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pyzon

macrumors regular
Jan 31, 2008
135
0
yeah exactly, a 250 or 512GB version for $400-600 would be common sense. It's clear with the fusion drive you can put in 1 ssd and 1 regular hdd, so why not offer those alternatives to the users, so they can have a 250GB pure ssd for performance/os related and a 1TB regular hdd for photos etc..

Apple can still add their price premium to the SSDs, they completely dropped the ball on the configuration instead we have a straight price jump from $250 to $1300 :confused: Whoever came up with this idiotic config options needs to be shown the door just like the map guy.

Do you folks seriously know how much an SSD is these days? $400 for a 256gb? Approx $.7 / $.8 Per GB for a good intel cherryvile..as for $1300 - anyone who buys one or has bought one probably needs to upgrade their own spinning brain with a solid state one :)
 

hfg

macrumors 68040
Dec 1, 2006
3,621
312
Cedar Rapids, IA. USA
Do you folks seriously know how much an SSD is these days? $400 for a 256gb? Approx $.7 / $.8 Per GB for a good intel cherryvile..as for $1300 - anyone who buys one or has bought one probably needs to upgrade their own spinning brain with a solid state one :)

So what do you propose for users requiring 750GB or more of pure SSD storage totally inside the new 27" iMac using parts available today? Keep in mind your budget is $532 - $614 if possible ... links please! :)

----------

Is the 768GB on a blade stick or standard 2.5" form factor?

I haven't seen inside a 2012 27" iMac yet (soon, hopefully), but I suspect it will be a blade type SSD device. It is also unknown if there will be mounting hardware, interface cables, or connectors available in the normal hard disk mounting area to add a standard 2.5" format SATA SSD.

On the available 21.5" iMac base model with only a hard disk, the SSD connector is not available on the circuit board, eliminating the possibility of adding a blade SSD should one become available from sources like OWC, who provide blade SSDs for MacBook Air and MacBook Pro upgrades.
 

Mak47

macrumors 6502a
Mar 27, 2011
751
32
Harrisburg, PA
The only compelling reason to do this is if you absolutely must have only on board storage, can't use Fusion drive for some reason, dont store lots of movies and have money to burn.

SSD gives little to no benefit when playing back media files, which are the only things that are going to require that kind of space.

The Fusion drive will deliver real world speeds that are not demonstrably different from a single SSD. Your apps will all run from the SSD, files you access regularly will all run from the SSD. The only things that won't will be files that are rarely accessed and won't deliver any more speed regardless of the drive they're on.

Despite popular rumor, the HDD in the iMac is a 7200RPM drive, not 5400, which will deliver all of those files much faster than you will consume them.

Bottom line, go with the Fusion drive in the iMac. You'll get more capacity, spend way less money and notice no difference in performance.

If you get a mini, the drive swap is super easy. Get the stock HDD and either replace it with an SSD or just add an SSD in addition to it. You can get a higher capacity SSD if you DIY and for less money. You'll also have greater control over what's stored on each drive. On the iMac this isn't realistic because it'll be a nightmare to open up. The mini doesn't have that problem.
 

smr

macrumors 6502a
Sep 14, 2007
815
166
Shropshire, UK
I'd be careful in assuming that moving to an SSD will get you away from disk failures. I had a PC laptop with a 256GB SSD that failed. When it does, there's a good chance nothing is recoverable, whereas a mechanical drive can have some small possibility of recover.

In reality, almost every recent study I've seen shows that SSD failure rates are approximately equivalent to those of mechanical drives, if perhaps very slightly worse.

You may be aware of this already, but the way you phrased that made it sound like you expected SSDs to be more reliable than their mechanical counterparts, and that's not really the case.

That is a good point and I will be using my Time Capsule to back up my SSD.

This raises an interesting question re: internal 768GB Apple SSD vs an external LaCie 1TB Thunderbolt SSD. The LaCie is (I believe) two 512GB SSDs in RAID 0. Is that twice as likely to fail as the Apple 768GB drive? (or is the Apple Drive actually several SSD drives?)
 

