I've had an SSD in my laptops for 4 or 5 years (I've lost track) and they're fast, no question, but my normal usage patters are such that I've not really noticed any major issues.
YMMV, but for myself I'm not dissatisfied with the Fusion drive.
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Why the Hate for Fusion Drives?
- Thread starter whodatrr
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YMMV, but for myself I'm not dissatisfied with the Fusion drive.
Reliability shouldn't really be brought up in this discussion. Since neither is perfect both require back ups. It scary reading through here seeing how so many people are sold on the idea their SSD is near failure proof.
A good back up is going to be multiple NAS rated HDD in mirroring type of RAID configuration.
A good back up is going to be multiple NAS rated HDD in mirroring type of RAID configuration.
I'm not sure how what I wrote implied otherwise. I backup continually across four HDs. Why would I 'trust my data' to anything, whether it had moving parts or not? What I'm interested in is redundancy.
Yeah I know you wrote that you do backups, didn't want to imply that you don't. The point I was addessing was this: "I do not like trusting my data to a spinning hard drive". What I wanted to say is that this applies regardless of SSD or HDD.
There's an interesting article here on reliability of SSDs in the real world https://www.usenix.org/conference/fast16/technical-sessions/presentation/schroeder
Skipping to the summary, the implication is that although SSDs are less likely to completely fail than HDDs, the chances of bad blocks is much higher.
Skipping to the summary, the implication is that although SSDs are less likely to completely fail than HDDs, the chances of bad blocks is much higher.
I've noticed this too.
I think this must go along with the SSD hysteria of 'oh s***, this thing is superior to HDDs by such a large margin that they must be perfect in all aspects, including proof to any type of hardware failure'.
Well, what about the facts. Please show my some kind of proof stating SSDs are significantly less likely to die than HDDs, I'd like to see it.
I'm not being cynical, no I'd really like to see it for my own knowledge as I literally have not seen it before.
People get carried away on the SSD hysteria because they're so technologically superior to spinning disks in all aspects, but the failure rate seems to be one area where they're relatively closer.
Mind you, I have multiple external spinning drives that are literally going strong after 8 years. 8 freakin years.
And not to mention the HDDs are still intact on a couple classic Macs I own, one from early 2008 and 2009 respectively. They still work.
@varian55zx: Yeah I think that's true. I also lost a 960GB SSD after 15 months of light usage and have HDDs that withstood rather heavy usage until they became obsolete. I'm not going to lie though, I lost quite some HDDs as well and I have phased out all 3.5" HDDs years ago except for backup (or iMac).
But all the data there is so far indicates that SSDs have in fact lower defect rates, but they are more like 50% better rather than 2000% or anything similar that would actually justify doing backups less frequently than with HDDs.
Most of all, for both HDDs and SSDs there's a huge spread between different manufacturers and models. There's one particular area where SSDs vastly excel regarding longevity though: mobile usage. HDDs really don't like to be shaken while running. Yes they try to prevent head crashes by parking their heads as soon as they detect motion, but from my experience, this isn't fool proof at all. I would never buy a Laptop with a HDD again. Portable HDDs are fine as long as they rest on a desk, but I refrain from using them on planes/trains.
But all the data there is so far indicates that SSDs have in fact lower defect rates, but they are more like 50% better rather than 2000% or anything similar that would actually justify doing backups less frequently than with HDDs.
Most of all, for both HDDs and SSDs there's a huge spread between different manufacturers and models. There's one particular area where SSDs vastly excel regarding longevity though: mobile usage. HDDs really don't like to be shaken while running. Yes they try to prevent head crashes by parking their heads as soon as they detect motion, but from my experience, this isn't fool proof at all. I would never buy a Laptop with a HDD again. Portable HDDs are fine as long as they rest on a desk, but I refrain from using them on planes/trains.
Apple's Fusion drive has got to be one of the better one available.
I guess it's a transition solution still - until such time SSD is cheap enough for 2-4GB - HDD will exist; 850Pro with 4GB is still not available / will be too costly. Have had a few too many HDD stop working in the middle of work - its all SSD for me now.
I guess it's a transition solution still - until such time SSD is cheap enough for 2-4GB - HDD will exist; 850Pro with 4GB is still not available / will be too costly. Have had a few too many HDD stop working in the middle of work - its all SSD for me now.
if you look at my last post on this thread, I've pointed to a recent study comparing SSD versus HDD in terms of reliability. There's a lot to go through, but bottom line, SSDs are less prone to fail than HDD, but are more prone to read/write errors and bad blocks. Also, SSDs get less reliable with age, not usage.
I'm not questioning that they're more reliable. I'm just questioning if the difference is that significant, most sources point to no, the difference is not that significant. Of course I know they are more reliable.
Also, the fact that longevity is affected by different factors in each should be noted.
Its definitely a transition solution that has lasted longer then I thought it would, i.e., I thought we'd be completely on SSDs by now. Still, my needs are such that the Fusion drive made too much sense, so I'm happy it was an inexpensive option.
For me it is the fact that you've got a moving part in a sealed unit that will be difficult to fix outside of ones warranty - if you need more storage then why not resort to external storage for non-applications and keep your application on the local drive. In the case of my setup, I have an iMac with a 512GB SSD which I use solely for applications and work but once I finish doing what I need to do I move the work to my external RAID (Drobo 5D attached to my thunderbolt) where my iTunes music library is, FLAC backups of all my CD's as well as projects I have completed but still wish to retain. It seems to be a Windows users thing not to treat the external hard disk as extra storage but only as a backup device - use that for long term storage and keep your SSD for things like your operating system, applications etc.
