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phoenixsan

macrumors 65816
Oct 19, 2012
1,342
2
I will think...

Anyone have any idea if existing users with an SDD + hard drive setup (like I do in my MacBook Pro) would be able to take advantage of this automated partitioning of frequently-used apps and such?

Initially I thougth the Fusion drive was enabled from software. Based my thought in inconclussive custom builds of Mac OS X. With the info you share, now I am leaning to a hardware enabled thing:(.....:):apple:
 

ValSalva

macrumors 68040
Jun 26, 2009
3,783
259
Burpelson AFB
Since Fusion Drive is almost certainly two physically separate drives, SSD + HDD, I'm wondering if:

Can one un-Fusion them? I'd rather have a separate HDD with it's own partition(s) leaving the SSD as the OS drive. One used to be able to order this from Apple on the Mac Mini Server.

Wondering if a fresh install of ML would allow this Fusion Drive to be eliminated and the SSD and HDD seen as separate drives.
 

MM123

macrumors member
Apr 4, 2008
83
0
CE
Since Fusion Drive is almost certainly two physically separate drives, SSD + HDD, I'm wondering if:

Can one un-Fusion them? I'd rather have a separate HDD with it's own partition(s) leaving the SSD as the OS drive. One used to be able to order this from Apple on the Mac Mini Server.

Wondering if a fresh install of ML would allow this Fusion Drive to be eliminated and the SSD and HDD seen as separate drives.

Basically I think this whole "Fusion Thing" is 90% marketing and maybe 10% of an advantage for the user. But in my book you are better of with one SSD and one HDD installing at your own (if you can/will do it).

It's like the iMac, or any other "all-in-one" computer. If the monitor break, your computer is useless too, if your computer break, you can't use your monitor. And with fusion HDD you are in the same boat, if one of the disks gets faulty, all your data is in big danger.

But of course this is how I see it, your mileage may vary
 
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Trvlngnrs

macrumors 6502
Jun 8, 2010
359
35
As a 50+ year old semi geek, I bought the fusion drive.

I understand I could get 128 gb flash for about $90 + $25 (a guess) for a case to put it in + $10 (another guess) for a USB 3.0 cable = $125.

The fusion was $250 minus 12% (Discover card discount). This puts the Fusion drive less than $100 over a DIY project. It has full warranty from Apple (3 years if I get Applecare, 2 with the Discover card) and there's nothing I have to do except turn it on. No cables, nothing on my desk. I can earn the $100 in a few hours. If I bought the DIY drive I'd spend more than a couple hours over the life of the computer transferring files around.
 

kgs

macrumors regular
Jul 29, 2012
102
1
As a 50+ year old semi geek, I bought the fusion drive.

I understand I could get 128 gb flash for about $90 + $25 (a guess) for a case to put it in + $10 (another guess) for a USB 3.0 cable = $125.

The fusion was $250 minus 12% (Discover card discount). This puts the Fusion drive less than $100 over a DIY project. It has full warranty from Apple (3 years if I get Applecare, 2 with the Discover card) and there's nothing I have to do except turn it on. No cables, nothing on my desk. I can earn the $100 in a few hours. If I bought the DIY drive I'd spend more than a couple hours over the life of the computer transferring files around.

Exactly. I found it worth the money to get it even if it was more expensive than buying and installing myself.

I expect this Mini will last me for 5+ years as an active computer.

I purchased it as a home media server and web access device. It will hold my gitlab installation, itunes server, time machine backups for my two laptops (replacing my Time Capsule) and all kinds of other server related tasks.

I don't think I'm going to run into any major hurdles with this machine in this situation for a large number of years.

Paying a few extra bucks to make my life easier, no big deal in my eyes when I factor it in order how long it will be in use.
 

spacepower7

macrumors 68000
May 6, 2004
1,509
1
Let's just hope someone on here gets a fusion drive in the next few days and can start answering these questions. Right now putting my Aperture library and my system/apps on SSD (the ideal) is not really practical as the internal 256 SSD would get too full and buying an external SSD as well as a mid mini with SSD would be a big spend. The fusion seems like it might offer a good compromise, giving SSD-like Aperture and system performance for substantially less spend. However, if it doesn't help with Aperture, I'll just go for the SSD or standard HDD... damn you Apple, why do you make these things so hard!

I'm interested in Aperture performance as well as FCPX where Apple support pages or anantech? say import cache on the SSD is limited to 4 GB. Forget where I read it but that's a small cache for video people, but not the average consumer
 

SkiHound

macrumors member
Jul 6, 2008
33
0
That's my take but I'm even older. Was originally thinking the new iMacs would come with large SSDs. Looked at the new mini and thought that's what I need. I'm sure a SSD will be faster. But I think the fusion will be much faster than a conventional drive for most folks most of the time. I don't need cutting edge and I run some stat models that take 12 to 24 hours to converge once in a while. I need stuff that works without significant bottlenecks on a day to day basis. Assuming this is reliable, and that's my one trepidation, I expect this to be very good technology for the common folk.
 

