Please try one before posting these nonsenses!!!
In daily use, I can't tell the difference between my iMac (FD) and my MBA 13" 2015 (the one with the super fast SSD): boot or launching apps and documents, both can't be compared to a machine with just a traditionnal HDD.
I did and I couldn't see any difference between FD and hdd or even an ssd for common tasks. When it comes to virtualisation I saw no difference between FD and hdd but I did see a huge difference when using an ssd. It's due to FD needing to move things around so effectively the vm's were still running off the hdd. This wasn't the case with the ssd. So yeah, practice what you preach and test out various scenarios yourself. Don't make the mistake of only testing your own use case!
However, for anyone to argue that a Fusion Drive is better than a 256 GB SSD with external storage, well that's simply not true.
And that's not true either. Why? Because it depends on what your requirements are AND what you are doing on the machine. If you're after something that stores lots of data cheaply then clearly the FD is the better choice. If you're after speed then clearly the ssd is the better choice. I'd refrain from stating that FD, hdd or ssd is the better choice; it simply depends on too many individual things.
Dyn, don't talk about what you don't understand. The difference isn't magnetic vs. electronic. The main difference is that an SSD drive cannot overwrite existing data.
There are many more differences but the main one is electronic versus magnetic. Magnetic storage requires an entirely different approach and has different characteristics than electrical (and vice versa). The way data is overwritten is part of that.
However this is not what you were talking about: you were talking about how data is being stored on hdd vs ssd which is something entirely different. For more generic than when reusing parts of the drive which is what you are actually talking about now. Overwriting data is what both drives are able to do only very differently. An ssd cannot do this directly, it needs to clear out the memory cell before it can store the new data. An hdd doesn't have to do that, it can write over the data on disk physically. So yes you can say that an ssd cannot overwrite data. Still, both kind of drives need to find free space first before they can even write to disk.
You also seem to be forgetting that a hdd has an index of where the data is located as well. An ssd isn't that much different, that's why we can use it as if it were a hdd.
I understand what you are trying to say but you are really bad in explaining it and because of that it has become misinformation. You're better off just linking to the big ssd article on Anandtech. It has all the information properly explained. It also shows why an ssd and hdd are not that different.
So bootcamp wise... Windows is basically on a 5400 RPM drive. Do you know how Windows works in a VM like parallels on a fusion drive? I'm trying to get a visual sense on how it all works.
Everything that isn't OS X will start out on the hdd and moved to the ssd when it is used often. It will be done in blocks, not in files which means that a vm might be partly on the ssd and partly on the hdd. From what I've seen the performance isn't different from an ordinary hdd.
He was simply referring to the well-documented tendency of SSDs to fail totally, non-recoverably, and without warning. E.g:
http://www.computerworld.com/articl...o-die--as-linus-torvalds-just-discovered.html
"SSDs...when they do fail, they can die without warning"
To be fair, I've seen this happen with just about any drive there is. It depends on what is failing. For example, if the controller fails (which is what happens a lot) it doesn't matter if it is an hdd or an ssd, it will be without warning. There is always a chance that any drive will fail without warning (or the entire machine, a computer doesn't exist of merely a drive), that's why you plan for disaster. Much better than relying an theoretics.