There are several reasons. From the top of my head:
A: not everyone likes to work as a part time file manager.
B: your setup costs quite a bit more than a 2TB FD.
C: many people don't like the thought of only being able to use the computer as intended when having several devices attached to it.
D: it requires more room and energy
E: you lose out on free ports
F: your are missing out on a SATA port
Add to that, many people don't really benefit from anything beyond a 2TB FD. I use external SSDs and HDDs myself, but that's mostly because of mobility and portability.
Indeed but it seems many people here upgrade their macs fairly often so it may be a moot point. Besides, even if its out of warranty Apple will repair it (yes, for a cost of course).
Mostly because I grew tired of doing that, and you need to be sure to back up the external drive, so now you're talking about two external drives. I use a Drobo Mini and that works well, but when it housed my Lightroom images (as opposed to the TM backup now), I had to use another external drive to back that up.
I think its easier to use external drives in Windows, that's one of the benefits to drive letters, at least imo.
I would've thought something similar, and not only that, SSDs aren't new. They're not the new technology on the block anymore. They've been around for a really long time (even longer in terms of tech world time), and yet they are still priced as a premium item even though they 1) render the prvious, garbage technology obsolete in literally every way and 2) aren't premium anymore, they're just essential. You can expect to go two feet without an SSD nowadays, and I certainly wouldn't want to try. Scary thought.
Yes, this holds true for many people myself included. I used to enjoy using the INTERNAL storage on my computer for storage. I found it to be much better in terms of convenience. Now, with this botched transition to SSDs that is, in my opinion, being stalled by people who only care about money, we have to resort to having puny, small drives on our computer in terms of size, but we'll do it because the performance is so astronomically better. So we'll do it. Only problem with me is, I don't like the whole small drive thing. I don't like relying on external storage. You have to check which ones are connected, that takes up ports, you have to do more manual managing of files, and, by far, the worst part of all. They become disconnected. You tap that USB port 1mm and the whole thing disconnects from your Mac and it all goes to hell. I personally hate how easily they can accidentally be disconnected. So to me, that's easily the worst part.
I chose a 2TB fusion drive because I wanted my photo library on my I mac. If there was a option for a 2TB SSD that I could afford of course I would of gotten it. But for me it was getting the most bang for my money. Sure a pure SSD is fast better but I needed 2TB of space. I am very happy with the performance of the fusion drive.
This is inaccurate and I quote "The main source of pain with this subject is the new 24GB SSD /1TB 5400RPM HDD Fusion Drive combination" The 2017 iMac 27" model has a 32GB SSD and 1 TB 7200 RPM HDD. All 27" iMacs with 1 TB Fusion drives have had a 1TB 7200 RPM HDD. The SSD has changed from 128GB down to 24GB and with the new 2017 models is now up to 32GB.
So there is this thing called time. In early 2016, 24GB was the size of the SSD in the 1TB Fusion Drive for the iMac. That was true until June 2017. Now the 1TB Fusion Drive ships with a 32GB SSD.
Which is not meaningfully better.
The problem is still the same. 32GB is barely enough for the working set of the lightest user. As soon as you exceed that working set you hit the mechanical drive again and the illusion of a fast computer is shattered.
Fusion Drives were a good temporary solution to a capacity and price problem.
Now Apple just uses its storage options as away to gouge buyers.
Zero reasons as to why flash based storage are not standard. Except greed. [Affordable SATA based 2.5 SSDs should be in consumer Macs, super fast pci-e for 'pro' machines.]
Apple has moved from a product based company to a sales based company. Huge profits short term, zero loyalty moving forward.
Now Apple just uses its storage options as away to gouge buyers.
Zero reasons as to why flash based storage are not standard. Except greed. [Affordable SATA based 2.5 SSDs should be in consumer Macs, super fast pci-e for 'pro' machines.]
Apple has moved from a product based company to a sales based company. Huge profits short term, zero loyalty moving forward.
So by greed you are saying that SSD should be the only option on imac just like macbook pro? Having people to buy 256gb versione to keep the price affordable and the relying on external mechanical HHD ANYWAY with the CPU overhead and latency that an external drive bring into the table?
So isn't then better a 128GB SSD/2TB HDD that auto-manage themselves moving away all the wasted memory cluster of stuff you never use on your OS? How many time you use parental control on your mac? So why should you store it on your SSD? so much data wasted if you combine all the elements.
High Sierra bring a huge set of improvement in how fusion drives works and how smart they can be.
I don't understand people....and I don't understand the hate an options
2tb and 3tb fusion drives works very well, but off course I would love to see custom FD options like 512SSD/3TB HDD
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I agree completely. It is a crime that the 2 TB and 3 TB fusion options with a decent SSD partition are not available on 21.5 inch BTO models.
It appears that commentaries on this subject are made from purely speculative viewpoint. Thinking rationally, would it not be so that Apple, in all their ability to design, will not have analysed in detail the functioning of Fusion drives of all sizes, drives of a technology (Fusion) that THEY themselves invented? Could it not be that they will have optimised component capacity according to necessity? It is alright coming forward and saying, "Oh, the 3TB Fusion drive should have 512GB SSD instead of what they give", but would it not be so that the actual designers of the technology would know better than the layman?
Standard configs and floor models I understand. However, BTO models are just that. Customized. There should be no reason a person couldn't order a 2TB SSD/3TB HDD Fusion Drive (or separate drives) if one desired.