iMac Fusion Trouble

[jtiis]

I have a retina 17" with fusion drive.

Now, 116 gb on my ssd is full - but - my HDD is completely empty and I have lots of other files on attached externals with empty space. Why is my SSD getting loaded up and how can I get files that shouldn't be on my SSD over to the other area of the fusion drive? TIA.

 

[cerberusss]

Perhaps I misunderstood your question? But the whole point of e fusion drive is that you don't care, and cannot influence, where the data resides. The sad will always be used completely first, because it's the fastest. After that, it'll intelligently store stuff on the HDD if it doesn't need to be served fast.

Your sentence about external hard drives doesn't make sense to me, they're not part of the fusion drive so why do they matter in this equation?

 

[jtiis]

I guess the externals don't matter - was just saying I have plenty of space to be used.... but...

I don't care if the SSD fill first or however apple wants it to do it's thing - but - I'm getting warnings saying "drive full" or "not enough space to save "x,y or z".... as if the controller for the fusion drive doesn't see it can/should start moving less used files over to the other space. This is my problem.

 

[Weaselboy]

I guess the externals don't matter - was just saying I have plenty of space to be used.... but...

I don't care if the SSD fill first or however apple wants it to do it's thing - but - I'm getting warnings saying "drive full" or "not enough space to save "x,y or z".... as if the controller for the fusion drive doesn't see it can/should start moving less used files over to the other space. This is my problem.

I'm a little confused also. It does not sound like you have a Fusion setup. If you did, the OS would move files between the flash storage and the hard drive storage on its own and you would have no way of seeing where they are or knowing if the flash drive is full or not.

Run the two commands below in Terminal one after the other and copy/paste the output up here so we can have a look at how you are setup.

diskutil list

diskutil cs list

 

[Apple fanboy]

I guess the externals don't matter - was just saying I have plenty of space to be used.... but...

I don't care if the SSD fill first or however apple wants it to do it's thing - but - I'm getting warnings saying "drive full" or "not enough space to save "x,y or z".... as if the controller for the fusion drive doesn't see it can/should start moving less used files over to the other space. This is my problem.

Did you install your own Fusion Drive? Apple didn't have that option on the 17". Also pretty sure there wasn't a 17" retina as well.

 

[macryan1]

Did you install your own Fusion Drive? Apple didn't have that option on the 17". Also pretty sure there wasn't a 17" retina as well.

It might be that he does not have an HD only a SSD. Be curious to see the answer to the diskutil query. The last 17" MBP was in 2011.

 

[jtiis]

Sorry - meant 27" retina.

 

[jtiis]

Here you go:

diskutil listJoels-iMac:~ Ingrams27R$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *121.3 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_HFS SSD 120.5 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk1

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1

2: Apple_HFS iMac HD 999.9 GB disk1s2

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *4.0 TB disk2

1: EFI EFI 314.6 MB disk2s1

2: Apple_HFS TC2 4.0 TB disk2s2

/dev/disk3 (external, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *3.0 TB disk3

1: EFI EFI 314.6 MB disk3s1

2: Apple_HFS iMAC Ext. 3.0 TB disk3s2

/dev/disk4 (external, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *4.0 TB disk4

1: EFI EFI 314.6 MB disk4s1

2: Apple_HFS TC1 4.0 TB disk4s2

/dev/disk5 (external, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *5.0 TB disk5

1: EFI EFI 314.6 MB disk5s1

2: Apple_HFS 5TB 5.0 TB disk5s2

/dev/disk6 (disk image):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: Apple_partition_scheme +17.4 MB disk6

1: Apple_partition_map 32.3 KB disk6s1

2: Apple_HFS Flash Player 17.4 MB disk6s2

Joels-iMac:~ Ingrams27R$


and...

Last login: Fri Jan 1 15:43:07 on ttys000

Joels-iMac:~ Ingrams27R$ diskutil cs list

No CoreStorage logical volume groups found

Joels-iMac:~ Ingrams27R$

 

[hfg]

Looks like you have 2 independent internal disks ... 120 GB SSD and 1TB hard disk ... no Fusion join between them. Did you "UnFuse" them at some time and then reinstall OS X on the SSD?

 

[Weaselboy]

Looks like you have 2 independent internal disks ... 120 GB SSD and 1TB hard disk ... no Fusion join between them. Did you "UnFuse" them at some time and then reinstall OS X on the SSD?

Yep... there is no Fusion drive there.

OP>> Can you tell us a little more. Did you buy this with a Fusion setup or roll your own? Can you think of anything you did to break the Fusion drive?

Also, run this command to unmount (eject) that Flash DMG installer you have mounted there.

diskutil unmount /dev/disk6

 

[jtiis]

I bought the iMac second hand. I did a reformat of the system and installed the OS X again. Thought I did everything right (just working through apple's prompts) but maybe I missed something as I new to Mac.

What should I do at this point? Hoping not a full reformat but please guide me - and thanks for the prompt feedback guys - I'll have to start spending some time here - just joined to try and solve my issue.

 

[jtiis]

Well - tried something someone suggested but it's not help out.

It was suggested that I restart and press Command-option-R - then go to disk utility. It would should my two independent drives in red and I should selected "fix it". I did. It did it's thing and then I had it verify the single resulting disk. It said the drive looks OK.

But, on restart the 'outer starts with the logo - then to the "none" logo (circle with slash) and then to files folder icon. What's this? Is it saying the drive is working but I need to reinstall the OS? If so, all my apps too etc? Not the end of the world as I have backups but not good either. Please advise.

 

[Weaselboy]

Well - tried something someone suggested but it's not help out.

It was suggested that I restart and press Command-option-R - then go to disk utility. It would should my two independent drives in red and I should selected "fix it". I did. It did it's thing and then I had it verify the single resulting disk. It said the drive looks OK.

But, on restart the 'outer starts with the logo - then to the "none" logo (circle with slash) and then to files folder icon. What's this? Is it saying the drive is working but I need to reinstall the OS? If so, all my apps too etc? Not the end of the world as I have backups but not good either. Please advise.

Okay... that process fixed the Fusion drive, but as you have discovered, that also wipes the drives so now you have no OS on there. What kind of backup do you have? You will need to either restore everything from backup or reinstall the OS then import your data and apps etc.