Apple has ¼ of a trillion dollars in cash, and growing. I'd argue their pricing should be A LOT more competitive/reasonable.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Why the Hate for Fusion Drives?
- Thread starter whodatrr
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Which is where big businesses fail; they forget where they came from/what made them. You'd think at least someone would learn from history...
Look after:
1. Staff
2. Customers
3. Shareholders
In this order. Always. Business 101
If I am running my business and then I am becoming very successful running it. I can promise out of nowhere I am not going to reduce the pricing on my products under someone else's idea of reasonable who has nothing to do with running my business.
Vehicle prices are up, housing prices are up, fuel prices, milk, eggs, clothing, healthcare.
Do you know what happens to a business when they get comfortable with money in the bank and reduce prices? They immediately devalue their own products, the public then devalues the product, people stop buying in the numbers they are and before you know it that pillow of comfort has you standing on a street corner with a cardboard sign.
The competition convolutes their options giving the impression their prices are more competitive. Generally the performance is worse and thus value is worse.
Firstly not many (if any) manufacturers sell 2tb PCIe SSD configurations. So there isn't much basis for comparison to that at all. It was tough finding manufacturers that even offered 1tb PCIe SSDs in their AIOs. Regardless we shouldn't get upset about the price of something no one else offers.
If we look at Dell for example, pick out their best AIO XPS 27 model for around 2850 dollars you get a 512gb PCIe SSD with no larger options available. You can build a Mac with better specs cheaper. Go down to the 2750 dollar model and you get the options for 1tb PCIe SSD for 570 dollars + the price of 2tb 5400 with 32gb m.sata SSD (what is replaced to upgrade to an SSD). Apple charges 500 dollars + 2tb Fusion (128gb PCIe SSD + 7200rpm HDD). So you give up more but pay less for Apple which I would consider a wash overall. However lets keep in mind the stock option for that Dell is a MUCH slower SSD and a slower HDD and is basically more expensive.
Adding more convolution to the madness they call a computer line up many models are offered with SATA SSDs (instead of PCIe SSDs) which are considerably cheaper and slower.
HP is similar. Looking at their 27" models their storage options vary quite a bit. Ranging from 1tb 5400rpm HDDs to 256gb PCIe SSDs with 1tb 7200rpm HDDs also offering 1tb SSHDs which are basically slower Fusion Drives using 24gb SATA SSD portions and 5400rpm HDD portions. Most of the HDDs are 5400rpm and many of their SSDs are not PCIe SSDs.
Moving away from AIOs to desktops to something like Alienware (sorry I know this is Dell but its supposedly higher end) and you can get a model that comes standard with a 512gb PCIe SSD + 4tb 5400rpm HDD however it cost 5399 dollars. Upgrading from the standard storage option only gets you more 5400rpm HDDs in varying capacities. Goto models below that and it looks to be all SATA SSDs and 5400rpm options i.e. slower than iMac options.
Honestly all the above options are junk IMO, either they don't offer better/larger SSD options, charge more, and/or just don't perform as well. We need to just keep in mind PCIe SSDs are just expensive. If you bought similar performing PCIe SSDs yourself for 2tb, 1tb, and 512gb you would spend approximately 1200, 600-500, 300 dollars respectively. Apple charges 1400, 600, 200 + the cost of the 2tb Fusion drive that is removed for the SSD. Obviously those prices will vary but I wouldn't consider them too terribly unreasonable.
I imagine there are manufactures out there that clearly offer a lot more for less however I doubt there are too many. Maybe you know some off the top of your head?
Last edited:
I'm sorry, but what a load of tosh. An Apple apologist argument if ever I've heard one.
Apple has done much to devalue the Mac in recent times, but somehow think they have the right to charge more. They're trading on loyalty at this point and their credits are fast running out.
[doublepost=1500193825][/doublepost]
The Mac mini, 21" iMac and possibly the entry 27" iMac all could run very happily with SATA 2.5" SSDs. They don't need expensive PCIe SSDs, but rather, just an affordable flash solution that offers some sizable capacity options that are not prohibitively priced.
