Why a Fusion Drive si better than a 256Gb SSD (personal opinion)

[Alesc]

150$ and I have 3TB of inner stockage with fast boot, fast app opening and fast access to my most used data.
One internal drive easy to access and backup/clone.

I'm happy with my FD, and I won't exchange it for a tiny 256GB SSD + cheap and noisy external drive.

Fusion Drive can fit some people needs, I don't understand why pure SSD evangelists can't understand that... And yes, if you have 1500$ to spend on TB storage, go for pure SSD. If you are short on budget, the FD can be a good solution for you.

 

[AppleFan360]

Then there's the HDD. In an iMac with Fusion drive it is the most likely component to fail and very difficult to replace if more capacity is desired. External storage can be swapped or added at any time and easily replaced if it fails.

Valid points but that assumes that the Fusion drive will fail sooner than later. I would bet that Fusion drives will last for years even well beyond the AppleCare warranty and maybe even beyond the useful life of the machine. Also, in the case of failure, Fusion drive owners can simply hook up an external SSD/HDD drive and boot from that if they don't want to open up the iMac to replace the internal drive.

In other words, all would not necessarily be lost IF a Fusion drive fails.

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Therefore suggesting a 256GB SSD is 'always' the better option, given it costs a premium of...$0.

The cost premium is not $0. You still need external drives.

The cost compromise is vastly slower Fusion Drives

I would not call a Fusion drive "vastly" slower. That's a bit misleading.

 

[aevan]

I'm a bit confused about this thread and the first post. The title says the Fusion Drive is better, but the OPs entire argument is based on (almost) never using the spinning drive. Therefore suggesting a 256GB SSD is 'always' the better option, given it costs a premium of...$0.

I never said the spinning drive isn't used. I'm sorry for the lengthy post, but you didn't read it carefully. I said that the spinning drive is almost never used for the content where SSD speed difference is noticeable and required (OS, apps). Of course, the spinning drive is used for a lot of things - media, documents, etc. The same type of things you would use the external drives for. My argument is that automatically managed 128Gb of SSD is in practical terms the same as manually managed 256Gb of SSD. In fact, it's not only the same, it's often better. AND you get a 1Tb HDD with that, plus no external cables.

The best iMac storage performance available now is pure SSD (1TB if possible) with external thunderbolt SSDs if needed. This is expensive. The cost compromise is vastly slower Fusion Drives, but the cost is vastly lower too.

Of course. You know what is even better? A RAID 0 Thunderbolt 2 SSD array. You can get one from LaCie for $1500. It has almost double the speed of the internal 1Tb SSD. Why stop there? You can daisy-chain 3 of these babies and have 3Tb of SSD storage for just $4500!! The only reason to get an internal 1Tb SSD is if you're on a budget!

All jokes aside, 1Tb SSD is, in fact, better than a 1Tb Fusion Drive (duh!). However, a Fusion Drive is anything but vastly slower. For some things it is slower, for some things it is practically the same, in general, it is roughly 75% of the speed (that's how Anandtech reviews put it, for example, and it matches my experience with a PCIe SSD and a new Fusion Drive). In hardware, premium specs have diminishing returns. When you look at CPU charts, for example, you will see that "value for money" is highest around i5 CPUs and lowest as you near Xeons and 6-core i7s. That doesn't mean that Xeons don't have a reason to exist - as any professional CG renderer will tell you. But it does mean that you get more bang for your buck if you choose an i5, and that most people will get best of their money's worth for it. Same with 1Tb SSD. If you can afford it - go for it! Heck, I'd probably rather have a 512Gb SSD than a 1Tb FD. But 256Gb? No, for me, and most people - a Fusion Drive is a better choice. In practical terms, a FD beats a 256Gb SSD + external USB3 drive when it comes to speed, noise, cost - everything. For most people.

For these reasons I can't recommend Fusion drive over 256 GB SSD with external storage to someone who isn't on a fixed budget.