StevenT42

macrumors 6502
Jun 9, 2010
371
0
Apple says this in their Fusion Drive FAQ:

Can external USB, FireWire, or Thunderbolt hard drives be added to Fusion Drive?
External drives cannot be added to Fusion Drive.

Does that mean that the 1.1 TB Fusion Drive can not be increased in size, or does that mean that you can not plug in USB/FireWire/Thunderbolt drives at all to the Mac and reference them as separate volumes?

My iTunes library is on a separate FireWire 800 drive. The Time Machine backup that I am planning to use is on a USB3.0 hard drive. The FAQ wording has me concerned.
 

MatthewAMEL

macrumors 6502
Oct 23, 2007
380
13
Orlando, FL
Apple says this in their Fusion Drive FAQ:



Does that mean that the 1.1 TB Fusion Drive can not be increased in size, or does that mean that you can not plug in USB/FireWire/Thunderbolt drives at all to the Mac and reference them as separate volumes?

My iTunes library is on a separate FireWire 800 drive. The Time Machine backup that I am planning to use is on a USB3.0 hard drive. The FAQ wording has me concerned.

I took that FAQ to mean you could not use external drives to create or add to a Fusion drive.

While I understand the limitation for USB/FW drives, the Thunderbolt exclusion is curious. I had assumed it was a bandwidth limitation, but Thunderbolt is supposed to alleviate all those concerns, right? :rolleyes:

The Fusion drive will appear as one logical volume (similar to a RAID). Disk Utility will tell you the 'truth', but the Finder will just show one volume.

You can continue to use as many other devices/volumes as you do now.
 

andy1979

macrumors newbie
Oct 31, 2012
2
0
Just pure luck on a Google search but.........

http://www.petralli.net/2012/10/ana...macs-with-an-ssd-and-a-traditional-hard-disk/

What the Heck is this??

Is it the answer to retrofit??

I wrote that article because I had an itch that Fusion Drive could be just embedded in the LVM functionality of CoreStorage. Turns out someone had a little more time to run some benchmarks on this setup and found some really interesting results. Yes, it looks like it behaves just as you would expect Fusion Drive to work. Results are here: http://jollyjinx.tumblr.com/post/34638496292/fusion-drive-on-older-macs-yes-since-apple-has
 

lamerica80

macrumors 6502a
May 22, 2008
679
506
I ordered the i7 mini with fusion drive yesterday. Now im feeling some buyers remorse!!

I have never paid so much extra for such vauge extra benefits. If at least the fusion drive was 2 TB or whatever.

I basicly ordered it cuz i want the latest and best. :)

Why did yall order fusiondrive? Is it worth the extra cash? Convice me!
 

nuckinfutz

macrumors 603
Jul 3, 2002
5,537
398
Middle Earth
I ordered the i7 mini with fusion drive yesterday. Now im feeling some buyers remorse!!

I have never paid so much extra for such vauge extra benefits. If at least the fusion drive was 2 TB or whatever.

I basicly ordered it cuz i want the latest and best. :)

Why did yall order fusiondrive? Is it worth the extra cash? Convice me!

When the iMac 27 are here i'll order it with the 1TB Fusion Drive because it's the best compromise between speed (faster than native HDD but slower than all SSD) and size. Was initially thinking about the 3TB but with USB 3 and Thunderbolt external options that's not really necessary.
 

pup

macrumors 6502
Dec 31, 2009
499
489
I ordered the i7 mini with fusion drive yesterday. Now im feeling some buyers remorse!!

I have never paid so much extra for such vauge extra benefits. If at least the fusion drive was 2 TB or whatever.

I basicly ordered it cuz i want the latest and best. :)

Why did yall order fusiondrive? Is it worth the extra cash? Convice me!

It's the way to go, imo. The question, now that we seem to know what's going on, is whether you're willing to spend an extra $100 or so to let Apple set it up and provide service and a warranty. That's a fair price, I think, though there's definitely a part of me that wants to send back my fusion mini when it arrives, and instead create my own fusion drive with the stock HDD and a larger flash. But I'd like to see some other brave souls work out the bugs first.

So as of now, I'm keeping the stock fusion - maybe later I'll upgrade the flash if others find that it's possible (or even necessary - it would be interesting to see some stats on the performance of 256 vs 128 flash in fusion mode.)
 

MattZani

macrumors 68030
Apr 20, 2008
2,554
103
UK
After seeing that FusionDrive is enable-able on any machine, I think I will be ordering a 1TB machine and fitting my own SSD, most likely a 256Gb one, and most likely in a few months time too, so I can spread the cost.
 

hugodrax

macrumors 65816
Jul 15, 2007
1,217
609
The fusion way is smarter, why waste 128GB with crap that never gets accessed VS the fusion way that will put only the actual stuff that gets used on to the SDD intelligently.
 
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