performance jump over i7 Macs from one year before. There are thousands of little improvements, which in combination were even more meaningful than the HDD ➞ SSD transition. Today I would upgrade an old SATA-equipped Mac with an SHDD (basically a ready-made Fusion Drive) rather than an expensive SSD, which it can't make full use of anyway. Anything more than a handful of dollars should be saved towards a new M-series Mac. For a time an SSD was the best thing you could do for performance, but that time is gone. You've got to adapt your expectations to a new baseline and look for meaningful differences between different M-series Macs.

 

[Andrey84]

Up to 3× faster under ideal conditions. Early SSDs were small, so the available free space was also always limited. You had to manually activate TRIM support after every OS X update. HFS+ wasn't made for SSDs either. All that improved over time.

The M1 brought at least a 2× real-world performance jump over i7 Macs from one year before. There are thousands of little improvements, which in combination were even more meaningful than the HDD ➞ SSD transition. Today I would upgrade an old SATA-equipped Mac with an SHDD (basically a ready-made Fusion Drive) rather than an expensive SSD, which it can't make full use of anyway. Anything more than a handful of dollars should be saved towards a new M-series Mac. For a time an SSD was the best thing you could do for performance, but that time is gone. You've got to adapt your expectations to a new baseline and look for meaningful differences between different M-series Macs.

I don't need to adapt anything - I only use a 2015 MacBook Pro (i7/16/512) for browsing and it's very fast. It will last me for 5-7 more years. All my work is on a Windows machine. My wife has a top spec 2020 iMac (i9/128/2,048) though, which I manage. We will upgrade it in about 4 years to a Mac Studio.

You on the other hand are confused about SSDs vs Fusion Drives and about the real performance differences within the SSD range. You kind of heard something, but you're not quite sure. M machines bring improvements because of the new architecture. If you want to know the real-world difference between a SATA SSD and a PCIe/M.2/NVMe/3D NAND SSD, you should test them within the same platform. So, unfortunately, your argument is again invalid.

Good luck with that custom Fusion Drive, I really hope it won't break. I hope you are spending your money wisely here installing a very complicated bit of kit and it's at least 8TB, because only this kind of volume might make it worth the risk in my view.

 

[JinxVi]

I only use a 2015 MacBook Pro (i7/16/512) for browsing and it's very fast.

It's still usable, not very fast.

All my work is on a Windows machine.

My deepest condolences.

We will upgrade it in about 4 years to a Mac Studio.

Without even knowing what an Mac mini M7 Pro can do? That's a little premature.

If you want to know the real-world difference between a SATA SSD and a PCIe/M.2/NVMe/3D NAND SSD, you should test them within the same platform.

Nonsense. You upgrade to a new computer, because you can't simply rip out the system bus from the motherboard and upgrade to a faster bus. 2.5" SATA SSDs exist merely because of backward compatibility with old computers. Getting rid of all these interface limitations is even more meaningful than technological progress itself. That's why PC hardware is a hot mess and Windows on ARM is going nowhere. Apple is the master of transitions and changing the chip architecture was just one of them.

Good luck with that custom Fusion Drive, I really hope it won't break.

Fusion Drive is just one line of code creating a logical volume spanning two physical volumes. It's as safe as any HFS+ drive. Make a Time Machine backup and you'll be able to restore.

 

[Andrey84]

Today I would upgrade an old SATA-equipped Mac with an SHDD

All theoretical discussions aside, and I know it's too late to talk about this, however I still want to. Honestly, to install a spinner in 2024, I assume to save $200 or thereabouts, when everyone else got rid of them in favour of SSDs in 2014, is some kind of cold-hearted ruthlessly-rational logic that I'll never understand. Just the noise alone on that thing is dreadful. Can you at least say what the drive size will be?

 

[Andrey84]

Today I would upgrade an old SATA-equipped Mac with an SHDD

Also please read this: MacRumors: Is Fusion Drive Really That Bad?
According to experts on this forum, Fusion Drives were not worth it even in 2018!