I'm sorry, but I think that's some bad advice.

 

[Butchie-T]

Aevan,

Thank you for your insight regarding Fusion verses pure SSD. I will be buying an iMac sometime in the near future and have been going back and forth between SSD and a fusion based storage system.

I'm not all that hung up on one verses the other but this has helped me to decide to go with the 1TB fusion configuration.

I appreciate you comments in this thread, thanks.

 

[andy9l]

Why a Fusion Drive si better than a 256Gb SSD (personal opinion)

The cost premium is not $0. You still need external drives.

I would not call a Fusion drive "vastly" slower. That's a bit misleading.

Not for less than 120GB of data I don't. I've got 2x the space on the SSD than I need.

Well, it depends on your view. It's either theoretically slightly slower, or theoretically dramatically slower. Truth is, it's varied. Sometimes almost equal, sometimes vastly slower.

The whole FD vs. SSD is a ridiculous argument. The SSD is the winner. Always. They are faster, more reliable, quieter and cooler. The only reasons to get an FD are budget restraints or a personal preference against the use of faster external storage. That's what everyone in here is saying, in their own roundabout way.

 

[gnasher729]

SSD all the way baby! Anything else is not as reliable or fast. PERIOD. END OF STORY. YOUR WITNESS.

Pick an SSD drive from the wrong manufacturer, optimised for good benchmark numbers instead of reliability, turn off power on your Mac unexpectedly, and poof! the contents of your SSD drive is gone forever.

 

[redheeler]

I'm happy with my FD, and I won't exchange it for a tiny 256GB SSD + cheap and noisy external drive.

So you'd rather have an even tinier 128 GB SSD?

Fusion Drive can fit some people needs, I don't understand why pure SSD evangelists can't understand that... And yes, if you have 1500$ to spend on TB storage, go for pure SSD. If you are short on budget, the FD can be a good solution for you.

The key part here is "short on budget" with which I agree. However, the cost for good external USB 3 storage can be only $100.

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I'm sorry, but I think that's some bad advice.

Care to explain why?

 

[andy9l]

Pick an SSD drive from the wrong manufacturer, optimised for good benchmark numbers instead of reliability, turn off power on your Mac unexpectedly, and poof! the contents of your SSD drive is gone forever.

Pick an HDD drive from the wrong manufacturer, optimised for good benchmark numbers instead of reliability, turn off power on your Mac unexpectedly, and poof! the contents of your HDD is gone forever.

Works both ways. I'd rather take an identical risk with greater gains. Any logical person would.

 

[js81]

The Fusion Drive is a great solution… if you either A) can't manage storage on two separate drives, or B) don't want to manage storage on two separate drives.

That said, my biggest beef with the FD is the doubled potential for failure. I had a homemade FD in my Mac Mini Server for a while… until the hard drive portion of it died and took the whole she-bang with it (luckily I'm obsessive about backup and didn't lose anything).

 

[cltd]

Pick an HDD drive from the wrong manufacturer, optimised for good benchmark numbers instead of reliability, turn off power on your Mac unexpectedly, and poof! the contents of your HDD is gone forever.

Works both ways. I'd rather take an identical risk with greater gains. Any logical person would.

Yes and no.
Yes - it works both ways.
No - with HDD, if you're lucky, you can recovery some or most data. It's impossible with SSD drive.

 

[AppleFan360]

The whole FD vs. SSD is a ridiculous argument. The SSD is the winner. Always.

Always??? That's quite a bold claim. If you can give me an SSD that doesn't have a finite number of read/writes and has very little chance of failure (controller or otherwise), they you can say that. Besides, it's not like "spinners" are going to all of the sudden start failing. They are a proven technology and been around for almost 60 years. Sure, SSD's have been around for almost that long but haven't really be developed into consumer products until recent years. They are not perfect and to label them as "Always" the winner is a bit pre-mature.

