1.3 GB/s reads
I suppose if your external is a high-end SSD.My external Thunderbolt 7200 RPM HDD gets 145 MB/s reads, which is quite good for any 7200 RPM drive.
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Why a Fusion Drive si better than a 256Gb SSD (personal opinion)
- Thread starter aevan
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1.3 GB/s reads
I suppose if your external is a high-end SSD.My external Thunderbolt 7200 RPM HDD gets 145 MB/s reads, which is quite good for any 7200 RPM drive.
Why a Fusion Drive si better than a 256Gb SSD (personal opinion)
Again, not what I said at all. USB 3, Thunderbolt 1, Thunderbolt 2 external SSDs are external drives - no?
They are faster than your internal drive by up to a factor of 10. And, if we were factoring in price (but we are not), they're not that expensive anymore.
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Who said anything about 7200rpm?
Rather ironic you say, 'this guy doesn't know what he's talking about' and then follow on with the question 'how many 7200rpm drives can reach 1.3GB/s?'.
Also for reference Gb is completely different to GB.
Yep, exactly what we are saying. No-one specified 7200rpm - just 'external drives'.
The best option is the SSD with external SSDs.
Again, not what I said at all. USB 3, Thunderbolt 1, Thunderbolt 2 external SSDs are external drives - no?
They are faster than your internal drive by up to a factor of 10. And, if we were factoring in price (but we are not), they're not that expensive anymore.
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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).
Who said anything about 7200rpm?
Rather ironic you say, 'this guy doesn't know what he's talking about' and then follow on with the question 'how many 7200rpm drives can reach 1.3GB/s?'.
Also for reference Gb is completely different to GB.
1.3 GB/s reads
My external Thunderbolt 7200 RPM HDD gets 145 MB/s reads, which is quite good for any 7200 RPM drive.
Yep, exactly what we are saying. No-one specified 7200rpm - just 'external drives'.
The best option is the SSD with external SSDs.
Yes, but most users won't bother to manage that space properly. They'll put all theri apps and OS there (as I mentioned, that is around 50Gb max) and they'll put their documents etc - and they'll either end up with 100Gb of empty space just going to waste while using a slow external drive, or they'll fill the SSD with one type of things (for example, put their movies on the SSD). Very few people will micro-manage that space and think what they use on a regular basis and what not.
I am speaking from personal experience. I had a thunderbolt SSD for boot and an internal 1Tb HDD in my Mac (other way around
- and I always had 40% of the SSD free, as I never bothered to move my media around (for example, I'm watching a TV show this week so I'm going to move all the episodes to the SSD, etc.). Most people just don't do that.But I'm just saying all this to show you the opposite side of reasoning. In reality - people will have roughly the same experience with a FD or a 256Gb SSD and an external drive. As PC users have done for the past 2 years, you really need an SSD for OS and apps to make your system speedy. And both FD and 256Gb SSD are quite enough for that.
So your advice is bad because you're recommending a $100 more expensive and louder solution which takes up a port and requires external cables and devices for the same level of performance. It's not terrible advice, it's just not good advice.
I have to ask you - did you actually use a second gen Fusion Drive on a regular basis? Did you try it out for a few days, working in your apps normally? Because I've been using both it and a pure SSD every day for the past few months.
Look. I don't want to argue. I just wanted to give my opinion - I honestly think your advice is bad for a lot of people who would just be better off with a Fusion Drive. I'm specifically targeting the 256Gb SSD crowd and external drives. As I mentioned numerous times: I have a super-fast PCIe 512Gb SSD on my MacBook Retina. It's blazing fast on all the benchmarks. It feels fast. It's awesome. And I really, honestly, no BS - don't see much difference in comparison to my Fusion Drive on my iMac. All I hear from you guys is "vastly superior performance" - but it is clear to me you haven't used a Fusion Drive. A Fusion Drive DOES NOT perform like a spinning drive. It has SSD levels of speed 90% of the time. It's a very fast solution that bridges today and the day when all drives will be SSD. For the next few years, a Fusion Drive is an awesome choice.
