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Fusion drive or not?
- Thread starter Fatboy71
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Time Machine will backup the entire Fusion drive (unless you specify exceptions), and it will restore the full Fusion drive. There is no longer the identity of distinct SSD and Hard Disk ... just the Fusion drive.
Fusion will work great with Parallels or VMware virtual Windows machines.
Fusion will not be used with a bootable Windows (BootCamp) installation as the Fusion software is a part of OS X, and Windows doesn't have any such functionality.
Thanks for that.
I will be spending the VAST amount of the time in the Mac OS side though, but was just curious to see if the Fusion Drive would be in use whilst using Windows, programs through Parallels Desktop 8.
Thanks very much for the help.
The questions you've answered were my main concerns with the Fusion Drive and Time Machine. Nice to hear the Fusion Drive will be in use when I'm in Parallels Desktop 8 and in Windows through Parallels Desktop 8.
Really appreciate the help everyone
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Just a thought.
I'm planning on maybe using Carbon Copy Cloner in addition to Time Machine.
I'm wondering if CCC will still be able to provide a bootable backup with an external hard drive, from a Mac that has a Fusion Drive installed, but then again if the Fusion Drive and hard drive are seen as one, then it should, but I'm not 100 percent sure on this?
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I'm starting to think that my next iMac (that I would get in 6 years time or so) will be very likely to have a Fusion Drive (perhaps as standard) or might even be SSD only, and probably no hard drive.
So I'm starting to think that getting the Fusion Drive now, will be my first dip in the ocean with regards to using a faster storage method and of things to come too.
I'm still debating though
The Fusion Drive is 128gb in size. I was wondering, once the Fusion drive is full, any other Applications I would be installing would then go on the hard drive. So if for example I had an Application on the Fusion Drive that I'd either not used for a while or a newly installed Application that I'd began using more than some other Application that was resident on the Fusion Drive. Would this Application then be transferred to the Fusion Drive, and an older lesser used Application would then be moved to the hard drive?
Thanks
Thanks
Just a few other questions
I'm planning on maybe using Carbon Copy Cloner in addition to Time Machine.
I'm wondering if CCC will still be able to provide a bootable backup with an external hard drive, from a Mac that has a Fusion Drive installed, but then again if the Fusion Drive and hard drive are seen as one, then it should, but I'm not 100 percent sure on this?
I've read that Fusion Drive keeps 4gb free for a write buffer.
With this in mind. If I was copying something from say an external hard drive to the iMac, perhaps whatever I was copying was either below 4gb and another time it might be greater than 4gb. Whatever it was that I was copying over, would this be put onto the Fusion Drive whilst the copy was taking place(and in doing this, speed the copying process up considerably), and then after copying had completed, would the Fusion Drive then move it over to the hard drive?
I'm planning on maybe using Carbon Copy Cloner in addition to Time Machine.
I'm wondering if CCC will still be able to provide a bootable backup with an external hard drive, from a Mac that has a Fusion Drive installed, but then again if the Fusion Drive and hard drive are seen as one, then it should, but I'm not 100 percent sure on this?
I've read that Fusion Drive keeps 4gb free for a write buffer.
With this in mind. If I was copying something from say an external hard drive to the iMac, perhaps whatever I was copying was either below 4gb and another time it might be greater than 4gb. Whatever it was that I was copying over, would this be put onto the Fusion Drive whilst the copy was taking place(and in doing this, speed the copying process up considerably), and then after copying had completed, would the Fusion Drive then move it over to the hard drive?
The Fusion Drive is 128gb in size. I was wondering, once the Fusion drive is full, any other Applications I would be installing would then go on the hard drive. So if for example I had an Application on the Fusion Drive that I'd either not used for a while or a newly installed Application that I'd began using more than some other Application that was resident on the Fusion Drive. Would this Application then be transferred to the Fusion Drive, and an older lesser used Application would then be moved to the hard drive?
Thanks
Quick note - the Fusion drive is the whole drive, fast and slow. SSD is the fast bit of the Fusion drive, and the HDD is the slow bit. SO everythings on the fusion drive, some bits are on the fast SSD some on the slow HDD.
Sort of. Fusion is actually a bit more specific than that. It doesnt deal on a "per file" or "per app" basis but rather 128Kb blocks of data. If a 128Kb block of data is used frequently, its moved onto the SSD and a less frequently used block is moved onto the HDD. An app would be made up of tens of thousands of such blocks, so whatever little bits of an app you use alot will be moved onto the SSD. Its like on a video game, if you dont go to a certain level much then that level will be on the HDD while the levels you use frequently will be on the SSD. Get it?
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Just a few other questions
I've read that Fusion Drive keeps 4gb free for a write buffer.