 

[roadkill401]

All I'm saying is that for most people, most of the time, a Fusion Drive is a better choice than a 256Gb SSD drive. You cannot disprove that by saying that for some people, some of the time, a pure SSD would be a better choice. Besides, if you need fast access to lot of large databases, a 256Gb SSD won't do much help either, as there isn't enough space.

But I think I would be very accurate in saying that for most people, a 256Gb SSD would be better as it is much faster all of the time for all the data that is stored on it.

The only reason that can be given for going with a Fusion is that you need more storage capacity. But storage on a computer is like storage space in your basement. it will fill up with 'junk' to max out all the available space given. That is not saying that the data is not useful at some point, but having total access all the time to it quite often is not needed. If it was, then there would be thread upon thread of people with laptops in dire straights because they don't have 3+Tb of storage on their MBP. Clearly that is not the case.

If you had a 256Gb SSD local then you would learn to be a bit more prudent with the data that you kept locally and learn to use the trash can, or better yet, when to archive un-used data off the local drive onto a backup or off-machine storage option.

I have a very large collection of songs. If I wanted it all to be local, then I would have not choice but to have a 3tb fusion drive to get the songs to fit. But I also know that they don't need to be priority, and I can just as easily access them off a NAS than I can doing it locally. And then, I have that NAS for doing those needed tasks such as TimeMachine backups. Off machine, backups of projects.. Archiving old data. The NAS has Raid6 so i even have some fault tolerance for drive failure.

Based on those items, I would say that most people would be better off with a 256Gb SSD as it would force them to be more conscious of their data

 

[aevan]

But I think I would be very accurate in saying that for most people, a 256Gb SSD would be better as it is much faster all of the time for all the data that is stored on it.

It is not much faster. That's just it. I've been working on my Fusion Drive iMac for more than a month now, half of my drive is filled, and I am yet to see anything loading slower than on my MacBook SSD. In reality, with a 256Gb SSD you're getting a slightly faster drive with 4x less space. In practical terms, it is a worse deal.

And if you add an external drive to compensate, again, FD is better because, although you have less SSD space, it is, actually, used more often - as I explained in the opening post.

 

[andy9l]

Always??? That's quite a bold claim. If you can give me an SSD that doesn't have a finite number of read/writes and has very little chance of failure (controller or otherwise), they you can say that. Besides, it's not like "spinners" are going to all of the sudden start failing. They are a proven technology and been around for almost 60 years. Sure, SSD's have been around for almost that long but haven't really be developed into consumer products until recent years. They are not perfect and to label them as "Always" the winner is a bit pre-mature.

You've proven the 'claim' (fact, actually) for me. The Fusion Drive relies on a SSD and a "60 year-old" piece of tech (9 years for these particular drives). So, like, it's worse.

(In statistical terms, that means the chance of failure is magnified, not reduced.)

And if you add an external drive to compensate, again, FD is better because, although you have less SSD space, it is, actually, used more often - as I explained in the opening post.

Are you saying the FD uses its SSD more than standalone SSDs use themselves?

 

[aevan]

Care to explain why?

I spent, like, this whole wall of text to explain why. But in short:

1. In theory, a 256Gb SSD is faster. In reality - the overall speed is slower in practical terms, because of worse utilisation. You get more SSD space, but 128Gb is more than enough for apps and OS with plenty to spare. The remaining space is utilised by the OS and is, actually, more often used than most people would use their 256Gb SSD manually. Even on a bad day, a FD is roughly the same, performance wise. I can personally vouch for that as I work daily with both a FD and a PCIe SSD.

2. Latest generation Fusion Drives are really silent (can't hear mine) while you can definitely hear an external HDD.

3. No cables.

4. Cheaper (add at least $100 for an external USB3 1Tb drive)

A 256Gb SSD is better for some specific usage cases. For most people, a FD is a better choice.

Now, I have to ask - do you actually have experience with a new generation, PCIe Fusion Drive, because you sound like you don't. I speak from first hand experience.

