Is Fusion Drive really that bad ?

[colodane]

It's WORTH THE WAIT to special-order one.

Fishrrman is absolutely correct.

In case you haven't done a special-order before, it is extremely easy and convenient - nothing to shy away from. You can easily configure the iMac the way you want it on the special order website. The costs of all the options are clearly visible. Unless you order right after some sort of big upgrade announcement, the delivery time is very reasonable. Typically less than 10 days from order to getting your iMac. You also have the option - at no extra cost - of having it shipped directly to an Apple store. If you have a store near you, this particularly convenient as you don't need to worry about managing Fed-Ex deliveries to your home. Apple doesn't charge your credit card until they ship, and there is excellent tracking and notification about the status of the build/ship process. You can also cancel your order or change the configuration any time before (or 2 weeks after) delivery without charge. Overall, a delightful customer experience that I highly recommend.

 

[davidgnomo]

Thanks Colodane, I know the experience and will use it again : the only problem is that I live in Italy and unfortunately here Apple tax is particularly high (especially if you choose to go SSD) ... I guess I have no choice anyway ...

 

[Juicy Box]

I guess I have no choice anyway ...

you asked people their opinions and they based this on the own personal situation.

If you situation prevents or limits you to what you can get, the Fusion Drive is an excellent alternative.

 

[Cbjensen]

Iv been getting this screen along with a boot loop all of a sudden. I turned it off last night and turned it on today to this. 2019 iMac w 1TB fusion drive, that I regret getting. Currently reinstalling macOS 15 if I'm still having this issue I'm never buying a apple product again. My MacBook decided to shut the bed over night too a couple years ago it was a 2015 MacBook. And my apple tv too - unplugged it to hook it up in a different room, plugged it back in and dead. Not even a year old. Wtfff apple
Stay away from fusion drive if you can... Ugh

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Iv been getting this screen along with a boot loop all of a sudden. I turned it off last night and turned it on today to this. 2019 iMac w 1TB fusion drive, that I regret getting. Currently reinstalling macOS 15 if I'm still having this issue I'm never buying a apple product again. My MacBook decided to shut the bed over night too a couple years ago it was a 2015 MacBook. And my apple tv too - unplugged it to hook it up in a different room, plugged it back in and dead. Not even a year old. Wtfff apple
Stay away from fusion drive if you can... Ugh

You simply don't have a decent Fusion drive to start with.
A safe Fusion drive would be combined from 1TB~ nVME SSD and 8TB~ enterprise-class HDD.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Fusion was fine in 2011/2012 when the cost of SSD was so high. But like the old saying goes, "it's less worse than the alternatives"

Fusion gives a noticeable speed boost vs. pure HDD, without the cost of full SSD. However the reliability is no better than pure HDD, slightly worse in fact (failure of EITHER component will sink you, not just the HDD portion).

I had a Fusion Drive in my 2012 Mac mini, and it was fine. Now, in 2024, I wouldn't even consider a Fusion Drive, even on an older Mac (because the HDD portion is now approaching the point of failure from age). Pure SSD for me, unless it's a sizable RAID with good redundancy.

 

[ignatius345]

At this point any Fusion Drives still in regular use should be treated with suspicion and backed up religiously. Either the HDD is going to fail, or the SSD is going to approach its write cycle limit and die. Remember, they put tiny SSDs into those things -- as small as 32 GB if I'm not mistaken.

And yeah, the Fusion Drive was an amazing idea back when SSDs were nosebleed expensive. I actually hacked one together on a 2012 (?) Mini by buying a little adapter bracket and cable and cramming an SSD in next to the HDD, then doing some terminal voodoo I read about somewhere (the OWC blog, I believe). It worked brilliantly for a long time. When I last saw that Mini, maybe 6 years after that surgery, it was still booting up and running respectably well. Who knows, maybe it's still living its best life out there somewhere.

 

[ignatius345]

Iv been getting this screen along with a boot loop all of a sudden. I turned it off last night and turned it on today to this. 2019 iMac w 1TB fusion drive, that I regret getting. Currently reinstalling macOS 15 if I'm still having this issue I'm never buying a apple product again.

Go ahead, but I think you're going to find that other kinds of hardware also break.

If the problem with the iMac is that the Fusion Drive is dead, that's fixable. I did so on my 2014 iMac 5K using a repair kit from iFixit which had tools and a set of replacement adhesive strips for the display. The only other expense was a SATA SSD (very cheap these days). I just followed the iFixit instructions carefully and slowly. It took maybe 2 hours total, much of it spent peeling the gunky old adhesive off the display so I could get a good seal with the replacement strips.

At the end, I had my iMac back, but with an pure SSD instead of a Fusion Drive, and got a couple more years out of it. (If you're interested in replacing the blade SSD instead of the HDD, that's doable as well, but more difficult and harder to source the right parts.)