SSD vs Fusion Drive

[Ken1222]

Thanks again. Definitely getting the new trackpad...love my current magic trackpad magic mouse...i use them both all the time.
May get the 1TB SSD just for resale-ability also because you never know I might start putting stuff on the disk once I retire and have more time.

Speaking of WD I am currently using a 1TB WD that I bought in 2011 for my Time Machine back ups...is there a new one that I should buy?

 

[Apple_Robert]

Thanks again. Definitely getting the new trackpad...love my current magic trackpad magic mouse...i use them both all the time.
May get the 1TB SSD just for resale-ability also because you never know I might start putting stuff on the disk once I retire and have more time.

Speaking of WD I am currently using a 1TB WD that I bought in 2011 for my Time Machine back ups...is there a new one that I should buy?

If your current WD drive is USB 2.0, I suggest this model. I have 5 of them (4TB) that I use for different kinds of backups. Don't trust Time Machine alone. Always make a backup of your backup. Preferably in the order of iCloud based, Time Machine, and either Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper.

 

[Ken1222]

Wow...never occurred to me to backup the backups.
I guess better safe than sorry. Will definitely check out those products you mentioned and also the WD4 TB backup.

New question...should I go for a refurb that had 16GB RAM or buy a new unit with 8GB of RAM after which I will put in another 8 of Crucial...just wondering if it's better to stay with the Apple stock RAM versus mixing. Price difference is only about $200 since I get a federal employee discount Thanks very much

 

[Apple_Robert]

Wow...never occurred to me to backup the backups.
I guess better safe than sorry. Will definitely check out those products you mentioned and also the WD4 TB backup.

New question...should I go for a refurb that had 16GB RAM or buy a new unit with 8GB of RAM after which I will put in another 8 of Crucial...just wondering if it's better to stay with the Apple stock RAM versus mixing. Price difference is only about $200 since I get a federal employee discount Thanks very much

Better to get Corsair Vengeance RAM and install yourself. Takes less than 5 minutes and a lot cheaper than paying Apple.

 

[Ken1222]

Better to get Corsair Vengeance RAM and install yourself. Takes less than 5 minutes and a lot cheaper than paying Apple.

Thanks...I will check out the Corsair product line.

 

[kschendel]

Another option for backups, and the way I do it, is to buy a new drive every 8-12 months and put the old one in a drawer, or a safety deposit box. That obviously will only work if your backups are small enough that you can use inexpensive SATA drives in cheap USB enclosures. If I have something especially important going on, I'll back it up to multiple drives right away.

 

[deeddawg]

Only trouble with a drawer is that if it's at your home you're at risk of losing everything in a catastrophe (fire/flood/theft).

I backup the household macs to TimeMachine on a Synology NAS with a pair of mirrored drives. Each computer also is backed up to the cloud(*). This provides a layered strategy with fast/local recovery in the event of drive failure as well as protection in the event of a total loss of everything in the house.

(*) Cloud backups are currently via CrashPlan but with Code42 exiting the consumer market I'll need to choose another alternative before my current subscription expires in a year.

 

[Trebuin]

It would be awful to live in Huston & your subscription just terminated

 

[Glideslope]

Wow...never occurred to me to backup the backups.
I guess better safe than sorry. Will definitely check out those products you mentioned and also the WD4 TB backup.

New question...should I go for a refurb that had 16GB RAM or buy a new unit with 8GB of RAM after which I will put in another 8 of Crucial...just wondering if it's better to stay with the Apple stock RAM versus mixing. Price difference is only about $200 since I get a federal employee discount Thanks very much

IMO, you should Backup your main Backup Off Site. I have a WD6 TB USB 3 platter partitioned to back up my SSD, and store files. The WD is backed up Off Site. I've been VERY satisfied with all the External WD platters I've had over the years. See deeddawg's post.

 

[deeddawg]

It would be awful to live in Huston & your subscription just terminated

That's why you don't let your cloud backup subscription reach termination without already being on an alternate solution.

(when Code42 announced the retirement of consumer crashplan they extended everyone by 60 days)

 

[Trebuin]

Has anyone run a crystalmark on an external SSD? I’m now looking at internal vs external SSD

 

[robeddie]

Has anyone run a crystalmark on an external SSD? I’m now looking at internal vs external SSD

[doublepost=1504044040][/doublepost]Windows 10 in bootcamp. 2017 iMac 3.4ghz.

