Late 2013 iMac slow fusion drive

[IA64]

Hmmmm ...

I was going to buy a PowerBall ticket to win $milliions$ ...

but, if I buy 2 tickets, I will have double the chance of winning!

It's a sure thing then, lets go shopping!

That's true. But you realize that your chance with one ticket is already very low. Doubling your chance will not really help tbh.

Back to topic, I'm not discussing a 1/10000 chance of something to happen; in fact it's much higher.

' According to IHS, client SSD annual failure rates under warranty tend to be around 1.5%, while HDDs are near 5%. So SSDs not only outperform, but on average outlast spinning disks."


So yeah a Fusion drive is more likely to fail. No one really cares about MTBF.

It's not that if you buy 20 HDDs you'll be the victim of one failing drive. You might never get any failure or you might only buy one and BAM...

That's the difference between the theoretical probability, the subjective and the axiomatic one.

 

[joema2]

Back to topic, I'm not discussing a 1/10000 chance of something to happen; in fact it's much higher.

You are correct about that, and it's important to understand that either a SSD or HDD failing is not a particularly rare event.

' According to IHS, client SSD annual failure rates under warranty tend to be around 1.5%, while HDDs are near 5%. So SSDs not only outperform, but on average outlast spinning disks."
...

The Tom's Hardware article is probably the most extensive SSD and HDD reliability study ever done in the popular press: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-reliability-failure-rate,2923.html It found a very wide range of failure rates for both SSD and HDD. In some cases SSD failure rate was higher than HDD.

However my gut feel is late-model SSDs are probably more reliable, and if it turned out they only failed 1/4 as often as HDDs, I wouldn't be surprised.

Your basic point about Fusion Drive increasing failure chance is valid. It does; there's no way around it. But I wouldn't overemphasize this, as there are various other tradeoffs -- size, cost, where to put data that exceeds SSD capacity, etc.

From this chart several things are obvious: SSDs are generally more reliable than HDDs, HDD failure chance increases significantly with time (and more rapidly than SSDs) but also that *some* SSDs are *less* reliable than some HDDs, out to 4.5 years: http://media.bestofmicro.com/4/T/302141/original/ssdfailurerates_1024.png

 

[cltd]

The 3TB hard drive used in recent iMacs is a 7200 rpm 6gbps Seagate Barracuda ST3000DM001. It has a stated annualized failure rate (AFR) of < 1%.

Actually, it is highly defective drive, one of the worst Seagate drives.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Desktop-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST3000DM001/dp/B005T3GRLY#customerReviews

 

[joema2]

Actually, it is highly defective drive, one of the worst Seagate drives.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Desktop-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST3000DM001/dp/B005T3GRLY#customerReviews

Thanks for posting that. On the Sept 2014 Backblaze update, the Seagate ST3000DM001 looks even worse, with a 15.7% annualized failure rate: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-update-september-2014/

On the original discussion about Fusion Drive reliability, this illustrates how it's highly dependent on the individual reliabilities of the HDD and SSD components. E.g, a Fusion Drive using a HGST Deskstar 7K2000 would probably be very good, maybe better than the SSD part.

However that is meaningless for the real world because of the apparently poor reliability of the Seagate ST3000DM001 used in the 3TB Fusion Drive.

It is always possible the ST3000DM001 problems are isolated to certain production batches, but this would be wishful thinking. This is definitely a troubling area, and might legitimately sway decision making away from Fusion Drive toward SSD -- but not because Fusion Drive is inherently unreliable but the specific 3TB HDD used is unreliable. IOW if it were a plain 3TB HDD it might be nearly as bad.

Does anyone know what HDD is used in the Retina iMac?

 

[cltd]

This is so Apple : to take worst component on market (prehistoric 5400 drive or world's most defective Seagate 7200 drive), overprice it and put to totally closed iMac. I almost bought iMac 27 but now I don't know what to do. This is first time I consider to switch to PC Windows universe.

 

[matreya]

This is so Apple : to take worst component on market (prehistoric 5400 drive or world's most defective Seagate 7200 drive), overprice it and put to totally closed iMac. I almost bought iMac 27 but now I don't know what to do. This is first time I consider to switch to PC Windows universe.

The only way to go with an iMac is SSD... if you have a ginormous iTunes library, then consider moving it to an external hard drive...

 

[cltd]

The only way to go with an iMac is SSD... if you have a ginormous iTunes library, then consider moving it to an external hard drive...

I'd love to, but I can't afford 1 TB SSD. 256 is nonsense for desktop computer today, 512 is too small for me (750 GB is bare minimum for me and my data usage). I already have iTunes library on external drive
I don't want to spend money on new computer only to became stressed bean counter and watch every file on drive, keep external drives around etc.

 

[yjchua95]

I'd love to, but I can't afford 1 TB SSD. 256 is nonsense for desktop computer today, 512 is too small for me (750 GB is bare minimum for me and my data usage). I already have iTunes library on external drive
I don't want to spend money on new computer only to became stressed bean counter and watch every file on drive, keep external drives around etc.

Well...how about another external drive then?

My media is spread across a massive array of external drives (some of them are 12TB RAID arrays).

And I've no trouble working on my 21.5" iMac with a 256GB SSD.

 

[cltd]

Well...how about another external drive then?

My media is spread across a massive array of external drives (some of them are 12TB RAID arrays).

And I've no trouble working on my 21.5" iMac with a 256GB SSD.

