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omgwut

macrumors 6502
Jul 28, 2006
321
0
Does anyone know if dualbooting Windows OS would reap the benefits of a Fusion Drive like OSX does? I mean would it be able to recognize the dual volumes as one and use them in a similar fashion, or is this just something that is managed by OSX on a software level?

If not, I assume Windows OS would just see the SSD and HDD as two seperate mounted volumes then, right?
 

milbournosphere

macrumors 6502a
Mar 3, 2009
857
1
San Diego, CA
Completely wrong.
My apologies. The name seems to be causing some confusion. The software being called Fusion Drive...it sounds snazzy but it implies that the drive is doing the work, which we both agree it is not. It does not, however, make the article title misleading, as that's what Apple chose to call the tech. It's just a bad name; the title states that Fusion Drive works on old mac, and the article appears to confirm that. Silly semantics...moving on. :)
 

Cory Bauer

macrumors 6502a
Jun 26, 2003
615
233
If I could order a stock $799 Mac mini, purchase a 128GB Samsung 830 SSD for $89 (Newegg pricing), and then assemble my own fusion drive - that would be fantastic. Sounds like that may be doable?
 

randomnut

macrumors regular
Aug 17, 2011
160
80
Those seeking to compare this fusion drive to hybrid drives on the market are mostly wasting their time. The current drives will copy heavily accessed data into flash where as these 'fusion' drives are completely different beasts, which work at block level -moving- accessed blocks into flash thereby not duplicating data and providing extra space.

We've been using this technology in high end SANs for some time now (fluid data/flash cache and a variety of other names) but I'm glad Apple went with this method rather than standard hybrid drives, it is so much better.
 

milbournosphere

macrumors 6502a
Mar 3, 2009
857
1
San Diego, CA
Does anyone know if dualbooting Windows OS would reap the benefits of a Fusion Drive like OSX does?

It would appear that you can throw an extra partition on the drive, but it will not benefit from the file-tiered system:

Can I add a partition to the hard disk with Fusion Drive?
Using Disk Utility, you can add one partition to the hard disk on Fusion Drive. Once you add the partition, the "plus" symbol in Disk Utility to add additional partitions will be grayed out. You cannot partition the Flash storage.

If I create a hard disk partition is it part of Fusion Drive?
The additional partition is not part of Fusion Drive. The new partition is a separate volume that is physically located on the hard disk drive.

Can I add a Windows partition?
You can create one additional partition on the hard disk with Fusion Drive. You can create either a Mac OS X partition or a Windows partition.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5446?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
 

tipp

macrumors regular
Sep 9, 2010
114
3
That's what I was going to say. Misleading article title is misleading. It's the software that works on other Macs, not the drive itself.

Perhaps I misunderstood your comment, you seemed to be implying that it was the drive doing the work. Sorry if I read your comment wrong. :)

Completely wrong.

Actually, I read and still read your comment the same way as milbournosphere. You said the article title is misleading, but I think you're misunderstanding what the article and milbournosphere are saying. The results of this test make it seem likely that Apple's Fusion Drive isn't a physical drive at all, but is OS level software. If correct, there is no physical Fusion "drive itself" that would need to work on older Macs, because Fusion Drive is software, not hardware, thus the article title isn't misleading.
 

deconstruct60

macrumors G5
Mar 10, 2009
12,202
3,806
Mac Developer - aka - he paid the $99 for Mac Developer Program.

The "Terminal" utility and the diskutil program ships with every single copy of Mac OS X. There is not "Mac Developer Program" aspect here at all. Only knowing how to use the tools have access to. OS X is not the Finder. Being aware of that is the only major prerequisite required here.
 

Intarweb

macrumors 6502a
May 30, 2007
561
0
Actually, I read and still read your comment the same way as milbournosphere. You said the article title is misleading, but I think you're misunderstanding what the article and milbournosphere are saying. The results of this test make it seem likely that Apple's Fusion Drive isn't a physical drive at all, but is OS level software. If correct, there is no physical Fusion "drive itself" that would need to work on older Macs, because Fusion Drive is software, not hardware, thus the article title isn't misleading.