 

[JinxVi]

Honestly, to install a spinner in 2024, I assume to save $200 or thereabouts, when everyone else got rid of them in favour of SSDs in 2014, is some kind of cold-hearted ruthlessly-rational logic that I'll never understand.

By 2014 even the Mac mini supported speedy NVMe SSDs. I'm talking about the SATA-only Macs before. No SSD will make a 2010 Mac new again. So why waste perfectly good $200 for nothing?

Just the noise alone on that thing is dreadful.

Constant fan noise of old iMacs is a thing. You can't hear the drive anyway.

Can you at least say what the drive size will be?

A 500 GB SSHD for €7. Twice as much storage as a new iMac! 😆

According to experts on this forum, Fusion Drives were not worth it even in 2018!

Not when you buy them from Apple! But you can make a Fusion Drive yourself by just typing a few command lines into the Terminal. If you already have most of the parts and a fairly new Intel iMac, it's still a worthwhile upgrade. Affordable internal storage options are truly something we've lost with the Apple Silicon transition.

 

[Andrey84]

A 500 GB SSHD for €7

Weren't you the one arguing in this thread that OP is making a big mistake by getting a 256 GB SSD, because the 512 GB SSD from Apple is nearly twice as fast as 256? And yet you're installing a Fusion Drive, which has a spinner, which is roughly 15 times slower? Is it into your own machine or into someone else's?
How much have you actually saved? I can see Crucial and Kingston 500GB SSDs on our local Amazon for £37.
I estimate your saving to be just €35
How can you justify more than doubling the risk of the storage solution failing (because you're doubling the number of components, also HDDs are less reliable that SSDs) and yet saving just 35 euros?

it's still a worthwhile upgrade

Absolutely not! Just upgrade to a full SSD.

What you're doing is called "penny-wise and pound-foolish".

 

[JinxVi]

How can you justify more than doubling the risk of the storage solution failing (because you're doubling the number of components, also HDDs are less reliable that SSDs) and yet saving just 35 euros?

Because there's no critical work to be done on a 14 years old computer. And a new HDD won't likely fail within its first five years. And the SATA 2 connector is too slow for a 15 times faster SSD. And a dual-core CPU won't produce large amounts of data anyway. It's the 8-core/10-core M3 where a fast SSD can truly shine.

What you're doing is called "penny-wise and pound-foolish".

Says the man who plans to buy a Mac Studio ($2000+ without a monitor) in four years time and wants to stick to Intel Macs until then.

 

[smirking]

In the real world use for almost all Apple users, the (internal SSD) sequential read and write SSD speeds for large block transfers are not of relevance.

I had to do all of my photo editing off of a 1TB USB 3.2 speed external SSD for a month a few years ago. I ran Capture One Pro and Apple Photos off of it. Both of those programs do a lot of reading and writing to the disk the catalog is on when you're using it.

It surprised me that it actually worked fine. I did a modest amount of basic video editing off of that drive too. Even with that potential bottleneck, the average user might not notice the difference under normal usage.

 

[jlc1978]

I remember using paper tape and a teletype machine. Sadly, I am that old.

I remember them, along with a line printer for output and mounting a 3 foot disk platter. Playing a game could use many feet of paper. Hollerith Cards were a big step up - you could actually easily reuse parts of a program.

Without even knowing what a Mac mini M7 Pro can do? That's a little premature.

That won't stop people from arguing over it on MR.

It surprised me that it actually worked fine. I did a modest amount of basic video editing off of that drive too. Even with that potential bottleneck, the average user might not notice the difference under normal usage.

That's the key - get what works for yo and you can afford. 8/256 is fine for a lot of users; it's about matching the machine to the task.

 

[smirking]

That's the key - get what works for yo and you can afford. 8/256 is fine for a lot of users; it's about matching the machine to the task.

Exactly. It definitely wouldn't have been a good situation for me on a permanent basis, but it wasn't bad at all. I know some Windows users who don't even come close to filling up a 128GB drive. They're basically using them like Chromebooks.