RPhoto

macrumors 65816
Jul 18, 2010
1,113
2,260
Surrey, UK
Richard, many valid points, but you miss some basic facts i believe:
1- Once you go with the Lacie option you don't only save money, but you also end up having more than 300gb+ more of flash storage (the fusion plus the full 1TB of the Lacie). That's way above 30% more flash storage for less money, this enough should be enough not to choose the Apple solution.
2- The Lacie option is very likely much faster than the Apple one, as it's a RAID setup. Benchmarks are already out there based on the MBPro Retina, and they speak clear.
3- I can't honestly see as something complicated to just have the OS, your apps and that's it installed on the Fusion, then forget it for the rest of your life. Maybe you won't use the 100% flash storage available in the fusion...but you have 256gb more that you can fill...you can even just not purchase the Fusion and leave the Apple stock drive completely empty: You'll still have more and faster storage for way less the money!

Net, no "rational" option can justify the Apple premium price. You are left with kind of "heart" feelings like "i love it this way, all integrated, i have the money and that's it". Which is valid and obviously very personal, but not justifiable with number-based facts.
Personally speaking, when knowing that i would have more storage, faster, for less of the money, i couldn't go into it without feeling stupid, same way i would if i purchased extra RAM from Apple.
1) I did have that in my head, the more storage for less, but forgot to put it in the post.

2) do you have any links to test for the 1TB LaCie? I've been very impressed with my Airs speed so if the LaCie is a lot faster that would be very tempting.

I completely understand your reasonings behind spending less for more and I must admit, seeing the LaCie has temporarily made me think twice before ordering. I guess the big question mark is just Fusion in general, or more specifically, the HHD. I just don't want that thing to spin up, ever. I get lag now when my external drive needs to spin up if it hasn't been accessed for a while and I'm worried that the HHD in Fusion will do the same thing, even if I keep data down to under the 128gb of the SSD. I guess I also need to know for complete certainty that no data will ever go to the HDD, including software, if the storage required is less than 128gb. Its probably been confirmed somewhere on here so I'll go have another look.

On a side note from your post, I understand all the complaints about the cost of the Apple SSD, but there are some of us who require high capacity SSD and although there are slightly cheaper methods, it's an expensive thing to buy no matter what way you do it.
 

RPhoto

macrumors 65816
Jul 18, 2010
1,113
2,260
Surrey, UK
You might check post #40 and #46 on the previous page of this thread.
I have DiskSpeedTest results of the LaCie 1TB and a Macbook Air.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/16419931/

I did see that but didn't think it was same thing as you'd said it was a DIY, apologies.

Speed is pretty much on par with the Air then give or take a small amount, I thought it would be quicker if it was a raid setup in the LaCie. So no real big speed advantage with the LaCie external.
 

hfg

macrumors 68040
Dec 1, 2006
3,621
312
Cedar Rapids, IA. USA
I did see that but didn't think it was same thing as you'd said it was a DIY, apologies.

Speed is pretty much on par with the Air then give or take a small amount, I thought it would be quicker if it was a raid setup in the LaCie. So no real big speed advantage with the LaCie external.

It was DIY, I removed the hard disks and replaced them with Crucial M4 SSD drives. So, it is probably representative of what you might expect from a purchased one. I really didn't expect higher speeds than internal, but was pleased to achieve the same speeds for an external drive through Thunderbolt.

I expect the internal iMac SSD to be on par with the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air computers which use the same type of blade SSDs. They are probably delivering the best speed attainable with SATA-III at this time. Of course, they could surprise everyone and deliver a dual-SATA-controller RAID-0 SSD board which would go a long way to justifying the high cost of that option, but I would think their advertising might have indicated that.

-howard
 

Aluminum213

macrumors 68040
Mar 16, 2012
3,597
4,707
I am another 'stupid' person who has 'wasted' their money on the 768gb SSD upgrade.

Why? Some of us have different priorities. I'm lucky enough to earn a good (but not massive) salary, but I work hard for it so my free-time is more precious. I like the idea of having a high-spec, all-in-one computer, but I don't have the time to fully research the feasibility and reliability of all the third-party options. Indeed, in the time I would otherwise 'waste' researching all the third-party options I can earn more than enough to pay Apple to fit my SSD.

Why does an SSD-only iMac appeal to me? Having had mechanical hard and optical drives fail on me in the past, I like the idea of having a solid state computer. I also want all of my Aperture library on a fast SSD drive. There is agreement that SSD is the way things are going, and I can have that now (albeit at a price). I desperately need something to replace my failing 2008 24 inch iMac, and I can't wait for Apple to charge more sensible prices for SSDs (but then will they ever do that?)