The article title says the Fusion Drive works in other Macs. That's not what the article is about. The article is about using two different drives that work LIKE a THE Fusion Drive because of the software.
 

oYx

macrumors regular
Sep 2, 2007
192
3
London
The article title says the Fusion Drive works in other Macs. That's not what the article is about. The article is about using two different drives that work LIKE a THE Fusion Drive because of the software.

From what I have read, Apple's Fusion Drive is really two different drives that work together.
 

topgunn

macrumors 68000
Nov 5, 2004
1,555
2,059
Houston
The article title says the Fusion Drive works in other Macs. That's not what the article is about. The article is about using two different drives that work LIKE a THE Fusion Drive because of the software.
There is no 'THE Fusion Drive'. It's not an entity; its a technology. What this article points out is that it is already available as a part of 10.8.2 which Apple all but stated at the media event. The article and the title are accurately worded.
 

Intarweb

macrumors 6502a
May 30, 2007
561
0
My apologies. The name seems to be causing some confusion. The software being called Fusion Drive...it sounds snazzy but it implies that the drive is doing the work, which we both agree it is not. It does not, however, make the article title misleading, as that's what Apple chose to call the tech. It's just a bad name; the title states that Fusion Drive works on old mac, and the article appears to confirm that. Silly semantics...moving on. :)

Ahh, now I see where the confusion is. I've never seen Apple refer to the software as "Fusion Drive." When I configure a MacMini I can select a "Fusion Drive."

The article itself reads,
...managed to build his own Fusion Drive
He didn't build the software. He build a physical Fusion HDD.

The title reads,
Apple's New Fusion Drive
 

SvenSvenson

macrumors regular
Jul 17, 2007
218
162
So he has an internal SSD and an external HDD with a single drive letter, what makes that a "fusion" drive? Nothing! There's no proof this is what Apple calls Fusion Drive technology. The article is a fail.


P.S. There's Windows software out there that will combine various drives into a single "hybrid" volume. Does that mean that's "fusion" drive software? I think not.


This is the Fusion drive part - the system automatically moving data between the 2 drives :

By preferentially accessing data that had initially been written to the traditional hard drive, Stein was able to watch as the data was automatically transferred to the SSD for faster access. Upon stopping the process, the system automatically pushed the data back to the By preferentially accessing data that had initially been written to the traditional hard drive, Stein was able to watch as the data was automatically transferred to the SSD for faster access. Upon stopping the process, the system automatically pushed the data back to the traditional hard drive, and in one final step Stein began accessing the data once more and after about an hour was able to see it pulled back onto the SSD.
 

tipp

macrumors regular
Sep 9, 2010
114
3
The article title says the Fusion Drive works in other Macs. That's not what the article is about. The article is about using two different drives that work LIKE a THE Fusion Drive because of the software.

Yeah, not sure what to say here. You're indignant, but pretty clearly don't understand what's going on. There is no "THE Fusion Drive". It's not one physical hard drive in the new Macs; it's two separate drives.
 

Rocketman

macrumors 603
The article title says the Fusion Drive works in other Macs. That's not what the article is about. The article is about using two different drives that work LIKE a THE Fusion Drive because of the software.
Apple's implementation of Fusion Drive with a SSD and a HDD is only one way such software could be used. One could literally reverse the drives and intentionally put the slow one on the wrong end and the software would still function, albiet with crippled results.

It has not yet been determined how the software "discovers" the SSD (or crippleware drive if reversed), but one suspects it is using SMART.

The limitation of course is it is an OS thing so only runs on Macs and only those modern enough to run the latest version of OSX. The exciting thing to me is it works fine on ZFS so ought to work with pretty much any file system. I bet it works with Ramdrives too, for more than 2x the speed of a Flashdrive.