I try to convince myself to go with 512 SSD and external drive. But... I've been using Macs since 90's. Almost everytime I ended with external HD attached to computer. I'm sick of it. I want at last to have one finished computer, perfect whole form I want to have comfort to put on disk anything - idevices backups, music software libraries, images etc. Without worrying and spendind time on calculations. Decisions, decisions...

 

[Lankyman]

Then of course there is THIS

 

[Alesc]

Actually, it is highly defective drive, one of the worst Seagate drives.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Desktop-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST3000DM001/dp/B005T3GRLY#customerReviews

The Backblaze stats is not representative of a normal use of the disks: their disks are heavily used and get lots of vibrations (a lot of disks in their pods). They use consumers disks for industry purposes...

A big French seller publishes every year their return stats, the Seagate is one of the most reliable 3TB drive for normal use.
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/920-6/disques-durs.html

 

[cltd]

The Backblaze stats is not representative of a normal use of the disks: their disks are heavily used and get lots of vibrations (a lot of disks in their pods). They use consumers disks for industry purposes...

A big French seller publishes every year their return stats, the Seagate is one of the most reliable 3TB drive for normal use.
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/920-6/disques-durs.html

Check amazon reviews and other regular users forums, i.e like here http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsal...eagate_st3000dm001_barracuda_7200_hard_drive/

Seagate ST3000DM001 drives are dying like flies, have very bad reputation.

 

[Alesc]

Check amazon reviews and other regular users forums, i.e like here http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsal...eagate_st3000dm001_barracuda_7200_hard_drive/

Seagate ST3000DM001 drives are dying like flies, have very bad reputation.

I have two of them, I will keep you posted in case of failure

 

[cltd]

I have two of them, I will keep you posted in case of failure

Ça se comprend!
Ok, maybe I exagerated, but this Seagate worries me a bit.

 

[SaSaSushi]

I have two of them, I will keep you posted in case of failure

I also have two of them in regular use for over a year now and haven't experienced any problems yet.

 

[Alesc]

Ça se comprend!
Ok, maybe I exagerated, but this Seagate worries me a bit.

Wow, "en français dans le texte" !
I hope I will be lucky with my 2 Seagate... We'll see
And for the one in the iMac, I have the Apple Care running until 11/2017

I also have two of them in regular use for over a year now and haven't experienced any problems yet.

I hope they will last as long as my Seagate 750GB in my 2007 iMac, still spinning today

 

[AppleFan360]

The failure theories on Fusion drives IMHO are probably highly overrated. Anyone who purchased an iMac with a Fusion drive will enjoy them for years. The iMacs will probably be close to obsolete before the drives actually fail. External drives and pure SSD systems are great but don't forget that those can fail as well.

This seems like an endless argument that nobody can win. Geesh guys, we buy these fancy new iMacs and then we immediately start worrying about when they are going to fail. Just sit back and enjoy the darn thing.

 

[cltd]

Wow, "en français dans le texte" !
I hope I will be lucky with my 2 Seagate... We'll see
And for the one in the iMac, I have the Apple Care running until 11/2017


I hope they will last as long as my Seagate 750GB in my 2007 iMac, still spinning today

I've been using hard drives since years. Only one failed - 6 GB Toshiba in Powerbook G3. I have even hdds mounted from old Powermac G4 and they are still working in external enclosures.

Another thing- I put SSD 256 GB (Sandisk) into Macbook Pro Penryn. Blackmagic Speed Test shows 126 mb/s write and 135.6 mb/s read and this is quite fast for me
But, here's buddy who gets 177 write and 174 read on iMac 27 pure 7200 HDD.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4VG7bJJ1GE

P.S I was in french class in high school, but almost forgot language. Sometimes I watch Caillou cartoons with my son

 

[yugioh5d]

st3000dm001 in iMAC 5K

I got myself a 3TB Fusion Drive and it's Seagate ....been using it for a month now, so good so far but I am still below 100GB, so practically I am still in my SSD zone. After do some researches I found that the Seagate failure rate is so high

How is everyone 3TB Fusion drive holding so far? Oh and I found that the 4TB Seagate seems to be much more reliable than the 3TB ones. Apple should have a 4TB option as well for the Fusion drive and maybe 256 SSD.....

 

[redheeler]

I got myself a 3TB Fusion Drive and it's Seagate ....been using it for a month now, so good so far but I am still below 100GB, so practically I am still in my SSD zone.

Why did you get a 3 TB Fusion drive if you don't need the extra storage space

After do some researches I found that the Seagate failure rate is so high

The 1 TB Seagate HDD in my 27" 2010 iMac is still crawling along at 90 MB/s.

 

[yugioh5d]

Why did you get a 3 TB Fusion drive if you don't need the extra storage space

I am mainly use the iMAC to download media (movies like mkv files), so as time goes, the available space will start to disappear.

Lol, I should have got myself a 512 SSD, but I find myself downloading alot, so the 3TB was tempting at the time of purchase and now a bit regret as I know I have a Seagate (lack of research....)

And that Barracuda drives (Seagate 1TB / 3TB) is only for "on as needed", it states in the spec sheet and many forums say to use the drive for like 8 hours a day and 5 days a week (It's a 2400 hour power-on in a year). More than that the failure rates will go up

I am curious on how's everyone fusion drive is holding up?

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

Looking at the records for my former model, late 2013 i7 3.5GHz 3TB Fusion, Black Magic showed its read at 641 and write 315 which I thought was very respectable. Not being into iTunes, music, photos and gaming I never got the 128GB Flsh Storage full which may make quite a difference.