Whilst I am sure there are 'cheaper' ways to achieve what I want (whether an external Thunderbolt SSD or getting an authorised dealer to install a third-party SSD), it is more convenient, 'neater', safer AND MAKES ECONOMIC SENSE for ME to buy the whole package from Apple.

My wife and I both wear white coats, just to give you an idea of my salary. But unless you have little value for money or make millions please spare me the "I make a good earning" nonsense
 

flynz4

macrumors 68040
Aug 9, 2009
3,242
126
Portland, OR
Prices on the SSD marked are droping rapidly. Paying 1300 on this today already is to much, you´ll never make any of that money back two/three years from now.

It would be foolish to buy the 768GB to get a direct financial return. The reason is if you have a reason to have that capability now. I would expect the value of the SSD will drop to "near zero" over the life of the machine.

/Jim
 

7709876

Cancelled
Apr 10, 2012
548
16
SSD gives little to no benefit when playing back media files, which are the only things that are going to require that kind of space.

If you dual boot (which many of us do) then 768GB goes VERY quickly without touching ANY media.
 

vannibombonato

macrumors 6502
Jun 14, 2007
405
279
1) I did have that in my head, the more storage for less, but forgot to put it in the post.

2) do you have any links to test for the 1TB LaCie? I've been very impressed with my Airs speed so if the LaCie is a lot faster that would be very tempting.

I completely understand your reasonings behind spending less for more and I must admit, seeing the LaCie has temporarily made me think twice before ordering. I guess the big question mark is just Fusion in general, or more specifically, the HHD. I just don't want that thing to spin up, ever. I get lag now when my external drive needs to spin up if it hasn't been accessed for a while and I'm worried that the HHD in Fusion will do the same thing, even if I keep data down to under the 128gb of the SSD. I guess I also need to know for complete certainty that no data will ever go to the HDD, including software, if the storage required is less than 128gb. Its probably been confirmed somewhere on here so I'll go have another look.

On a side note from your post, I understand all the complaints about the cost of the Apple SSD, but there are some of us who require high capacity SSD and although there are slightly cheaper methods, it's an expensive thing to buy no matter what way you do it.

Test of Lacie is here (620MB/sec read, 380MB/sec write), way better than what's inside current Apples (i believe main performance driver is that it's a RAID setup), plus if you ever add another one speed will further increase.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2412374,00.asp

I understand your points on not "risking" the HDD to ever spin-up, i know what you're talking about, but honestly if Fusion work as advertised, as they say its built, and as common sense points to, this should not be an issue. And it certainly won't be an issue if you simply totally skip the Fusion drive, go for a standard HDD and leave it TOTALLY empty, booting directly from the external and maybe using the internal HDD as a unique partition for Win just in case.

Anyway, to each its own, if i could i'd buy the internal Full SSD plus external SSD, but i don't have the budget :)
 

smr

macrumors 6502a
Sep 14, 2007
815
166
Shropshire, UK
Test of Lacie is here (620MB/sec read, 380MB/sec write), way better than what's inside current Apples (i believe main performance driver is that it's a RAID setup), plus if you ever add another one speed will further increase.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2412374,00.asp

I understand your points on not "risking" the HDD to ever spin-up, i know what you're talking about, but honestly if Fusion work as advertised, as they say its built, and as common sense points to, this should not be an issue. And it certainly won't be an issue if you simply totally skip the Fusion drive, go for a standard HDD and leave it TOTALLY empty, booting directly from the external and maybe using the internal HDD as a unique partition for Win just in case.

Anyway, to each its own, if i could i'd buy the internal Full SSD plus external SSD, but i don't have the budget :)

But (as I asked earlier :rolleyes:) does the fact the LaCie 1TB drive has two 512GB SSDs in RAID0 double the chance of it failing compared with the Apple internal 768GB SSD?
 

Mac32

Suspended
Nov 20, 2010
1,263
454
But (as I asked earlier :rolleyes:) does the fact the LaCie 1TB drive has two 512GB SSDs in RAID0 double the chance of it failing compared with the Apple internal 768GB SSD?