INTERNAL > 2TB internal Crucial MX 300 ssd:

EXTERNAL > 1TB Crucial MX300 sdd conntected via Apple thunderbolt 3 to thunderbolt 2 adapter in Seatgate thunderbolt 2 drive sled:

 

[SaSaSushi]

These are the results for my old 500GB Samsung 840 EVO in a Delock 52410 Thunderbolt 1 (via Apple TB2 to TB3 adapter) enclosure:

I am now using this drive exclusively for BootCamp.

 

[robeddie]

Between SaSaSushi's results and mine, there is obviously a performance hit in having the SSD reside externally. HOWEVER, keep in mind that difference in the real world may not be all that noticeable.

For instance I have a 2015 macbook pro with SSD speeds in the 1500's, and frankly going back and forth between that and my iMac, which shows speeds around 500 (see above), I don't notice much real-world difference at all.

As has been discussed by many in the past, one of the biggest advantages of SSD's over spinning drives isn't so much their theoretical top end speed, but the almost zero access times.

So all this talk about top end SSD speeds is more about 'bragging rights' and less about a real advantage to the user.

 

[Trebuin]

[doublepost=1504044040][/doublepost]Windows 10 in bootcamp. 2017 iMac 3.4ghz.

INTERNAL > 2TB internal Crucial MX 300 ssd:

View attachment 715050


EXTERNAL > 1TB Crucial MX300 sdd conntected via Apple thunderbolt 3 to thunderbolt 2 adapter in Seatgate thunderbolt 2 drive sled:

View attachment 715051

Thank you!
[doublepost=1504054632][/doublepost]

These are the results for my old 500GB Samsung 840 EVO in a Delock 52410 Thunderbolt 1 (via Apple TB2 to TB3 adapter) enclosure:

I am now using this drive exclusively for BootCamp.

& thank you too! I need to see if adapters are sold, but given those speeds, I might bite the bullet on the internal.
[doublepost=1504054789][/doublepost]

Between SaSaSushi's results and mine, there is obviously a performance hit in having the SSD reside externally. HOWEVER, keep in mind that difference in the real world may not be all that noticeable.

For instance I have a 2015 macbook pro with SSD speeds in the 1500's, and frankly going back and forth between that and my iMac, which shows speeds around 500 (see above), I don't notice much real-world difference at all.

As has been discussed by many in the past, one of the biggest advantages of SSD's over spinning drives isn't so much their theoretical top end speed, but the almost zero access times.

So all this talk about top end SSD speeds is more about 'bragging rights' and less about a real advantage to the user.

You bring up a good point with real world performance, that’s why I was told to look at the 4K results. The card style SSDs also perform much better, but would require an adapter that can handle it, which may exceed the Apple tax cost of the internal SSD.

 

[looking4anotebo]

These are the results for my old 500GB Samsung 840 EVO in a Delock 52410 Thunderbolt 1 (via Apple TB2 to TB3 adapter) enclosure:



I am now using this drive exclusively for BootCamp.

your entire Windows partition is on an external?

 

[SaSaSushi]

your entire Windows partition is on an external?

Yes, one 500GB NTFS partition on the Samsung 840 EVO.

 

[robeddie]

Thank you!
[doublepost=1504054632][/doublepost]
The card style SSDs also perform much better, but would require an adapter that can handle it, which may exceed the Apple tax cost of the internal SSD.

I would say the same thing I wrote applies to the blade or 'card' style SSD's. The SSD in my macbook pro is one of those super fast stock Apple blades. But again, the real world difference is negligable at best.

 

[SaSaSushi]

I would say the same thing I wrote applies to the blade or 'card' style SSD's. The SSD in my macbook pro is one of those super fast stock Apple blades. But again, the real world difference is negligable at best.

If you're talking about a perceptible difference in performance in daily usage for the average user, I agree. I'm in that category with you.

For professionals in film and video production like Trebuin who are doing 4k video encoding as a business the benchmarks matter.

 

[Trebuin]

I would say the same thing I wrote applies to the blade or 'card' style SSD's. The SSD in my macbook pro is one of those super fast stock Apple blades. But again, the real world difference is negligable at best.