 

[kaltsasa]

Switching from the previous SATA connection to PCIe for the SSD portion of the fusion drive has been a game-changer.

PCIe offers about a 40-50% speed improvement over a SATA-connected 2.5" SSD.

I used to recommend a "split" SSD + HDD combination for those who needed the space, but lately fusion seems more practical.

Of course, one MUST maintain a FULLY BOOTABLE CLONED BACKUP if one chooses to use fusion internally. What happens if the SSD portion of the fusion drive fails? You won't be able to boot from the regular partition, and you won't be able to boot from the recovery partition, either (assuming that the RP is normally "stored" on the SSD).

What is missing from the Mac market at the moment is an app that gives the full range of control (and available commands) over a fusion drive setup. Disk Utility is woefully inadequate in this regard, and I sense Apple has chosen to hobble it this way on purpose.

It's time for the aftermarket to step up to the task.

OWC's Transwarp should fit the bill, if it ever sees the light of day.

https://www.macrumors.com/2015/01/07/owc-transwarp-ssd-hdd/

 

[aevan]

You've proven the 'claim' (fact, actually) for me. The Fusion Drive relies on a SSD and a "60 year-old" piece of tech. So, like, it's worse.

(In statistical terms, that means the chance of failure is magnified, not reduced.)



Are you saying the FD uses its SSD more than standalone SSDs use themselves?

Nothing in a Fusion Drive is 60 years old. HDD tech inside is not old. By that logic, an i7 CPU is a tech from 1978. I will let you explore why.

Besides, even if it was old tech, that is not evidence in itself. It just sounds like you're justifying preconceived notions.

Also, people recommending 256Gb SSD drives say that you compensate the lack of free space by getting external HDD drives. These drives have that same "old" tech you mention.


As for FD using its SSD more - no, I did not say that. I was comparing a 1Tb FD it to a 256Gb + 1Tb external drive setup. If you have more than 256Gb files (and most people do), you have to get external drives. When you do, you have to manually manage space. This means you will, actually, access the external drives quite frequently, while a FD will intelligently use the SSD as a buffer and you will access the SSD part more often.

But seriously, as you have already decided that a 256Gb SSD is better, there is no changing your mind, is there. It is "60 year old tech" after all.

 

[andy9l]

Nothing in a Fusion Drive is 60 years old. HDD tech inside is not old. By that logic, an i7 CPU is a tech from 1978. I will let you explore why.

Besides, even if it was old tech, that is not evidence in itself. It just sounds like you're justifying preconceived notions.

Also, people recommending 256Gb SSD drives say that you compensate the lack of free space by getting external HDD drives. These drives have that same "old" tech you mention.

Yep, I used speech marks. I was quoting someone else's comment about 60 years of proof for spinning drive robustness. Edited post for clarity. 9 year-old tech.

As for FD using its SSD more - no, I did not say that. I was comparing a 1Tb FD it to a 256Gb + 1Tb external drive setup. If you have more than 256Gb files (and most people do), you have to get external drives. When you do, you have to manually manage space. This means you will, actually, access the external drives quite frequently, while a FD will intelligently use the SSD as a buffer and you will access the SSD part more often.

Problem here is, the external drive is considerably faster than the 'intelligent' spinning drive (7200rpm @~130MB/s read vs. an external drive of 1.3GB/s reads). So, actually, it's slower. Much slower.

But seriously, as you have already decided that a 256Gb SSD is better, there is no changing your mind, is there. It is "60 year old tech" after all.

Not my opinion.

I've already said - Fusion Drive is for those on a budget. Nothing wrong with them, but they are fundamentally slower and less reliable than some of the more expensive solutions.

 

[redheeler]

1. In theory, a 256Gb SSD is faster. In reality - the overall speed is slower in practical terms, because of worse utilisation. You get more SSD space, but 128Gb is more than enough for apps and OS with plenty to spare. The remaining space is utilised by the OS and is, actually, more often used than most people would use their 256Gb SSD manually. Even on a bad day, a FD is roughly the same, performance wise. I can personally vouch for that as I work daily with both a FD and a PCIe SSD.

