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Will Apple introduce new iMac with reasonably priced SSD options?
- Thread starter tubeexperience
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So, instead of actually addressing my points, you spout out numbers I'm already well aware of. Please get to the point, and offer up a use case here.
The entire OS doesn't need to be on the SSD. Never open Pages, Automator, Chess, etc? The OS will move/keep it off the SSD. Those Kernel extensions not needed for your hardware? They don't need to be on the SSD either. The underlying tech will load balance where things go.
And again, if you are buying more than 1TB storage, the SSD is bigger than that (128GB). It would be nice if the 1TB Fusion Drive at least came with 64GB of SSD, but again, this is Apple's thinking on what will work for a sort of "mixed-use" setup where you might have a media collection, thus want some space (movies, music, etc), but also want the benefit from fast boots and the like from an SSD. Without carrying the 500$ price tag of a 1TB SSD that still might not be good enough.
For those determined to get the fastest possible, you have the PCIe SSD that honestly, is aimed more at creative / engineering folks using the iMac for production because the Mac Pro is not quite worth the extra expense for the scale of their work.
Yeah, although I'm not entirely sure we have good reliability data on SSDs either. They are guaranteed to be time bombs due to the write limits, the only question is how many years. But even then, what's the early failure rate compared to HDDs? I wish I knew the answer to that. But yes, basically what you point out is why Apple uses Fusion Drives. The mixed use of media consumption with some amount of editing work makes it an interesting compromise to get options that let a home user have the benefits of an SSD (a PCIe SSD at that) while not having to go external for bulk media storage.
Well, first of, the entire OS and any applications it shipped with resides on the SSD portion. That means that Pages, Automator, Chess, etc all resides on the SSD.
Second, data are moved by blocks rather than files.
There is no way I can satisfactorily answer your question.
How much of Photoshop and Illustrator is on the SSD? 1/3? 2/3? All of it? Is the vanishing point tool on the SSD or HDD or both? There's no way to know that (or at least it would be too much effort to figure out).
Of cause, having just an SSD, everything would be loaded from the SSD.
Hey, look!
Nobody has answered that question yet!
He's like a robot. His only function is to complain about Apple's SSD prices.
Are you sure you're not getting paid for this?
Are you sure you're not getting paid for this?
More like a bad comedy.
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Hey, look!
Nobody cares!
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That's not understanding what Fusion does. I have hundreds of gigabytes of music, audio books and videos, and putting them on SSD would be a total waste. Music needs 256 kbit/sec read speed, that's 0.032 MB / sec. Video needs a lot less than 1 MB/second. Hard drive is just fine. And Fusion with 24 GB SSD would store the 20 most used GB on the SSD drive and use 4 GB to cache any writes, so they run at full SSD speed and are copied to the hard drive later when you don't notice.
I feel compelled to play devils advocate for @tubeexperience .
My problem with Apples SSD's isn't price but capacity. PCIe SSD's don't come in an adequate sizes (at least at a realistic price i.e. THOUSANDS of dollars for 2+ TB).
So on that front a SATA SSD could be beneficial for me. Imagine an SSD only fusion? 250+gb of PCIe and 2-3 TB of SATA SSD? Now THAT is something I would be excited to get behind. PCIe SSD are reasonably priced in lower storage capacities and SATA SSD's are reasonably priced in all capacities.
What do you guys think about that? I'm also running for governor in your state....
My problem with Apples SSD's isn't price but capacity. PCIe SSD's don't come in an adequate sizes (at least at a realistic price i.e. THOUSANDS of dollars for 2+ TB).
So on that front a SATA SSD could be beneficial for me. Imagine an SSD only fusion? 250+gb of PCIe and 2-3 TB of SATA SSD? Now THAT is something I would be excited to get behind. PCIe SSD are reasonably priced in lower storage capacities and SATA SSD's are reasonably priced in all capacities.
What do you guys think about that? I'm also running for governor in your state....
I will ask again:
What are some tasks you routinely perform that would benefit from having transfer rate above 600MB/s?
I don't think that Fusion Drive is needed any longer.
SSD (SATA-based) are cheap enough that Apple can scrap the Fusion Drive entirely.
And of cause, SSD (PCIe-based) would be for the small minority that would most benefit.
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No, Apple will drain my wallet on the upgrades. And I cry inside because of it. It's a waste of money I rather give to charity. But I just can't have a 128gb ssd, and I refuse to go back to HDD for performance reasons. Their graphics cards are so under-par that I feel the need to upgrade to their biggest option just so it has 30fps in 3 years from now still.
We can put in 4 ram slots now, I am scared the new model with have 2 again, .. sigh.
We can put in 4 ram slots now, I am scared the new model with have 2 again, .. sigh.
Those results looks pretty impressive. By the way, is the spinning hard drive 5400 or 7200 RPM?