Hackintosh?

Rocketman
 
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Maltz

macrumors member
Mar 31, 2011
60
5
The article title says the Fusion Drive works in other Macs. That's not what the article is about. The article is about using two different drives that work LIKE a THE Fusion Drive because of the software.

There is no such thing as a "Fusion Drive" per se. Apple's Fusion Drive is a software-only technology that uses two physical devices - an SSD and a traditional spinning drive. This article is describing exactly what Apple's "Fusion Drive" is, except it was configured manually in a Mac Pro.
 

adildacoolset

macrumors 65816
Now another reason I'm glad I didn't get the substantially worse new iMac and opted for the 2011 gen last Wednesday :)

The process will most likely get simplier, perhaps even an app made what automates the process of making the fusion drive. Then i'd just get a Thunderbolt SSD and stick with my 500GB Internally. I know it says only SATA for now, but you never know whats possible in time.

I would gladly open my iMac and fit an SSD, but I bought Apple care with it since I got it at a 60% discount, I don't really don't wanna void it if it can be helped xD. Still, at least I can upgrade the ram to 32GB unlike the new 21.5''. Only gonna cost me 110 quid for that amount of ram. :)

I actually think the new iMacs are cool
 

rkahl

macrumors 65816
Jul 29, 2010
1,021
0
The "Terminal" utility and the diskutil program ships with every single copy of Mac OS X. There is not "Mac Developer Program" aspect here at all. Only knowing how to use the tools have access to. OS X is not the Finder. Being aware of that is the only major prerequisite required here.

I was joking.
 

deconstruct60

macrumors G5
Mar 10, 2009
12,202
3,806
If not, I assume Windows OS would just see the SSD and HDD as two separate mounted volumes then, right?

Windows OS won't ( or shouldn't ) see the two "halves" of the single HFS+ volume at all.

The downside of this set-up is that even Windows software that might mount a normal HFS+ volume won't work

These two drives that form one HFS+ volume can't be read reliability or coherently without looking at both. It is very similar if you set up two same sized HDDs with disktutil's implementation of software RAID-0 . The aren't "normal" drives by themselves.

P.S. Windows probably can consume both a SSD and HDD and compose its own software driven hybrid setup. However you are not going to be able to split the SSD so that there is both a windows hybrid partition and a OS X CoreStorage (Fusion) partition. Normally CoreStorage consumes whole drives. Apple has added an exception were CoreStorage can carve out a subset of space for windows to live on with the lastest updates. However Windows is restricted to operating only in that 'out of the way corner' subset provided.

that said something like a Mac Pro with 4 drive sleds could have two dedicated to a two drive fusion set up and another two dedicated to some Windows two drive set up. The machine as a whole could "dual boot" into either OS instance.
 
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Erukian

macrumors newbie
Jul 3, 2007
27
8
I have a 128gb ssd and a 1tb in my macbook pro. I can't wait to see if I can get this working. Also, I wonder if there are any issues with bootcamp when two drives are working in 'fusion'.
 

Intarweb

macrumors 6502a
May 30, 2007
561
0
Yeah, not sure what to say here. You're indignant, but pretty clearly don't understand what's going on. There is no "THE Fusion Drive". It's not one physical hard drive in the new Macs; it's two separate drives.

There is no such thing as a "Fusion Drive" per se. Apple's Fusion Drive is a software-only technology that uses two physical devices - an SSD and a traditional spinning drive. This article is describing exactly what Apple's "Fusion Drive" is, except it was configured manually in a Mac Pro.

So it's Apple's poorly worded tech name, and the fact that I can select Fusion Drive instead of HDD, when it's already in every computer running 10.8.2, that has caused my misunderstanding.

Fusion Drive is the software tech. When I select "Fusion Drive" when configuring a MacMini what I am really selecting is a SDD and a HDD combo, not a physical item called a "Fusion Drive."

I'll rephrase my original statement, Apple misleading is misleading.
 
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