That I wouldn't worry about at all, it is very rare for SSD to fail, unlike mechanical hard drives with spinning platters. Personally I went for the 768gb SSD option. It's just an insane amount of money for a computer, but I refuse to have a spinning platter in my iMac (spinning up/down, noise, heat etc. much slower bootcamp etc.). :eek:
Can't wait to get my iMac 27'', it's gonna be awesome! :)
 

hfg

macrumors 68040
Dec 1, 2006
3,621
312
Cedar Rapids, IA. USA
But (as I asked earlier :rolleyes:) does the fact the LaCie 1TB drive has two 512GB SSDs in RAID0 double the chance of it failing compared with the Apple internal 768GB SSD?

Statistically ... yes

Realistically ... probably not for you within the useful life of the equipment

Any drive, flash or mechanical, can fail at any time. I have had a lot of disk drives in use here, and only 1 has failed. YMMV

BACKUP is the key ... whether it is a RAID drive, or a single drive, if it fails you are going to lose your operational data. In both cases, the fix is the same ... replace the failed drive and restore from your backup.
 

Razorhog

macrumors 65816
Sep 16, 2006
1,148
116
Arkansas
But (as I asked earlier :rolleyes:) does the fact the LaCie 1TB drive has two 512GB SSDs in RAID0 double the chance of it failing compared with the Apple internal 768GB SSD?

RAID 0 is for performance, not reliability. In a set of two disks in RAID 0, it is half as reliable as a single disk.
 

hfg

macrumors 68040
Dec 1, 2006
3,621
312
Cedar Rapids, IA. USA
I did see that but didn't think it was same thing as you'd said it was a DIY, apologies.

Speed is pretty much on par with the Air then give or take a small amount, I thought it would be quicker if it was a raid setup in the LaCie. So no real big speed advantage with the LaCie external.

Richard,

Here is a PC Mag review of the official 1TB SSD LaCie you might find interesting. I don't know what program and parameters they were using for their test results for a direct comparison ... but that thing is fast! :)

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2412374,00.asp


-howard
 

NJRonbo

macrumors 68040
Jan 10, 2007
3,132
1,155
I went for it. Not happy about the price, but after having all SSD in my Retina Macbook Pro, I wouldn't have it any other way.
 

drambuie

macrumors 6502a
Feb 16, 2010
751
1
If that's really "per MB" I would expect the company to take buyers to dinner first ; )

Oops! Of course I meant per GB. But, there was a time that flash memory was more than $1 per MB. The first USB drives were ridiculously expensive.
 

Razorhog

macrumors 65816
Sep 16, 2006
1,148
116
Arkansas
I just ordered a second maxed out 27". It has the 768gb drive too. Oh and a maxed out 15" rMBP with the 768gb ssd. Guess I'm a full-fledged member of this "club".
 

xgman

macrumors 603
Aug 6, 2007
5,671
1,378
If anyone is considering spending this sort of money for the Apple SSD, wouldn't it be more prudent to buy an external TB enclosure or drive that you can swap your won drives in and out of in the future? At least you would have the choice down the line and could populate the enclosures with as fast and as large drives as you see fit. Also failure of a TB drive is an easy fix. Not that this route is not in itself expensive, but it is open ended.

I have heard that even the best TB setup may result in some loss of "random" writes speed (over that same drive IF it was installed internally and not necessarily the Apple SSD or Fusion etc), but I think this can be mitigated by using fast drives, either velociraptors or better quality SSD'd even in non-raid style setups. Down side is another box on the desk with another small fan. But I think the upside wins out in the long run here. After all it's not a portable laptop. A TB drive under the desk is probably no big deal for most of us.
 

smr

macrumors 6502a
Sep 14, 2007
815
166
Shropshire, UK
Statistically ... yes

Realistically ... probably not for you within the useful life of the equipment

Any drive, flash or mechanical, can fail at any time. I have had a lot of disk drives in use here, and only 1 has failed. YMMV

BACKUP is the key ... whether it is a RAID drive, or a single drive, if it fails you are going to lose your operational data. In both cases, the fix is the same ... replace the failed drive and restore from your backup.

Thanks for that - that largely confirms what I thought. I was hoping vannibombonato would give us his thoughts on this as he is so keen we use the LaCie external SSD rather than get the Apple internal solution ;)
 
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