EDIT: Found this video of a speed test for a 2015 iMac with 1TB Fusion drive:
Write speed looks comparable to what you showed for your Samsung 256GB SSD. Read speed looks great.
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For the vast majority of users and applications, MB/s is about the most useless metric for SSD performance... unfortunately, it is by far the most prevalent.
PCIe SSDs shine when it comes to IOPs... and IOPs are what makes a machine feel fast, or slow.
Luckily for us Mac users... Apple is ahead of the curve on PCIe SSDs.
/Jim
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According to System Information, it's a Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm drive - this one: https://www.scan.co.uk/products/2tb...4-sata-3-6gb-s-7200rpm-64mb-cache-8ms-oem-ncq
Here's the speed test from a Toshiba OCZ TR150 960GB that I bought for $190.
Considering that for an extra $110 I could have over twice the storage with the 2TB fusion HD for the iMac which has over 2x better reads speeds and equal write speed to your lesser sized SSD, I think the Fusion HD is the better buy. Even the 1TB Fusion HD for $100 is nearly twice as fast on reads as your SSD. With the left over $90 I could also add extra RAM to the iMac.
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For $300 the 2TB Fusion HD looks pretty impressive when you consider that it uses a spinning HD. I was very impressed with what I saw with the 1TB Fusion HD and that used a 5400RPM HD. Still the blazing speeds of the m.2 pcie hard not to ignore. And those m.2 pcie SSDs are only going to get faster I imagine.
Having a Fusion Drive is like having a fast vehicle that can go 20mph before for an hour before you have to bike the rest of the way.
Having a (SATA) Solid State Drive is like having a slower vehicle that can go 10mph for 10 hours.
Sure, if you were measuring the first hour, you would have much different result than measuring at the 10th hour.
Wow, imagine that you aspire to own a car that can 10MPH for 10 hours which according to you is fast enough. I much perfer to own m.2 pcie SSD which is like owning a car that can go 75MPH or faster for 10 hours. Try harder.
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Stop moving the goal post.
I thought you were comparing a Fusion Drive to a (SATA) Solid State Drive of similar capacity.
We have excellent longevity data on modern ssd's and barring standard electronic failure you can write a 100gb a day to them for about 10 years with a fair expectation of them still working.
I'm seeing a few inaccuracies here.
First off PCIe technology is massively faster than SATA (obsolete) technology. SATA is awful
The difference is ~2000 mb/s vs about 250-400.
Claiming there to be no difference doesn't make sense.
Second off fusion is slow and can't realistically be compared to the speed of a pure SSD, especially the ones that are used in the current iMacs.
I have owned a late 2015 iMac with both the 2tb fusion drive and 512 SSD, the difference is gargantuan.
Claiming that fusion and pure SSD in the iMac are the same speed is nothing but an untrue and misleading argument.
Fusion technology is flawed, slow, and once it starts to fill up you end up with HDD speeds a great deal of the time- that's what I experienced.
Fusion technology also only leaves a total of 4 gb of free space on the SSD, which is small enough percentage that it will also slow the SSD itself down, never mind that it is working with an HDD.
Fusion's use is that it is much faster than a pure HDD, but you can't realistically compare its speed to one of the Apple SSDs.
First off PCIe technology is massively faster than SATA (obsolete) technology. SATA is awful
The difference is ~2000 mb/s vs about 250-400.
Claiming there to be no difference doesn't make sense.
Second off fusion is slow and can't realistically be compared to the speed of a pure SSD, especially the ones that are used in the current iMacs.
I have owned a late 2015 iMac with both the 2tb fusion drive and 512 SSD, the difference is gargantuan.
Claiming that fusion and pure SSD in the iMac are the same speed is nothing but an untrue and misleading argument.
Fusion technology is flawed, slow, and once it starts to fill up you end up with HDD speeds a great deal of the time- that's what I experienced.
Fusion technology also only leaves a total of 4 gb of free space on the SSD, which is small enough percentage that it will also slow the SSD itself down, never mind that it is working with an HDD.
Fusion's use is that it is much faster than a pure HDD, but you can't realistically compare its speed to one of the Apple SSDs.
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Still not as big as the difference between fusion drive and standard hard drive. I'm quite happy with my 3TB fusion drive.
Here's the speed test from a Toshiba OCZ TR150 960GB that I bought for $190.
no speed difference? lol
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I don't know whether the difference between SSD and fusion is bigger/smaller than the difference between HDD and SSD, I imagine that would depend on various factors.
But what I do agree with you on is that fusion is undoubtedly much faster than HDD, and the difference is very significant.
That is why fusion is still a great buy in my honest opinion. If you're a 'speed freak' if we will call it that you're probably better off getting one of the pure SSD options like I did. I got the 512 and man, this thing is fast.
Glad I spent the extra $$ instead of settling for slower.