Why a Fusion Drive si better than a 256Gb SSD (personal opinion)
Ok now we are getting somewhere. I agree with that.
But to extend a bit - the only reason not to get the 'tomorrow drives' today, is budget.
Ok now we are getting somewhere. I agree with that.
But to extend a bit - the only reason not to get the 'tomorrow drives' today, is budget.
Seriously? We're not factoring in price? But of course we are.
This whole post is specifically targeted at one dilemma: A 1Tb Fusion Drive, vs a 256Gb internal SSD + 1Tb external HDD that costs $100 dollars more.
If you're going to use external SSD drives, of course that will be faster. And better. And much more expensive (why not get an internal 1Tb SSD then in the first place?). Sheesh.
Let me say it for the record and be done with it: If the price is not an issue, I would recommend SSD drives to everyone. No question about it. But price is rarely not the issue for most people. And if the price difference was equal to the performance difference, things would be easy. But you get roughly 10-30% more performance for 100% more money. That is not a good deal for most people. It's not a 'budget' thing, it's just a bad deal for most - even those that can afford it. I can affort an iMac 5K and I could afford a 512Gb SSD, but for the difference in price, I don't think the benefits are worth it. Not for my money. And I explained why in detail.
For people with specific needs, and for people that have enough money that it doesn't make a difference, SSDs are the way to go. All the way, baby!
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Why a Fusion Drive si better than a 256Gb SSD (personal opinion)
Fair enough.
Ok, so this thread is a debate about whether or not an external USB/Thunderbolt connected spinning drive is faster than an internal, SATA-connected, automatically managed spinning drive?
Well, the Fusion Drive wins in that scenario!
Fair enough.
Ok, so this thread is a debate about whether or not an external USB/Thunderbolt connected spinning drive is faster than an internal, SATA-connected, automatically managed spinning drive?
Well, the Fusion Drive wins in that scenario!
In actual real world use, Fusion Drive is not vastly slower than SSD. Anyone can use iStat Menus ver 4 and monitor HDD vs SSD access on a Fusion Drive and see the SSD portion typically has a very high hit rate. Note the updated iStat Menus ver 5 does not have this monitoring feature.
The CPU itself is highly depending on multiple caching levels. Why use a tiny 64KB L1 cache? Why not make this 20MB? Because it's an informed tradeoff between cost and performance which capitalizes on the normally high cache hit ratio.
Saying *budget* is the only real reason for getting FD is misleading. If that's true, budget is the main reason for getting an iMac. Why not just get a Mac Pro? But why even stop there? Given enough budget you can hire an engineering and integration team to assemble and test an 18-core Hackintosh with 10TB SSD and stand behind it with 24x7 on-site service. Apple Care, bah! You have an engineer on site 24x7. It would be faster than any other machine, inc'l the poor slobs with 12-core Mac Pros who can't afford anything better. Maybe -- they're just afraid of a faster machine. That it, they have a speed phobia so stick with their slow Mac Pro! Or even worse, they're both poor and have a speed phobia. We should make a special forum just for them.
I have four Macs, two with Fusion Drive and two with SSD. My two Windows machines also have SSD. So SSD is nice but there is definitely a place for Fusion Drive. It has good performance and provides an integrated all-in-one solution without the clutter of external drives or the management hassle of moving data on and off a too-small SSD.
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).
A Pegasus R6 12TB (6 2TB 7200rpm drives) can hit around 650-700 MB/s in RAID 0.
Source: AnandTech and my own R6 12TB array.
Exactly my point. Quoting theoretical interface speeds as potential drive performance just doesn't work.
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Thanks for going to the wasted effort of "correcting" something I was already aware of like a grammar nazi. I notice you didn't correct me on the use of the word them instead of then though. How strange. As for the hard drive speed, we are talking hard drives here, not SSDs. Typical external drives (bear in mind he made no mention of RAID) are 5400 or 7200rpm. Just because 10,000 and even 15,000 rpm hard drives exists, doesn't mean they're typical of an external drive and it also doesn't mean they could achieve speeds of 1.3GB/s. (I hope there no character case typos from using Safari on iPhone in this reply. They really seem to bother you).