PCIe SSDs are the 'pro' option.
Average folks desire/deserve a car over a horse, but not everyone will make the most of a Ferrari; a simple Toyota will do nicely thanks.
First world problems....I know it's a forum, and I don't have to click on a thread if I'm not interested.....but isn't this a bit excessive? Like...what's the point of this discussion...isn't a pool better?
Like:
I hate Apple because SSD should be mandatory
I hate Apple because I can't afford their SSD solution
I hate people that can't afford full SSD
I'm just here to prove the others wrong
Seriously 14 pages of nothing...I don't think there are specifically, technical reasons for people to hate FD, because "full ssd are better" or "for the same price I would have preferred a SSD of same capacity" are not answers, just obvious statements that do not deserve 14 pages.... question should be why people hate.
Not sure if anyone ever tried Intel RST....now that is a awful ****** caching technology
Like:
I hate Apple because SSD should be mandatory
I hate Apple because I can't afford their SSD solution
I hate people that can't afford full SSD
I'm just here to prove the others wrong
Seriously 14 pages of nothing...I don't think there are specifically, technical reasons for people to hate FD, because "full ssd are better" or "for the same price I would have preferred a SSD of same capacity" are not answers, just obvious statements that do not deserve 14 pages.... question should be why people hate.
Not sure if anyone ever tried Intel RST....now that is a awful ****** caching technology
Last edited:
Well nothing is better than anything else without a problem. So what's the problem you want to address?
If it's performance - then yes, pure SSD for all your files will be better than fusion, that's just a given.
Heat noise and longevity SSD is a win too.
If your problem is money or capacity, fusions is just a workaround - you can make your own combo solution drive easy.
Personally if i'd got limited funds i'd get a pure SSD solution first and then go for external drive later on for the capacity challenges. So what does fusion bring - its just a standard seagate drive with a cache on the front end.
Take your pick..
If it's performance - then yes, pure SSD for all your files will be better than fusion, that's just a given.
Heat noise and longevity SSD is a win too.
If your problem is money or capacity, fusions is just a workaround - you can make your own combo solution drive easy.
Personally if i'd got limited funds i'd get a pure SSD solution first and then go for external drive later on for the capacity challenges. So what does fusion bring - its just a standard seagate drive with a cache on the front end.
Take your pick..
My samsung 840 evo died 2 months ago' after not even 4 years...after having me going crazy with windows blue screens, mysterious read only files here and there or refusing to copy data....I have no trouble believing that SSD have a higher longevity but articles like this one http://www.zdnet.com/article/facebooks-ssd-experience/ and "have my ssd died" threads are common enough on the internet to think that SSD longevity it's a bit overrated
Don't rely on any single drive. They all will die. No exceptions.
This discussion is all about user experience. Apple positions themselves as a premium provider, and then puts out machines (in base configurations) that are anything but.
Not good enough.
Yep agree, SPOF is always going to hurt!
Google based on their DC have said SSD is less likely to fail during its normal life, but more likely to lose data.
Recalculating the limit until data becomes compromised an SSD like the Samsung 840 is theoretically reliable up to 21.4 years. Compare that to the fact that an HD drive is 50% likely to fail after 6 years. However you always have exceptions... In the words of Clint, "do you fee lucky punk?"
Google based on their DC have said SSD is less likely to fail during its normal life, but more likely to lose data.
Recalculating the limit until data becomes compromised an SSD like the Samsung 840 is theoretically reliable up to 21.4 years. Compare that to the fact that an HD drive is 50% likely to fail after 6 years. However you always have exceptions... In the words of Clint, "do you fee lucky punk?"