This makes no sense whatsoever. A larger capacity SSD will allow you to store more files on the SSD for quick assessing, period. Also, why mix your main working drive (OS and apps) with your storage drive if there isn't any need to? At least a Fusion drive an always be de-fused.

2. Latest generation Fusion Drives are really silent (can't hear mine) while you can definitely hear an external HDD.

I would argue it depends on which you get and where you put it, although mine isn't exactly in the quiet category and I put up with it just fine.

3. No cables.

Minimalists love Fusion drive. They also hate power cords.

4. Cheaper (add at least $100 for an external USB3 1Tb drive)

This is an advantage I've already admitted it has, hence why I recommend it for people on a tight budget.

A 256Gb SSD is better for some specific usage cases. For most people, a FD is a better choice.

You've got that switched around. For some people (specifically people on a tight budget, minimalists, or those who don't want to complete an extra step when setting up their iMac (to whom Apple also happily sells overpriced RAM upgrades)) Fusion drive is the better choice. Everyone else would benefit from a larger capacity SSD and external storage.

 

[andy9l]

This makes no sense whatsoever.

Glad it wasn't just me!

 

[AppleFan360]

You've proven the 'claim' (fact, actually) for me. The Fusion Drive relies on a SSD and a "60 year-old" piece of tech (9 years for these particular drives). So, like, it's worse.

(In statistical terms, that means the chance of failure is magnified, not reduced.)

That's almost laughable because when a spinner fails, there is a chance of recovering data. When an SSD fails, it's all over. So actually, data has a better chance of recovering from a failure thus making a Fusion drive more valuable than ever. Give it up buddy. SSD is not the end all-be all answer.

 

[yjchua95]

IMO, I don't normally recommend FD, but I recommend it for people who aren't going to use it for full-time professional work.

Home users and some power users would benefit with the FD, but full-time pros would be better off with a small SSD plus external RAID storage, or a large SSD altogether.

 

[andy9l]

Why a Fusion Drive si better than a 256Gb SSD (personal opinion)

That's almost laughable because when a spinner fails, there is a chance of recovering data. When an SSD fails, it's all over. So actually, data has a better chance of recovering from a failure thus making a Fusion drive more valuable than ever. Give it up buddy. SSD is not the end all-be all answer.

But, again, the Fusion Drive relies on an SSD. That's a fact, not 'laughable'. You lose credibility in debates with flippant comments like that.

So you've either got one point of failure, or the same point of failure PLUS another. Plus minor noise, heat, all the usual with spinning objects.

All that being said, even if you were right, this is still not a reason for a Fusion Drives - we all have backups. There is no "it's all over" moment. Never.

The only reasons for a FD, still, are lack of budget or a personal distaste to faster, more reliable, quieter external storage. The SSD is the preferred option EVERY time if you take these out of the equation.

 

[aevan]

Problem here is, the external drive is considerably faster than the 'intelligent' spinning drive (7200rpm @~130MB/s read vs. an external drive of 1.3GB/s reads). So, actually, it's slower. Much slower.

Please explain how an external HDD (a lot of which don't even run at 7200 but 5400rpm instead) is considerably faster than anything.

 

[barkmonster]

Please explain how an external HDD (a lot of which don't even run at 7200 but 5400rpm instead) is considerably faster than anything.

He must not know what he's talking about and sees Thunderbolt RAID setups with massive theoretical speeds (that are them quoting the speed of Thunderbolt, not an indication of performance) and thinks that every external Thunderbolt drive is 1.3Gb/s just for being Thunderbolt!

A couple of PCIe SSDs in a RAID 0 via a Thunderbolt PCIe enclosure would probably hit 1.3Gb/s but I'd like to see the amount of 7200rpm drives needed to hit that speed with spinners (I doubt it's even possible).