If you didn't snip half of what I said in your dishonest, edited quote to change the context and actually read for comprehension, you'd see the obvious point I was making was that if 2 x PCIe SSD in a RAID 0 manage 1.3GB/s, I wonder HOW MANY 7200rpm drives (IN RAID 0 CONFIG which I didn't need to mention twice) would be needed? Not, "Which 7200rpm drive can manage 1.3GB/s all by itself?". It should have been obvious. Particularly seeing as someone has actually provided real world results for a several 7200rpm in a RAID config in another reply to the obvious (but not you) point I was making.
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If money is out of the question, I'd rank mine in this particular order
1. SSD
2. FDD
3. HDD
My current setup is a BTO iMac 256 SSD, then multiple external HDD as storage.
Reason for doing this:
1. In an event of iMac being damaged, most of my data is stored externally, thus avoiding delay on my work.
2. I get to enjoy the speed of the OS X and other apps. Photoshop loads in less than a sec. Read/Write of 600~700 Mbps
3. Files aren't stored in one basket. HDD right now are so cheap, you can buy multiple terabytes without burning a hole in your pocket.
4. FDD is a transition technology similar to what laser discs did in between CD/DVD and VHS. Highly doubt it will last long considering that SSD tech is catching up so fast.
1. SSD
2. FDD
3. HDD
My current setup is a BTO iMac 256 SSD, then multiple external HDD as storage.
Reason for doing this:
1. In an event of iMac being damaged, most of my data is stored externally, thus avoiding delay on my work.
2. I get to enjoy the speed of the OS X and other apps. Photoshop loads in less than a sec. Read/Write of 600~700 Mbps
3. Files aren't stored in one basket. HDD right now are so cheap, you can buy multiple terabytes without burning a hole in your pocket.
4. FDD is a transition technology similar to what laser discs did in between CD/DVD and VHS. Highly doubt it will last long considering that SSD tech is catching up so fast.
Great development on this thread!
Thanks Aevan and the others for this constructive discussion.
Thanks, that was the idea
I'm really satisfied with mine. My dad has a fusion drive on his 21" iMac and that one actuall has a 5400rpm HDD part (27" Fusion Drives have 7200rpm) and despide that his computer just flies.
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Also, one other major benefit of a FD compared to a 256Gb SSD is Bootcamp. You can only make a Bootcamp partition on an internal drive (ok, I heard people had success with cloning the bootcamp partition to an external drive and then erasing the internal partition, but that requires work, time and some technical know-how - and requires that you have enough free space to begin with) and although it is made on the HDD part, I wouldn't waste my OSX space for anything less than 1Tb. With the FD, I didn't mind giving 150Gb to Windows. No way I would do that on a 256Gb (or even 512Gb) drive.
Agree. Interesting thread. Different points of view are healthy.Great development on this thread!
Thanks Aevan and the others for this constructive discussion.
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This may be of interest: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6679/a-month-with-apples-fusion-drive/6
There are no surprises. If you're using the FD with less than ~110GB data, it's just a slightly slower SSD. If you're using it with lots of frequently used data, it becomes increasingly like a 7200rpm drive, which is obviously significantly slower.
If you prefer OS X to determine what should be archived and don't mind the speed compromise, a Fusion Drive is for you. If you prefer to manage it yourself - the 256GB SSD with external storage is the best option.
I think we are agreed on all that, though.
There are no surprises. If you're using the FD with less than ~110GB data, it's just a slightly slower SSD. If you're using it with lots of frequently used data, it becomes increasingly like a 7200rpm drive, which is obviously significantly slower.
If you prefer OS X to determine what should be archived and don't mind the speed compromise, a Fusion Drive is for you. If you prefer to manage it yourself - the 256GB SSD with external storage is the best option.
I think we are agreed on all that, though.
This horse ain't dead yet! I haven't used an actual Fusion drive yet, but I used to work on low-level drives/drivers for NAS, and have read most of the literature on Fusion drives, so unless they really botched the actual implementation, a Fused drive should be vastly superior to managing the files yourself.