Last edited:
I feel that is a straw man though, I'm happily using a 1tb 7200rpm HDD. However I bet I would catch a lot of flak if I made the same correlation. And if a 3.5-4x speed increase (HDD to SATA SSD) is that important why wouldn't 4-5x speed increase (SATA SSD to PCIe SSD) be equally or more important? BTW I know I'm quoting peak speeds and real world speeds between between a HDD and SATA SSD can be many times higher due to random small block read/write but there is still real world performance differences between SATA and PCIe. We can see this when SATA SSDs fails some of Blackmagics video benchmarks that a PCIe SSD can pass, this is important for a computer that is built around video editing.
Plus are we really going to start criticizing Apple for using too good, too modern of technology now? The bottleneck caused by SATA is the worst type of bottleneck because its just the interface. It just doesn't make sense to continue to use when PCIe is available to remove that bottleneck.
Don't get me wrong, I get what you are saying. SATA SSDs are more than good enough for most people, myself included. Matter of fact I plan on installing a Samsung PRO into my current iMac (although price is still around 1000 dollars). However Apple using SATA SSDs only reduces overall cost, it doesn't increase the value. The overhead would still be there, Apples profit margin, cost they charge for installation, support, warranty, etc.
If you mean Apple providing the option for both side by side. I would be on board with that however I think it would convolute and fragment their line up too much for average users getting them a similar thing as Dell, HP and others have going on. Plus like I mentioned with the 2tb Samsung 850 Pro SATA SSD, large capacities are still pretty expensive making the distinction between them a tough sale, end up delivering lower performance to many customers and actually lowering overall value.
Again I totally get what you are saying however it sounds like the argument of someone that is trying to justify a Toyota over a Ferrari for every reason except the real reason....they can't afford one. Now I'm NOT saying you can't afford one or anything derogatory just what the analogy is reminiscent of.
An Apple apologist? That is quite a ridiculous comment.
No I think any business that produces a product that people are willing to pay for has the right to charge for that product. I would say the same comment against Mercedes, BMW, house builders, let's see who else makes a product and charges more than someone else who makes a similar product? Ford, Sony especially TV's, DJI, In-N-Out, Restoration Hardware, Starbucks, literally any business than makes any product where they charge a premium over a competitor. Those higher end companies are not leaders in their respective fields because they discount their own products.
Are you going to work your ass off building something by hand and then say your time, work, thoughts, etc is not worth what you put in to it? No, and if you did you wouldn't last long, be frustrated that you're working yourself to death and not getting anywhere.
If you don't place any value in your own work, no-one else will either.
Return to my analogy: horse (HDD) vs car (SSD) vs sports car (PCIe)
On a short journey around the city (the equivalent to usual 'everyday' computer activity - starting up, opening apps, opening photos etc), the difference between a horse and a car is massive, where as the sports car will rarely get out of first gear; the journey too short to really show its class.
A car will beat the horse every time, by a large margin. The sports car will only get to the next traffic lights fractionally ahead of a 'normal' car.
Yes, PCIe is better, performance wise. But for current cost/benefit? Nope.
The price difference between a 500GB HDD and a 500GB SATA SSD can often be negligible, where as Apple would have us believe that 500GB of PCIe costs a king's ransom.
Most iMacs/minis still have the SATA connection in there, in addition to the PCIe connection. All Apple would have to do is swap out slow old HDDs for (cheap) 2.5" SSDs.
Having a 128GB PCIe SSD boot drive, + a 512GB SATA SSD would be the ideal base configuration (if current cost/benefit were to be taken into account).
If Apple was truly still customer focussed, they wouldn't gimp ANY Mac with a HDD. But under Tim... it's all about the shareholders and stock price
[doublepost=1500610745][/doublepost]
Mercedes and BMW no longer make their cars with wooden wheels...
Oh. Sure thing.
But all of the GAF's are gone for this thread. Ya'll have at it.
They don't make all electric cars or advance hybrid motors like the i8, even if it is the future and there is plenty of performance, there is also concern just like range, charging and so on, they need to offer a model for every kind of customer, just like....let me think....Apple.
If you prefer another analogie, they do offer a C class with 1.600cc engine with 90kw... same engine you will find in city car that cost half price...but no one is stopping the buyer to select a 500CV engine.
