iMac late 2015 - HDD vs SDD

[petergood]

Hello,
In a few weeks I`m planning to buy my first ever Mac computer, the 27 inch 5k iMac. My main concern is the disc - should I get the HDD or SSD version? I know that the SSD is much faster, but will it actually affect performance apart from faster boot speeds/some apps loading faster etc? And if it does, then how big is the impact? I`m not looking for read/write speeds, I know that the HDD has much lower i/o speeds - I want to know exactly how it will affect my experience with the computer.

 

[redheeler]

Get one with the SSD or Fusion drive. It does make a noticeable difference with general system performance.

 

[rworne]

Hello,
In a few weeks I`m planning to buy my first ever Mac computer, the 27 inch 5k iMac. My main concern is the disc - should I get the HDD or SSD version? I know that the SSD is much faster, but will it actually affect performance apart from faster boot speeds/some apps loading faster etc? And if it does, then how big is the impact? I`m not looking for read/write speeds, I know that the HDD has much lower i/o speeds - I want to know exactly how it will affect my experience with the computer.

Here's a tidbit:

! have a late 2013 iMac with a Fusion drive. In most respects, it's just as fast as an SSD-based computer for everyday use. A couple of days ago, the HDD started to generate bad clusters and I had to revert to a clone backup on a Thunderbolt-based HDD, which should be just as fast as a non-Fusion, non-SSD, iMac.

Considerable difference in performance, especially watching it boot up.

The only drawback I see with Fusion drives is that it's more complex - and with two pieces of critical hardware, your chances of a failure go up. In my case, it happened to me. I just got lucky and caught it in time and brought it in. Where, by the way, Apple has the most hilarious test software:

 

[Pakaku]

The only drawback I see with Fusion drives is that it's more complex - and with two pieces of critical hardware, your chances of a failure go up. In my case, it happened to me. I just got lucky and caught it in time and brought it in.

SSDs are pretty unlikely to fail as far as I know, so it's really just one part (the platter drive) you have to worry about.

 

[rworne]

SSDs are pretty unlikely to fail as far as I know, so it's really just one part (the platter drive) you have to worry about.

With my experience with other flash based memory, any failure is likely to be catastrophic - though I have yet to suffer a failure of an SSD. I've been able to coax a lot of data off of failing platter drives. I do agree that an SSD will likely outlast an HDD - and in certain applications like laptops, they are a no-brainer.

Any new machines I purchase in the future will be SSD based. My 2012 rMBP sold me on that.

 

[circatee]

...just this week, I bought an iMac. And, this is coming from someone that has never owned a Mac. I bought the 27", cheaper model, with the SATA 1TB drive. I was under the impression with the extra processing power, up from a MacBook Pro (I bought that last week), it would help.

As soon as I powered it on, I noticed how s l o w the iMac was. I got an SSD from work, and used an enclosure, closed the OS from the 1TB drive, and used the SSD as a the default drive. Talk about night and day, or Apples to Oranges.

Get it with SSD, even more so 'for the future'. To give you an example:
Boot with SSD = 27.36 seconds
Boot with 1TB SATA = 34.22
Opening Outlook 2016, with SSD = 5.0
Opening Outlook 2016, with 1TB SATA = 8.63

I know you weren't looking for 'stats', but...