When you manage your files yourself, you are limited to per file granularity. In practice, it's probably much less granular than that, since most people are going to put all of their songs on one drive, and not bother splitting 'frequently used media' onto the SSD and 'crap I'm saving for a rainy day' on the HDD. And applications will be all or nothing.
A Fusion implementation works on a block level, so your Photoshop app can have all the blocks that are commonly loaded on the SSD, and the infrequently used Help files, Russian (and 130 other language) translations etc on the HDD. I haven't sat down and done an analysis of the usage density of bits in a typical Mac application, but I'm guessing it's closer to 50% than 100% for typical users with typical apps (please correct me if anyone has actual data). If that 50% is true, it means the 128GB SSD in a Fusion drive is as useful (assuming smart caching choices) as a 256GB SSD drive standalone, which will have 50% of it's blocks loaded up with crap which never gets loaded.
Now, the Fusion drivers are subject to adverse selection, like the aforementioned once per month data base query, but in general, it seems like a Fused SSD and HDD is a much better use of resources than someone trying to hand manage the two separately.
So, my advice would be counter to that quoted above. If all your working data fits in an SSD that you can afford (not counting backups, which everyone should have on a totally separate device of course), then go ahead and buy an SSD. If you need more room, I'd say a Fusion drive sounds vastly superior to trying to hand-manage division of storage across an SSD and HDD. In fact, if I had a 512GB SSD and a separate HDD that was not used for backup only, I'd be inclined to cobble them together in a Fused drive.
Now all this is subject to my giant caveat of not having used a Fusion drive yet, but I'm totally unconvinced by anyone else's anecdotal evidence either ("it feel's faster" doesn't cut it in engineering circles or technical discussions IMO). If anyone has any actual data on Fusion 'cache miss' rates or perverse implementation situations, I'd love to hear them. So far, the reviews from competent sources like Anandtech all seem fairly positive.
For me, considering what to get in my Retina iMac I intend to buy later this year, it comes down to worries about whether I'll hear the internal HDD (most people seem to indicate not an issue) and a second point of failure inside a hard to open case. That versus the speed and convenience of a Fused drive over a 256GB internal SSD and fast external HDD.
And how is that different from your opening post? Answer: it's not
There are various use cases that one could think of. An ssd will be the best choice in some of them but the same will go for the hdd and for the Fusion Drive. What you've done is present a use case where the Fusion Drive is the better choice. The one you are responding to did the exact same thing for the ssd. If you think that's not fair then why did you start this topic in the first place?For most users most of the time an ordinary hdd is enough (problem is: the iMac 5K doesn't have that option so it's either Fusion Drive or ssd). You don't need to spend the extra money on things like an ssd, hybrid drive or Fusion Drive. Those people have use cases where the added performance benefit is very little. It's smaller than the price difference. Something that we already know ever since the first consumer ssd's were available (6~7 years ago).
Depends on what you define as "large". There is a Dutch website that is using a 256GB of memory for their database (yes they load the entire db into memory, gives them the fastest performance). That's considered a large database. Even 10GB can be considered a large database, entirely depends on what you store in it (text only log files would define it as being large for a lot of people).
Nothing you stated is new but it is a nice reminder that the fastest component isn't always what a user needs; it's how you safe money.
It depends. Most people are recommending hdd as external drive for mass storage because hdd still has the best capacity per $ (or whatever currency you use) and most large data people have doesn't benefit from a faster drive (think of photos and videos). It is not uncommon to use different kinds of storage for different kinds of data. It's the most efficient way to spend your money.
Depends on what you get and how you set things up. There are some use cases where having external drives is actually a much better idea than using internal drives. If you want to hook it up to various machines for example but also when you want to have centralised storage. The latter is something that has been exploding. A lot of NAS devices are now available which allows people to use their data on whatever device they are currently using: their desktop, tablet, laptop, smartphone, computer at work, etc. Imagine that situation when not using centralised storage. It means you have to individually manage the storage on all those devices. Change something on 1 device...