Last edited:
While I also believe the SSD's are more reliable than HDD's, just so that you do not get the idea that SSD's are indestructible, let me tell you something you do not see or hear every day.
On the 2017 iMac I purchased I decided to configure it with a 2TB Fusion Drive (128gb ssd + 2tb hdd) and after just some hours of working with it it froze, then unable to boot and then using network recovery mode I discovered that neither the disk utilities or system profiler was able to find the SSD part of the fusion drive. Apparently the SSD died.
To me, the way I am seeing Fusion drive on the top tier 27 iMac is:
128GB SSD + 2TB HDD at no extra cost
128GB SSD + 3TB HDD at extra 120€ cost
512GB SSD upgrade but you loose HDD at extra 240€ cost
1TB SSD upgrade but you loose HDD at extra 720€ cost
I do not know why the people get all sentimental about this fusion drive, one is still buying an SSD (yes, smaller one but also cheaper) and you get as extra a old tech HDD.
And to me having this transparent management of most used data promoted on high speed storage while unused/archive data on slower and cheaper storage I think is a good idea. Yes HDD can fail, but as you see from my experience SSD can also fail just as easily, joining them increases the failure probability of the storage because either technology failing renders the other one unusable for recovering data, but one should assume storage fails anyway and always have backups. Yes, this combination may not work everywhere (servers, etc.) but apart from that it covers most of use cases (or at least the use cases of the majority of customers).
On the 2017 iMac I purchased I decided to configure it with a 2TB Fusion Drive (128gb ssd + 2tb hdd) and after just some hours of working with it it froze, then unable to boot and then using network recovery mode I discovered that neither the disk utilities or system profiler was able to find the SSD part of the fusion drive. Apparently the SSD died.
To me, the way I am seeing Fusion drive on the top tier 27 iMac is:
128GB SSD + 2TB HDD at no extra cost
128GB SSD + 3TB HDD at extra 120€ cost
512GB SSD upgrade but you loose HDD at extra 240€ cost
1TB SSD upgrade but you loose HDD at extra 720€ cost
I do not know why the people get all sentimental about this fusion drive, one is still buying an SSD (yes, smaller one but also cheaper) and you get as extra a old tech HDD.
And to me having this transparent management of most used data promoted on high speed storage while unused/archive data on slower and cheaper storage I think is a good idea. Yes HDD can fail, but as you see from my experience SSD can also fail just as easily, joining them increases the failure probability of the storage because either technology failing renders the other one unusable for recovering data, but one should assume storage fails anyway and always have backups. Yes, this combination may not work everywhere (servers, etc.) but apart from that it covers most of use cases (or at least the use cases of the majority of customers).
None of their design choices in any of their models gimp the user experience to the degree in which Apple does by including HDDs in their computers...
Return to my analogy: horse (HDD) vs car (SSD) vs sports car (PCIe)
On a short journey around the city (the equivalent to usual 'everyday' computer activity - starting up, opening apps, opening photos etc), the difference between a horse and a car is massive, where as the sports car will rarely get out of first gear; the journey too short to really show its class.
A car will beat the horse every time, by a large margin. The sports car will only get to the next traffic lights fractionally ahead of a 'normal' car.
Yes, PCIe is better, performance wise. But for current cost/benefit? Nope.
The price difference between a 500GB HDD and a 500GB SATA SSD can often be negligible, where as Apple would have us believe that 500GB of PCIe costs a king's ransom.
Most iMacs/minis still have the SATA connection in there, in addition to the PCIe connection. All Apple would have to do is swap out slow old HDDs for (cheap) 2.5" SSDs.
Having a 128GB PCIe SSD boot drive, + a 512GB SATA SSD would be the ideal base configuration (if current cost/benefit were to be taken into account).
If Apple was truly still customer focussed, they wouldn't gimp ANY Mac with a HDD. But under Tim... it's all about the shareholders and stock price
Well of course they are focused on shareholders, Apples a public company. There is a obligation there. However that doesn't mean they are doing stuff to spite the customer. If the customers leave the shareholders will as well.
