Simple question!

[Eazy Kamikaze]

Which configuration would be better/faster for my iMac 2015.

1- OS X and the apps installed on the 256GB drive "blade" and the data on the internal SSD 2TB (SATA).

VS

2- Making a Fusion drive with those two drives.

Thanks!

EK

 

[Juicy Box]

Option two would be slower than the first part of option one, and faster than the second part of option 2.

Is the 256GB blade the original SSD in your Mac? It could be slower than it was when it was new.

Have you tried doing a speed comparison between the two drives?


Another thought about make your own Fusion Drive. I have noticed that a lot of people on the forum knock the two SSD Fusion Drive (and Fusion Drives in general), saying that it adds complexity and increases issues, and while I agree it adds complexity to the set up, I rarely ever see people complain about actual failures of two SSD Fusion Drives, the complaints are almost always in theory rather in practice.

I say go for it and have a back up, which you should regardless of what set up you use.

 

[Eazy Kamikaze]

Option two would be slower than the first part of option one, and faster than the second part of option 2.

Is the 256GB blade the original SSD in your Mac? It could be slower than it was when it was new.

Have you tried doing a speed comparison between the two drives?


Another thought about make your own Fusion Drive. I have noticed that a lot of people on the forum knock the two SSD Fusion Drive (and Fusion Drives in general), saying that it adds complexity and increases issues, and while I agree it adds complexity to the set up, I rarely ever see people complain about actual failures of two SSD Fusion Drives, the complaints are almost always in theory rather in practice.

I say go for it and have a back up, which you should regardless of what set up you use.

Yeah the 256gb Flash or "Blade" came with the original iMac... it's on the motherboard I guess... the thing is... it's been like 5 times today and I tried everything to make a Fusion drive but nothing seems to work... even if I follow every steps closely... in the Terminal, when I enter the command diskutil resetFusion, it doesn't work it says like "diskutil: did not recognize verb "resetFusion"... and let me tell you... having to reboot each time in Recovery it's long........ in fact it worked one time... but when I went to reinstall the OS, there was no disk where they ask you where you want to install it... when I reboot in Recovery again, there was no Fusion anymore, the 2 drives were separated... so I was so tired that I just installed the Catalina on the 256 blade... now everything works... it's just 2 separated disk (option 1). I thought a Fusion would be faster, but if there's no difference for the speed... I would just leave it like that ya know...

Thanks!

 

[ignatius345]

The blade drive part of the Fusion Drive on my 2014 iMac 5K ended up pretty thrashed with read/write cycles over the years I had it. It was down to under 10% lifetime left, so I had to open up the iMac, put in a SATA SSD and run off that. I'd suggest doing a health check on the blade SSD with DriveDx. (It'll work for this in trial mode).

You also CAN replace the blade SSD but it's apparently a bit of work and you have to be careful to source it correctly. There's a big thread on it on these forums. Comment back and I'll link you to it if you want.

 

[Isamilis]

.

 

[Eazy Kamikaze]

The blade drive part of the Fusion Drive on my 2014 iMac 5K ended up pretty thrashed with read/write cycles over the years I had it. It was down to under 10% lifetime left, so I had to open up the iMac, put in a SATA SSD and run off that. I'd suggest doing a health check on the blade SSD with DriveDx. (It'll work for this in trial mode).

You also CAN replace the blade SSD but it's apparently a bit of work and you have to be careful to source it correctly. There's a big thread on it on these forums. Comment back and I'll link you to it if you want.

I checked with DriveDx and the blade is in great shape! The poorest score is at like... 95 %... not bad for a 2015! Everything is good now... System on the 256GB Flash SSD and all the big library files on the 2TB SSD, thanks!

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

The way to do it is as you describe in reply 6 above.

On the blade SSD:
- OS
- Applications
- Your account(s) "stripped down"
By "stripped down" I mean that you keep your "large libraries" (movies, pics, music) on the platter-based HDD. They are still easily accessed by the apps that use them.

On the HDD:
- just about everything else.

I would recommend you download the free "BlackMagic Speed Test" and check both drives that way for speed.

 

[ignatius345]

I checked with DriveDx and the blade is in great shape! The poorest score is at like... 95 %... not bad for a 2015! Everything is good now... System on the 256GB Flash SSD and all the big library files on the 2TB SSD, thanks!

Nice! Sounds like a good little setup there.