There are a lot of different ways to do storage (separation of system and data has also been mentioned) to fit different use cases. That's the main reason why an ssd nor an hdd nor a Fusion Drive is better than the other. They are merely the best option for a specific use case.
Only people who have no idea what they are talking about will use this as an argument since it is a very very bad one. The kind of datarecovery you are talking about is the kind that will have prices like $1000 per GB of data. When a drive fails it fails big time no matter what kind of drive it is. Encrypted data is another reason why the kind of drive doesn't matter. The moment you start using any encryption (say Filevault2) is the moment you lose any chance of datarecovery in case a disk fails.
There is only 1 thing in the world that gives you a proper chance of recovering data: a proper backup. Thinking there is anything else only shows you have a lack of knowledge on the subject. Neither an ssd nor an hdd is a silver bullet. They both will fail so you use RAID to prevent a complete fall out of the machine and backups to restore data. That's why having a good backup plan is part of having a proper storage plan.
All machines break.
That said, backups are mandatory to most of us. So an external drive connected from time to time is a necessity. (I'm so anal, I have two different back up drives but my iMac is at work and I'm not only trying yo prevent machine failure, I'm trying to protect my data of my iMac is stolen).
I think it's all about available money and where you choose to spend it. Do I spend it on a retina screen or the older model? Do I max out the CPU? Max out the GPU? Fusion or big SSD? It's all compromise in this world.
I'm working off a late 2009 iMac and a 2011 MBP. I recently put a 512 SSD into it and it's like a new MBP (to me). It's all relative. So for me, either Fusion or SSD will probably feel like I've jumped on the Tardis and walked out in 2050.
We all have our needs. I've yet to fill up 500gb on either of my Mac's. Most of my storage is music and some movies/TV.
Where is "fast" most important to you? 15 sec boot times are great. Fusion definitely gets you that. On my old systems, I don't mind a minute to boot. It's when I try to open an app or two at the same time and the machine just stalls. That drives me nuts finally to the point of replacing a 5 yr old iMac.
If you want to put more money into an i7 for instance, it might help to save a few bucks and go fusion. It appears you won't be giving up that much in comparison.
If you're likely to own your computer for 5 years, you just have to decide what's going to be most important in 3-5 years. No way of really knowing.
Thank God for choices!
That said, backups are mandatory to most of us. So an external drive connected from time to time is a necessity. (I'm so anal, I have two different back up drives but my iMac is at work and I'm not only trying yo prevent machine failure, I'm trying to protect my data of my iMac is stolen).
I think it's all about available money and where you choose to spend it. Do I spend it on a retina screen or the older model? Do I max out the CPU? Max out the GPU? Fusion or big SSD? It's all compromise in this world.
I'm working off a late 2009 iMac and a 2011 MBP. I recently put a 512 SSD into it and it's like a new MBP (to me). It's all relative. So for me, either Fusion or SSD will probably feel like I've jumped on the Tardis and walked out in 2050.
We all have our needs. I've yet to fill up 500gb on either of my Mac's. Most of my storage is music and some movies/TV.
Where is "fast" most important to you? 15 sec boot times are great. Fusion definitely gets you that. On my old systems, I don't mind a minute to boot. It's when I try to open an app or two at the same time and the machine just stalls. That drives me nuts finally to the point of replacing a 5 yr old iMac.
If you want to put more money into an i7 for instance, it might help to save a few bucks and go fusion. It appears you won't be giving up that much in comparison.
If you're likely to own your computer for 5 years, you just have to decide what's going to be most important in 3-5 years. No way of really knowing.
Thank God for choices!
That's all complete nonsense and quite a bold statement from someone who obviously has never worked in data recovery. Encrypted or not, it's very easy to recover data from ANY HDD. I've done it many times for both the military and the private sector... and guess what, the average user is an idiot. Backups are an inconvenience so preaching how backing up is the best data recovery only works on people who are willing to do it. Try living in the real world for a change.
Great post agreed 100%, there is no "better" choice it all depends on the individuals needs. All i suggest is people think long hard about their personal use cases for today and tomorrow.