You got it wrong though.
The price between 500gb HDDs and 500gb SSDs is fairly large. HDDs have hit bottom dollar, most can't be sold for any cheaper due to the expense of the material used. Average 500gb 7200RPM HDD is around 30-50 USD (I'm excluding speciality drives obviously like NAS, Surveillance, etc). A cheap 500gb SATA SSD is around 130. One of similar quality Apple would use, probably around 160-170 USD retail.
However the price difference between SATA SSDs and PCIe SSDs is becoming negligible. Actually the delta in price between 128gb SATA SSD and 128gb PCIe SSD is virtually nonexistent. Making the cost of 500gb SATA SSD vs 500gb PCIe SSD < 500gb HDD vs 500gb SATA SSD.
As far as cost vs performance. That is a tough one since it depends so much on the size of the SSD. Obviously 128gb PCIe SSDs have a much better cost vs performance. With 2tb, that would take some metrics to establish.
I think Apple could have used SATA SSDs longer though, like right up until last models however anymore and there isn't enough of a price difference to justify a new range of SKU's for them.
I'm using retail because its all I have to go on. But would you go with a 500gb Samsung EVO 850 SATA SSD for $177. Or pay $57 more for a 500gb Samsung EVO 960 PCIe SSD if you could use either in your system? I would go for the PCIe in a heart beat personally.
Granted, Apple would have a larger gap, but unless they were ripping you off for one and giving away the other that is tough to justify. Or only offer 1tb or higher drives to help justify the pricing difference.
Your car analogy works better if the sports car doesn't cost too much more than the normal car. Like a fully loaded Camery vs Evo X or something in a race.
At this point I feel Apple is in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation and because of that should just continuing offering the best that is available. They can (and are) leverage extreme SSD prices with high capacity models especially if no other manufacturer offers it which gives them a bit of exclusivity and more importantly not a good point of comparison.
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Maybe cars aren't your thing, or you never driven a 1600cc big sedan from Mercedes, it's merely to say you own a Mercedes but it's just atrocius and good luck overtaking if your car is loaded and there is a bit of uphill, same can be said of basic trims..missing some basic optionals than even cars with less of the half of the price have....also offcourse brakes, suspensionn and gearbos differs...basically your are paying a big chunk of money just to drive around with the chassis of a premium car...
You nees to choose if be a full elite only company or serve most of the people out there by giving options, something that apparently bothers you somehow
What bothers me is that Apple has turned away from being a consumer focussed company to one that seeks first and foremost to appease the beancounters/shareholders.
And if I hear any more c*** about 'but they're a public company, they're meant to...' - that's just short-sighted BS and nothing more.
Greed is ugly, ultimately self-defeating and counterproductive for the company.
But then, Tim has a lot of shares, so I guess he won't give a s*** at Apple's demise as he relaxes on his mega yacht cruising from one private island to the next...
I have been eying up buying a 2017 iMac and this thread has sold me on the 2 or 3TB Fusion Drive. (avoiding the 1TB fusion with a smaller ssd)
I have doubts that a 512 SSD will be adequate for the next few years of use and a 1TB SSD is still hasn't reached the sweet spot in terms of price (additional $600 on the Apple store).
The bottom line is cost, if I had the money, then I would go full SSD. But the Fusion drive is a great value and I will still experience increased performance compared to my old hard drive.
I have doubts that a 512 SSD will be adequate for the next few years of use and a 1TB SSD is still hasn't reached the sweet spot in terms of price (additional $600 on the Apple store).
The bottom line is cost, if I had the money, then I would go full SSD. But the Fusion drive is a great value and I will still experience increased performance compared to my old hard drive.
I'm going against the grain as well. I'd like the faster ssd but I could fill up most of a 512 ssd already. As external ssd prices come down I'll add a 1t ssd in a USB-c case.