With this in mind. If I was copying something from say an external hard drive to the iMac, perhaps whatever I was copying was either below 4gb and another time it might be greater than 4gb. Whatever it was that I was copying over, would this be put onto the Fusion Drive whilst the copy was taking place(and in doing this, speed the copying process up considerably), and then after copying had completed, would the Fusion Drive then move it over to the hard drive?
Right, so say your SSD is full. If you copy a 3Gb file onto the fusion drive, it will copy it onto the SSDs write buffer at high speed. Then, when your system is idle, it will begin transferring 3Gb of infrequently used data from the SSD to the HDD to maintain the 4Gb buffer.
If you copied a 6Gb file onto your drive, 4Gb would be written onto the SSD at high speed and then it would smoothly transition to putting the remaining 2Gb on the HDD at slower speed. It would then shuffle 4Gb off your SSD onto your HDD to maintain the buffer.
I'll just give an example. iTunes is about 270 Megabyte. Of that 270 Megabyte, there are on average 4.5 MB used for each of about 30 languages. Most people only use one language, so that's already 125 MB or so in 29 languages that you don't use which stay on the hard drive. There are about 25 Megabytes of images for various different devices. For example images for iPad Nanos in 8 different colours. Only the images for two or three devices that you own and plug in will ever be displayed. That's another 22 Megabytes that stay on the hard drive. And so on and so on.
Just a few other questions
I'm planning on maybe using Carbon Copy Cloner in addition to Time Machine.
I'm wondering if CCC will still be able to provide a bootable backup with an external hard drive, from a Mac that has a Fusion Drive installed, but then again if the Fusion Drive and hard drive are seen as one, then it should, but I'm not 100 percent sure on this?
I've read that Fusion Drive keeps 4gb free for a write buffer.
With this in mind. If I was copying something from say an external hard drive to the iMac, perhaps whatever I was copying was either below 4gb and another time it might be greater than 4gb. Whatever it was that I was copying over, would this be put onto the Fusion Drive whilst the copy was taking place(and in doing this, speed the copying process up considerably), and then after copying had completed, would the Fusion Drive then move it over to the hard drive?
CCC will work fine to clone your Fusion drive to a bootable external drive because your Fusion just appears as one big drive. You do not have to worry at all about "where" things are stored, the operating system will manage that completely for you. Just treat it as one big drive.
I think you are the perfect user for which Fusion was intended. Give it a try!
-howard
I'm aware of that, but I wanted to ask the question based on my uses and Applications I would be using
Your uses are about the same as 99% of the mac userbase.
Thanks very much for the help and the very clear explanation of how the Fusion Drive works, really appreciate the help
After reading your explanation of how the Fusion Drive works/software that runs it works, it seems very smart, and is ideal for people that just want to use their Mac's without having to decide on which drive the data is stored, the system does it automatically and or in the background when idle.
Thanks again appreciate the help.
Thanks very much for the help, its much appreciated.
With the help of yourself, Yougotcarved and others, I'm starting to understand the Fusion Drive and how it works. Thanks again.
I'm looking forward to getting my iMac (which will be February or March) and I'm pretty much certain I'll go with the Fusion Drive option now. It will be nice to replace my 5 year old Windows Vista machine, I can imagine the difference between that and the iMac will be like night and day.
Yeah I went with the Fusion Drive and I couldn't be more pleased, I'm really pleased I went with it now. My most used applications load up very, very quickly. It was my first experience with a flash/SSD drive on a computer and also my first Mac too. I really like how the Fusion Drive automatically decides what to place onto itself with no input on my part. Also I like the 4 GB write buffer that the Fusion Drive uses, which results in most of the stuff I copy onto my iMac been done extremely quickly.
I'm hoping that when I get my next iMac in 5-6 years time that SSD drives are as common place as hard drives are now and also that SSD's are round about's the same price and storage size has traditional hard drives.
It's been said before but from a performance/price point of view, that the Fusion Drive is a good option to go with.
So how Fusion drive works in this situation:
I have almost 500 GB used storage. I want to install let say Starcraft 2 that i will use every day. Will starcraft 2 files be put on SSD and remove other files to HDD or starcraft 2 even i will use it a lot will remain on the HDD?
I have almost 500 GB used storage. I want to install let say Starcraft 2 that i will use every day. Will starcraft 2 files be put on SSD and remove other files to HDD or starcraft 2 even i will use it a lot will remain on the HDD?
I'm sure I've read that not all the files/blocks for an application (or game in this instance) may or may not be copied onto the Fusion Drive. The OS might choose to place some onto the Fusion Drive and some onto the hard drive, its automatic so you don't need to worry about it.
Here's some links that describes about the Fusion Drive:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/10/more-on-fusion-drive-how-it-works-and-how-to-roll-your-own/
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/1...ining-doc-ars-tears-open-apples-fusion-drive/