For me personally, i'm looking to switch to the 5k and i already have TB's of external data that wont fit on any of Apple's offerings. Coming from a current 3TB + 256SSD internal setup, my viewpoint has changed and i personally see no reason to keep any of my files in internal storage. Making the possibility of doing clean installs or internal disk failures far less of a harrowing experience.
As i'm on a budget, i'm deliberating between upgrading to the 512GB SSD or the R9 M295X and i'm leaning towards the latter. Its so easy to expand storage. Even if you want to keep a low profile with your mac, SD cards are becoming faster and larger with cards currently as large as 512GB and R/W speeds of 90MB/s.
So for me, even if i do not use more than 120GB of space internally, i'll go with the 256GB SSD just in case i ever do. At this time, speed over space is my preference for internal storage. At least for desktop computers.
Thanks, that was the idea
I'm really satisfied with mine. My dad has a fusion drive on his 21" iMac and that one actuall has a 5400rpm HDD part (27" Fusion Drives have 7200rpm) and despide that his computer just flies.
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Also, one other major benefit of a FD compared to a 256Gb SSD is Bootcamp. You can only make a Bootcamp partition on an internal drive (ok, I heard people had success with cloning the bootcamp partition to an external drive and then erasing the internal partition, but that requires work, time and some technical know-how - and requires that you have enough free space to begin with) and although it is made on the HDD part, I wouldn't waste my OSX space for anything less than 1Tb. With the FD, I didn't mind giving 150Gb to Windows. No way I would do that on a 256Gb (or even 512Gb) drive.
Compared to say 07, Bootcamp is far less of an necessity. in fact i find it quite counter productive as i find whenever i install bootcamp, one OS or the other ends up getting seriously neglected. Granted its still king performance wise as you are not sharing resources (except the disk), we now have 4 core CPU's, 32GB RAM and 4GB vRAM as a reality. Personally if i install windows it will be through vmware or parallels and of course the VM's would be kept on external storage.
Of course with fusion or parallels you can install a whole range of OSes where as Bootcamp typically limits support to the latest version of Windows.
At Apples current prices I don't see the value in the SSD for my space requirements. Financially I can easily afford it but mentally I can't see the value in it.
I need at the very least 1tb internal, and while I prefer more I'll use that for an example since its the largest Apple offers with an SSD.
With the non retina, 1000 dollars + 7200 1tb HDD
With the retina, 800 dollars + 1tb fusion drive
(You need to keep in mind they are removing the included 0 dollar drive)
Thats insane for me. I probably feel that way because my needs don't require the speed an SSD provides. For 1000 dollars I would CONSIDER a 3tb SSD. Until then, me personally, it just doesn't have the value I need to overcome the feeling of not being ripped off.
I need at the very least 1tb internal, and while I prefer more I'll use that for an example since its the largest Apple offers with an SSD.
With the non retina, 1000 dollars + 7200 1tb HDD
With the retina, 800 dollars + 1tb fusion drive
(You need to keep in mind they are removing the included 0 dollar drive)
Thats insane for me. I probably feel that way because my needs don't require the speed an SSD provides. For 1000 dollars I would CONSIDER a 3tb SSD. Until then, me personally, it just doesn't have the value I need to overcome the feeling of not being ripped off.
Split out your FD and manually manage your files.
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That's not a lot by today's standards though. The last time I had 120Gb of data was 1936. (I have no idea exactly but it was an incredibly long time ago).
You're using hyperbole when the argument is a lot more nuanced than that. If your definition of 'winner (always)' is overall faster performance than no-one is going to disagree with you. But the OP didn't say that and it wasn't the point of the post, merely that for a large number of people a Fusion Drive is more than adequate.
You say a SSD is always the winner but then go on to explain why someone would choose a Fusion Drive. Well then it's not always the winner is it?
I have no idea why we're going over all of this yet again. Everybody that cares understands the difference and pros and cons to Fusion vs SSD. The vast majority don't care and will buy whatever, remembering that most Mac users don't hang around on this forum.
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I never used to back up my Windows PC for the reason you mention, but I now do my Mac with Time Machine. It's a lovely set and forget solution and has saved my bacon a few times.