Granted, I haven't been looking too hard, but I have found one blade card that uses usb 3.1 and goes above usb 3.0 speeds...albeit very little above. In the end, not worth it yet. Since I'm planning bootcamp on the system, I have to install bootcamp on the internal drive, but OSX can be external at a speed cost, which is what I'm trying to avoid. 1TB on each drive should suffice over the next 10 years, but I pay a lot for that size, and hence why I'm trying to find where to compromise.

 

[petsk]

I've been using fusion drive in a 2012 plus a 2015 iMac and the fusion drive has served me well.

One problem with the fusion drive is the small buffer that macOS gives you. When you fill your drive above 128GB (the SSD size in high end iMacs), macOS only keeps a small 4GB buffer for writing new files on the SSD. That means when you write a file larger than 4GB it will continue writing the rest of the file to the slow HDD. But it's not a problem if you only write files smaller than 4GB.

 

[redfirebird08]

Between SaSaSushi's results and mine, there is obviously a performance hit in having the SSD reside externally. HOWEVER, keep in mind that difference in the real world may not be all that noticeable.

For instance I have a 2015 macbook pro with SSD speeds in the 1500's, and frankly going back and forth between that and my iMac, which shows speeds around 500 (see above), I don't notice much real-world difference at all.

As has been discussed by many in the past, one of the biggest advantages of SSD's over spinning drives isn't so much their theoretical top end speed, but the almost zero access times.

So all this talk about top end SSD speeds is more about 'bragging rights' and less about a real advantage to the user.

I just upgraded from a 2009 iMac and I'm amazed by USB3/Thunderbolt. Massive, massive, MASSIVE upgrade over USB2 and Firewire800. My previous computer had a 7200 rpm spinning drive that writes around 80 megabytes per second. My new iMac has the internal 256 gig SSD and it writes around 1,500 megabytes per second.

I have my iTunes library on an external 512 gig Samsung SSD that writes around 400 megabytes per second and it's hooked up through the USB-C (Thunderbolt) port running USB3. That is a gigantic increase in speed. I'm getting around 5 times the speed on an external drive that I had on the internal drive for my old computer. Even HD video files with 15 Megabit per second bitrate are pretty easy to edit on the external drive. It's that damn fast thanks to the SSD itself and the USB3/Thunderbolt connection.

Once you go SSD (both internal and external), you never go back!

 

[siddhartha]

I have a late 2014 riMac with a 3TB FD.

I will never purchase another Mac with FD, as I've had loads of trouble. Mostly with trying to get bootcamp successfully working (as the PC-side doesn't play well with FD) and now, the HD portion has seemingly died, and I'm limping along with a de-fused 128GB SSD.
I plan to replace this with a 2TB SSD, and not look back. The FD has been trouble from the start, and I can appreciate the tech, but not the real world performance I got with it. Seemed the worst of both worlds, and ultimately, a failure, at least for me.
I suppose if I never used bootcamp, and lived solely in the Mac environment, it wouldn't be an issue from that perspective, but the longevity is suspect to me, and unacceptable.

 

[robeddie]

I have a late 2014 riMac with a 3TB FD.

I will never purchase another Mac with FD, as I've had loads of trouble. Mostly with trying to get bootcamp successfully working (as the PC-side doesn't play well with FD) and now, the HD portion has seemingly died, and I'm limping along with a de-fused 128GB SSD.
I plan to replace this with a 2TB SSD, and not look back. The FD has been trouble from the start, and I can appreciate the tech, but not the real world performance I got with it. Seemed the worst of both worlds, and ultimately, a failure, at least for me.
.

Yep. Fusion drives were contrived as bandaids during the period when 1TB SSD”s were $1500. Now with those ssd”s at $250, and 2tb ssd”s at $500, putting a fusion drive in a $2000+ computer is asinine.

 

[siddhartha]

Yep. Fusion drives were contrived as bandaids during the period when 1TB SSD”s were $1500. Now with those ssd”s at $250, and 2tb ssd”s at $500, putting a fusion drive in a $2000+ computer is asinine.

Yup.

It would be one thing if that HD bay was accessible, but as it's relatively major surgery to replace it, makes no sense to use a spinning drive, or worse, fusion, in my opinion.